In mid-August, Yossi Cohen, the chief of Mossad, flew into the United Arab Emirates. That alone would not be news to those who follow the convoluted, often clandestine, machinations of Middle East politics: As Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA operations officer who spent years in the region put it, “the intelligence relationships between Israel and select Arab countries has been the worst kept secret in the region”—for decades, he and other veteran experts on Israel intelligence say.

What was startling was that the UAE not only acknowledged Cohen’s visit, it hailed it. None other than the Emirate’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, praised Cohen for contributing to last month’s “success of the peace accord between the UAE and Israel,” according to the official Emirati WAM news agency. 

And more: They "discussed prospects for cooperation in the fields of security…,” WAM reported. A similar public relationship between Mossad and Bahrain, regional home …