Dutch hotel manager claims to have worked 15 years as Mossad agent

A man from the Netherlands claimed this week that he spent 15 years working for the Mossad. Writing under the pseudonym Jonathan Mor, he shared his alleged story in a new book released this week, “Spy of the Mossad: The True Story of a Dutchman in the Israeli Secret Service,” authored by Dutch journalist Silvan Schoonhoven of De Telegraaf.

Mor, a married family man and hotel manager, was interviewed by the Dutch magazine EW, which published his extraordinary story.

As a young boy, Mor was deeply impressed by Israel’s victories in the 1967 and 1973 wars and went to a kibbutz after high school, where he met his wife, deciding that he wanted to stay in the country.

“Later, when I was in the process of becoming an Israeli citizen to serve in the army, my grandmother told me that her mother was Jewish and therefore she was too,” he told EW. “But she was an illegitimate child, so there were no official documents to prove it. Otherwise, I would have automatically had the right to become an Israeli. After a long conversion process, I became one after all.”

Once in the army, Israeli military intelligence – known by its Hebrew acronym Aman – recognized his potential as a multilingual Dutch national who could move freely without arousing suspicion. 

“When my wife became pregnant with our first child, I was going to get a quieter job and went to work as a hotel manager,” Mor said. “First in Eilat in southern Israel, later in Europe. But at the hotel in the Netherlands where I worked, Hebrew-speaking men and women soon appeared, who later turned out to be from the Mossad. After some conversations, I was recruited.” 

According to Mor, he was involved in an aborted operation to eliminate Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

“In January 2015, I was in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, posing as an employee of a German NGO, together with colleagues from the Caesarea Unit,” Mor said. “We had established that Qassem Soleimani was going to visit the mausoleum of a slain Hezbollah leader there. A golden opportunity to liquidate the boss of the Revolutionary Guard's foreign terror arm, the Quds Force. The cameras had him in view, and the laser weapon was ready on the roof. But US President Barack Obama did not give the green light.”

In 2020, the Trump administration eliminated Soleimani with an airstrike in Iraq. 

Mor recounted that he was involved in numerous operations, including recruiting dozens of agents at the highest levels of Iran’s nuclear program and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, using “personal charm, bluff and money.”

His family, however, never knew exactly what he did.

“My family never knew exactly what I did and how dangerous some missions were. My wife knew that I was going to work for the Mossad, but our three children only found out when they turned eighteen.”

Curiously, Mor claimed he did not submit the book to Mossad for approval before publishing it.

“In 2016, after the end of my permanent employment, my bosses asked me if I wanted to write down my experiences as training material for new cadets. This book is the kosher version, heavily abridged, in which names, dates, and places have been changed so that they cannot be traced back to anyone, in order to avoid putting anyone in danger. But I didn't submit it to the Mossad beforehand, so I do expect a phone call,” he said. 

At the end of the interview, Mor was asked about his view of the Iran war and Mossad’s role in it: 

“Who knows, the regime might no longer exist in a few weeks or months,” Mor said. He added that “there are still plenty of possibilities, think of the pager operation in Lebanon, with which the Mossad can still hit Iran, such as shutting down all payment systems.”

He further claimed that “I know that every day, hundreds of tips come in from Iranians, via social media and at embassies, who want to get rid of their regime and are coming forward.” He concluded that “it may take a little longer than planned, but with the capabilities of the US and Israel and how deeply the services have infiltrated Iran, that regime ultimately cannot survive.”