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The spy who returned to the heat: "Fact" gave Yossi Cohen the perfect promo - almost

Nothing in "Fact"'s season finale shows is meant to tell us anything new.

The interview with the outgoing head of the Mossad was a victory for anyone who is not us.

Glitter of mystery spiced with faint questions and mysterious answers.

But it is precisely on this striped opportunity to dismantle question marks - Cohen may still regret

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• Fact

• TV review

• Yossi Cohen

Ilan Kaprov

Friday, 11 June 2021, 08:26 Updated: 09:08

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Elegant looking and smiling in mystery.

Yossi Cohen, "Fact" (Photo: screenshot, Keshet 12)

Cohen did not come to "fact" to sell explanations, he came to sell himself.

He will provide us with a million-dollar smile, a trickle of secrecy about an unknown operation or being in a dangerous enemy territory, and Dayan will mark V on questions that "must be asked," but must not be answered.

A stranger who stumbled upon the most-watched newscast in Israel yesterday (Wednesday), was probably deeply impressed by what was happening. On a day that included a dangerous provocation by a Jerusalem MP that also exploded, a few hours after an action in the West Bank with the potential for security deterioration, and a few hours before the deadline for submitting coalition agreements that would lead to the formation of a new government, the edition opened with an interview. An elegant-looking man speaks to the camera and smiles mysteriously, his answers short and wonderfully measured, none of which will reveal anything we did not know before. Still, that's enough to push aside all other storms and daily dramas. A country with such priorities, the foreigner would think, is a cool and peaceful place.

Within the built-in cynicism of the news releases, this move demonstrates how engineered the show that is seen on our screens every day, disguised as news.

Engineered to run us.

Just as the charming man who would fill the screen about an hour later, knew how to do so well throughout his secret career.

If the drama of an interview with our most senior spy precedes the drama of "life itself," perhaps they are not so dramatic after all?

Perhaps the repeated feeling that at any given moment in our lives we are at a distance to ignite a match from an explosion is itself a game, a manipulation of those who have never needed a spy title to exploit our fears and hatreds?

I hope that one day the brave investigative program will emerge that will decide to focus specifically on this part.

who knows?

Maybe even a teaser will come out of it at the opening of the release.

More on Walla!

Galit Distel-Atbrian is Netanyahu's most puzzling and fascinating mouthpiece

To the full article

Put all the guns on the table during the interview.

Ilana Dayan, "Fact" (Photo: screenshot, Keshet 12)

Until that happened, the season-ending program of "Fact" provided a microcosm of the changes in Israeli life. The transition from the subject to the symbol. If over the years the institution itself has been the source of interest and curiosity, it now occupies the volume of a sub-player. Institutions have ceased to interest us, it's all the person up front. Yossi Cohen can endlessly deny the fact that he enjoys this consideration, although apparently there are very few people who are as good at persuasion as he is.

Meir Dagan was not as fascinating as Cohen on the gossipy and slavish level of the word, and so was Tamir Pardo. Cohen is a winning combination of timing and character. Had he not been so natural in the spotlight — he would not have been so intriguing, and had he not been wounded in a time when humanity is so addicted to the external and personal pursuit — he would not have dared to ask what no head of an institution has been asked before: Why are you so torturous?

This is ostensibly the trap into which even one who is a model for professionalism in cracking interviewees has fallen.

But this is not a trap at all, but a fusion of interests.

"Fact", led by Ilana Dayan, well understood the gap between the quality of the information that this interview will produce, and its visual potential.

More photogenic profiles of a well-groomed jaw and more close-ups on the neatly arranged hair and the bastard smile, at times it seemed to him only possible - the interview with Cohen was replaced by a clip band of nineties boys' bands, including wet hair strokes and a seductive look at the camera.

If there is no content, we will eat poses.

Came at a time when humanity is addicted to the pursuit of the personal.

Yossi Cohen from "Ovda" (Photo: screenshot, Keshet 12)

To Dayan's credit, she put all the guns on the table during the interview, but at no point did any of them fire. They were there for the show. For example, at the beginning of the interview, Dayan wonders why we spent years in sabotage games against Iran's nuclear program, if at this point in time it is closer than ever to the bomb we sought to prevent. Cohen is content with just denying: "She is not." Doesn’t this point, which squeezes so much energy and time out of all of our lives, deserve a little deeper clarification with someone who knows it best than anyone? The same is true of the discussion on the question of understanding Hamas' intentions regarding the confrontation with Israel. And although Cohen admits that he erred in his assessment here, the issue was soon abandoned. If Israel's prestigious and senior intelligence organization is so wrong in understanding the intentions of a (relatively) small-scale terrorist organization, what does this say about its ability to grasp the greater challenges that threaten us?

It of course does not end there.

So-called poignant questions about the connection between capital and government and security, arise almost casually and are thwarted by a smile and a short dismissive sentence, as are others.

Cohen did not come to "fact" to sell explanations, he came to sell himself.

He will provide us with a million-dollar smile, a trickle of secrecy about an unknown operation or being in a dangerous enemy territory, and Dayan will mark V for questions that "must be asked," but must not be answered.

The military man is the most protected animal in Israel, it has not changed even after 73 years of our independence.

Error here surprisingly.

Yossi Cohen, "Fact" (Photo: screenshot, Keshet 12)

The escape to the yellow, to the friction with the rich and worldly, to the sleek look and the meticulous wardrobe, make life easy for Cohen. If indeed his ambitions are to return to us as a senior political candidate in the future to come, his admissions interview was all that impressed us in the leaders: fluency, charm, mastery of the medium and ability to easily repel any question that did not go well. But it is precisely here, when he is completely in his element, that the resemblance between him and the man who nurtured and made him his secret man resonates. As the interview in "Fact" continues, the parallel lines between them are built: the connection to dubious wealth, the game that is almost a way of life and question marks that hover over the legitimacy of motives and actions. And so, on the contrary, it is precisely he who is so proficient in reading the arena and exploiting it to his advantage - who is surprisingly mistaken here.

Many good people were there in Cohen's shoes over the years, when the transition between military splendor and political mud exploded with great fanfare.

If he is indeed facing a political career, then the question marks opened up here are tremendous ammunition for his future rivals.

Instead of trying to neutralize them in a sympathetic atmosphere, Cohen left them charged by the side of the road.

Visible to all.

This is not his job of course, this was the work of "fact".

But the next time they go up, it will not happen on the balcony of a hotel against the backdrop of a pastoral beach - but in a place where mystery and secrets are the biggest drawbacks of all.

There is a patrolman from the General Staff who will surely know how to tell him about this.

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