Inspiration from Zion: This is a Love Story

The essence of Israel can be boiled down to a single phone call.

The day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his choice for the next Head of the Mossad, guess what the media did? They called his mommy.

Yossi Cohen currently serves as National Security Advisor and as Head of the National Security Council (NSC) of Israel and has served as Deputy to the Head of the Mossad in the past.

He’s nicknamed “the model”. If you wanted to cast someone to play Head of the Mossad in a movie by looks and presence he’d fit the bill. Interestingly, from picture to picture Yossi Cohen changes dramatically. He somehow looks like completely different men. His name is also about as generic as it can get in Israel.

It’s whispered that Cohen played a significant role in the mysterious delays in Iran’s nuclear arms development, unexplained explosions and scientists put out of commission. Due to Obama’s Iran deal the threat has only increased and the clandestine efforts to protect Israel from Iran will be all the more critical.

Yossi Cohen (aside from Benjamin Netanyahu) has one of the most difficult and important jobs in the world. There is no room for error. Whether the west admits it or not, it is Israel that stands in the breach. We are fighting the world’s fight for freedom, our success is everyone’s win but if Israel falls, freedom fails. Nuclear Iran is a threat to America, not just Israel. The only difference is that we are closer. We come first.

Netanyahu announced that he had nominated Cohen, that while all three candidates for the position are excellent men, he felt confident placing the responsibility on Yossi’s shoulders. All the analysts and people that work in the security/intelligence field seem to agree with this assessment.

And with all Cohen’s accomplishments (many of which the public will never know about), and with a very emphatic vote of confidence from the Prime Minister, the media felt the person who really should weigh in on the matter is Yossi Cohen’s mom.

“So your son is really successful. You must be very proud!” they told her.

“Of course!” she answered. “We knew very early on that we could count on him for anything and that he would go on to do important things.”

“He must have missed a lot of holiday and Friday night meals” said the reporter (referring to the current holiday of Hanukah and the times that most people spend together with their families).

 His mother replied “Yes but we knew he was doing important things for the People of Israel. We knew we couldn’t ask what they were, we didn’t know what he was doing but we knew he was doing good things.”

Mossad members can’t tell their families anything about their job, where they work or what they do.

That’s Israel in a nutshell. No matter who you are, what you have accomplished or how much you have sacrificed for the Nation there is one standard of measurement that puts everything in proportion – your mom.