Spy story

How Will Netflix Portray Israel’s Most Famous Spy?

Netflix’s The Spy is a six-episode series about real-life Israeli Mossad hero Eli Cohen. The Spy stars Sacha Baron Cohen, most famous for his 2006 adult-oriented comedy movie Borat, as the legendary Mossad agent, and will debut on September 6.

When Eli Cohen was publicly executed by the government of Syria on May 18, 1965, it was clear to Israelis and Syrians that he had succeeded in becoming a friend of the president of Syria, and had penetrated the innermost Syrian government circles. What was not yet known, however, was that he had gathered the intelligence that would later save the State of Israel from being destroyed.

More than any other one man, Eli Cohen, an Egyptian-born Jew, earned the Mossad its reputation as one of the best intelligence services in the world, and paved the way for Israel to win on the Golan front in the Six Day War of June 1967.