Pompeo in Israel to honor outgoing Mossad Director Yossi Cohen in battles against Iran and other radical Islamist terror threats

Mike Pompeo, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Secretary of State is back in Israel this week.

Traveling with his wife, Susan, it is his first trip to the Jewish state since stepping down as secretary of state.

An Evangelical Christian and one of the leading promoters and defenders of the U.S.-Israel strategic alliance, Pompeo came to show solidarity with the Israeli people after the brutal rocket war with Hamas last month, and to visit long-time friends, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and David Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel.

His primary purpose for coming, however, was to honor Yossi Cohen, the outgoing director of the Mossad, Israel’s fabled foreign intelligence service.
Though mostly avoiding interviews and media coverage on this trip, Pompeo did provide this statement to ALL ISRAEL NEWS: “Director Cohen and I worked as the closest of partners on behalf of the CIA, the Mossad, America and Israel. He was a relentless leader who worked to build the U.S.-Israel security relationship in ways that made American freedom far more secure.”

They certainly did.

Perhaps Cohen’s most successful operation – certainly his most famous – was the daring raid in which the Mossad stole Iran’s nuclear weapons research archive out of the heart of Tehran and transported several tons of top secret materials back to Israel.

Cohen then gave copies of the treasure trove to Pompeo and the CIA.

This material helped convince former President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Obama-Biden nuclear deal with Iran and impose a “maximum pressure” campaign of crippling economic sanctions on the Iranian regime.

Israel and the U.S. are also believed to have worked together to take out Iranian terrorists — like Qassem Soleimani — and sabotage numerous nuclear facilities in Iran.

Pompeo attended a dinner Monday night honoring Cohen.

Netanyahu was there.

“It was also attended by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, IDF Chief Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman, former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, Finance Minister (but, critically, former intelligence minister) Israel Katz, Israel Atomic Energy Agency Chief Zeev Shnir and former Coronavirus Task Force Chief Ronni Gamzu,” reported The Jerusalem Post.

Cohen told the group that the Mossad had “struck deep in Iran’s heart” during his tenure.

"When I look back at my time as Mossad chief, I see pride and humility,” Cohen told his colleagues, according to The Jerusalem Post. “We accomplished so much against so many threats.”