Wading into politics, former Mossad chief Cohen says Netanyahu should step aside

Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen says in an interview with Channel 12 that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should no longer serve as premier, as Israel needs changes that he cannot deliver.

“At this time, right now, change is required — to move away from divisive factionalism and to talk about unity. [Netanyahu] can’t do that… He can’t unify what needs to be unified right now,” Cohen tells the Hebrew network in a lengthy interview.

While acknowledging that “Netanyahu has done a great deal… for the good of Israel,” Cohen says the country “at this moment requires other leadership.”

Cohen, formerly a close Netanyahu confidant, gives the interview while promoting his new autobiography, a week after he declared that he should be Israel’s next prime minister, insisting the public is pushing for “real change” in leadership, and that “for real change to happen, I need to be prime minister.”

Tonight, however, Cohen stresses that he remains undecided about his political future and does not intend to run in the next elections, currently scheduled for 2026.

“I’ve not entered politics, so I’m not directly challenging any politician,” he says.

Cohen has long been linked to Netanyahu, who appointed him Mossad chief after his tenure as national security adviser and reportedly considered him a potential successor, along with Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.

If Cohen does enter politics, he says his natural home would be the Likud party — but in what he calls a “new iteration,” with a “massive” turnover in its ranks. “The new Likud,” he says of the party that is seen as largely in Netanyahu’s thrall.

Pressed about possible coalition partners, Cohen says he hasn’t yet considered the matter, but that he “apparently would not” sit in a government with far-right politicians Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, both of whom are senior members of Netanyahu’s coalition.

Asked which partner he would be most resistant to, he responds, “probably Ben Gvir.”

“Ben Gvir is a red line for me. I couldn’t accept his diplomatic stance,” he says about the national security minister, a former disciple of outlawed extremist rabbi and politician Meir Kahane.

On ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions, Cohen is equally firm: “Haredim — I won’t accept [their demands on non-IDF service], even if that means I won’t be prime minister. Not today, not in the future. I would not put together a government that does not require that all carry the burden [of service] equally.”