Reuven Rivlin
Reuven RivlinMark Neiman/GPO

As he does every year at Hanukkah, President Reuven Rivlin and Head of the Mossad Yossi Cohen came together to award certificates of excellence to four women and nine men of the Mossad. The traditional ceremony, which took place for the tenth time at Beit HaNasi (the President's Residence) Thursday evening,

Among the outstanding men and women to receive certificates of excellence was a female combatant who leads her comrades in complex and dangerous missions, taking personal responsibility for carrying them out safely and effectively, trains the next generation of combatants and ensures their professional development under her command. A certificate of excellence was also awarded to a combatant who took part in a key and significant mission including unique and wide-ranging activity overseas, performing his role with exceptional dedication and always aspiring to excellence. Other certificates were awarded to a female intelligence officer whose work includes dealing with key strategic issues and a cyber engineer who has developed ground-breaking new technology that allows the intelligence community access to new areas. Another outstanding employee creates unique solutions for the Mossad’s activities as a whole, in Israel and overseas.

“In the Mossad’s dictionary, you will not find the word ‘impossible’. No target is too far away, there is no individual who cannot be reached, and nothing that remains out of its sight. The best intelligence agencies in the world are proud to work with the Mossad because of its spirit, your daring and your bravery, because of Israeli creativity and chutzpah,” said the president at the beginning of his remarks, making special note of the legendary Marcelle Ninio and Rafi Eitan, the outstanding combatant, who passed away this year.

The president added: “The difference between failure and success is sometimes the blink of an eye. An unnecessary step, a forgotten item, a biological trace left behind. It requires – and that is the reason for this special occasion – the Mossad to be an institution of excellence. For the Mossad, excellence is not a luxury; it is the only way to survive in the world of the shadows. You, the recipients of certificates of excellence, are essential to our security. Our enemies lay in wait, looking for any crack or gap to get through. They are frustrated by their failure to harm us, and never stop searching for a way to catch us unawares. To protect ourselves in the neighborhood we live in, we have no option but to be sharper and much better. We have technological means, smart weapons, advanced software and cyber tools – but in the end, it is the people. You are the ones facing them. Without the operative who manages to infiltrate wherever it is, the analyst who finds the spot, the programmer who writes immaculate lines of code, the combatant who hits the right target and the data miner who finds pearls in the sea of information that turn into operations – without you, we would not be able to win.”

The president concluded his remarks with thanks to the families who know and don’t know, understand and don’t understand and live with a great number of question marks, saying, “Thank you. Thank you for your patience, thank you for your great support. Do well and succeed. Chag Sameach!”