Why China Is Watching Mossad’s New Chief With Growing Alarm

Chinese intelligence and defense agencies are assessing the performance of the new Mossad chief, Roman Gofman, with great caution and interest, considering him a field military commander brought in to implement the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid escalating tensions with Iran. The Chinese vision and assessment of his performance are crystallized by linking his relationship to the current crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the nature of the appointment and the internal challenges he faces. Here, observers in China view the appointment of Goffman as a successor to David Barnea as a strategic shift from the management of traditional spies to the management of field generals, given the purely military background of Roman Goffman, unlike his predecessors, such as (David Barnea and Yossi Cohen), who progressed in traditional intelligence work and recruiting agents. Roman Goffman (who assumed his position on June 2, 2026) is a field general and former commander of the Armored Corps and the National Ground Training Center. Goffman therefore prefers to manage his work in the Israeli Mossad according to a mindset of direct confrontation. Here, his appointment as the new head of the Mossad reflects the extent of the Israeli political leadership’s desire to transform the Mossad from an agency that focuses on covert operations and traditional intelligence gathering into a tool for managing a preemptive war and large-scale field confrontations. Therefore, one of Goffman’s first priorities was to reorganize the internal structure of the Israeli Mossad. Upon assuming his position, Goffman immediately implemented structural reviews, including the dismissal of deputies and senior officials, to reshape intelligence operations to align with the mindset of a field commander.

Beijing views the internal upheaval Goffman triggered immediately after taking office, such as the dismissal of his deputy, as evidence of his desire to dismantle the institution’s old ways of dealing with the failures in the Iranian file. The appointment of Roman Goffman as the new head of the Israeli Mossad was also closely linked to the Mossad’s management of the Iran War, the Strait of Hormuz crisis, and the economic interests of Israel and the United States in the region. The Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf represent a vital artery for the Chinese economy. Consequently, Chinese intelligence agencies assess Goffman’s and the Mossad’s conduct in this matter as a dangerous and costly escalation and interpret Goffman’s decisions and restructuring of the agency as steps. This is a preemptive move to pressure Tehran and potentially intervene to prevent any closure of the Strait of Hormuz. To this end, Chinese defense institutions are closely monitoring Roman Gofman’s aggressive approach, especially after Israeli intelligence assessments failed to predict a swift and complete collapse of the Iranian regime. Beijing believes Gofman leans towards hardline policies, complicating the chances of a return to diplomacy. Chinese intelligence circles also view Gofman as part of a broader Israeli strategy to prepare for a protracted, multi-front confrontation with Iran, with American support.

Here, Chinese intelligence, military, defense, and security agencies consider the timing of Gofman’s appointment within the context of the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz crisis and the prioritization of the Iranian issue by the Israeli leadership and the Mossad. The change in Mossad leadership comes after an escalation of direct confrontations with Iran. Chinese intelligence and military reports indicate that Roman Gofman is personally developing direct military scenarios against Tehran, aiming to dismantle its regional influence and overthrow and change its internal political system. As an absolute priority for the agency. Here, Chinese think tanks and intelligence agencies analyze the extent to which the new head of Mossad is able to secure or cause chaos through direct military intervention in the maritime routes and the Strait of Hormuz to harm or maintain the stability of global supply chains, as this issue directly intersects with Chinese interests, since Beijing sees any shift by Mossad towards field military operations in the waters of the Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz as a threat to regional energy security and international trade.

Chinese intelligence and military agencies are closely monitoring the significance of the issue of political Islam, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Middle East, following the fall of the Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt and Tunisia. This is especially relevant to Israel, and they are assessing the impact of the Brotherhood’s dramatic collapse on the Israeli Mossad’s efforts to coordinate with them. This coordination involves developing long-term plans to instigate chaos and widespread institutional collapse in the region, paving the way for the return of such ostensibly Islamic political and ideological movements to power. This shift in the stance of the Israeli far right, which initially supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia immediately after their fall, is perhaps a significant development. The hope is to exploit the resulting anger and unrest within these groups to coordinate with them and create chaos in the region. Gofman is known to be associated with the Israeli right wing and with Benjamin Netanyahu’s office (where he served as his military secretary). This political school views the current of political Islam, especially the Muslim Brotherhood and its regional allies, as part of the umbrella of new, unconventional security relations that must be worked with and coordinated with, taking advantage of its overwhelming anger at the current Arab political regimes and their military institutions, especially in Egypt and Tunisia, after the success of the popular revolutions in overthrowing them with the help and support of the Egyptian military establishment in particular, at the behest of the Israeli Mossad to prevent any stability in the surrounding countries, especially Egypt. To that end, under the new leadership of Roman Gofman, Mossad seeks to establish regional coordination with political Islamist movements, particularly those belonging to the Arab citizens of Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, by strengthening security and intelligence partnerships with them. These movements share Israel’s firm stance on the necessity of weakening the military institutions of all countries in the region without exception, especially given the increasing Chinese military support for Egypt, the Gulf states, and other countries in the region, as well as joint Chinese military exercises with Egypt, such as the Badr exercise, and others in the region. This is all aimed at ensuring the stability of the fronts and securing Israel’s borders.

  For this reason, Chinese intelligence, military, political, and strategic circles reject the Israeli Mossad’s plan to coordinate with the Muslim Brotherhood’s branch among the Arab citizens of Israel 1948 to organize demonstrations by the Muslim Brotherhood inside Israel against the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv. The pretext for these demonstrations was Egypt’s alleged failure to assist the people of Gaza after the October 7, 2013, war and its failure to open the Rafah crossing. These recent moves by some leaders of the Islamic Movement inside Israel (the Muslim Brotherhood’s branch in Israel) have sparked considerable controversy after they organized demonstrations in front of the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv. These elements held a protest in the heart of Israel with the approval of the Israeli authorities themselves, demanding the opening of the Rafah crossing. Political, media, and intelligence circles in Egypt and China considered this a political scandal and a move to advance an agenda that contradicts both the Egyptian and Chinese positions. Egypt and China officially and popularly reject these Brotherhood activities on Israeli lands itself, which aim to destabilize the region and harm the Palestinian cause. This is the same as what Chinese and Egyptian security, military, and strategic experts have confirmed: that such Brotherhood activities on Israeli lands serve the trends that are trying to pressure Cairo and Beijing to change their orientations by force with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood branch inside Israel.

Chinese intelligence, military, political, and strategic circles rejected the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations, which they believe were coordinated with the Israeli Mossad, deeming them a suspicious Brotherhood conspiracy aimed at destabilizing Egypt and the region. Beijing views the organization of these events on Israeli soil as a political tool to undermine Egypt’s pivotal role and to fracture Egyptian national unity. Here, we can understand the Chinese position on the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood’s relationship with the Israeli Mossad through a security and strategic lens. Chinese think tanks and security institutions view the Muslim Brotherhood as a tool used to serve foreign agendas aimed at dismantling nation-states. Furthermore, there is a convergence of views between China and Egypt on this issue. Chinese authorities stand in solidarity with the Egyptian state and its security, political, intelligence, strategic, and military institutions. China strongly supports the designation of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, warning that any attempt to bring them back into the political arena threatens Egypt’s stability. Chinese assessments conclude that the Brotherhood demonstrations by Arab citizens of Israel (the 1948 Palestinians) in front of the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv were a tactical maneuver intended to attack the Egyptian mediator rather than the occupation itself. This was a deliberate alignment serving the interests of hostile parties against the interests of both Egypt and China.

For the aforementioned reasons, the expected Chinese intelligence perspective is that, despite China’s usual secrecy about its true intentions, planning circles in Beijing interpret the appointment of a field general to head an intelligence agency as evidence of the militarization of Israeli intelligence and its increasing ideological tendency to coordinate with political Islam movements and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Middle East to create chaos. This could lead to an increased likelihood of direct military clashes in the Middle East instead of diplomatic de-escalation, which pushes Beijing to strengthen its intelligence relations with other regional powers in the region, especially Egypt and Iran, to ensure that the security situation in energy corridors, such as the Strait of Hormuz, does not get out of control.