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Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman
stevendedalus's review against another edition
4.0
An incredibly impressive piece of reportage with deep access into the workings of Mossad and the Israeli security apparatus. It chronicles the evolution of Israel's assassination policy as political winds shift and technology and ideology make it easier and easier to kill.
It's depressing to watch it unfold with a momentum no one with power seems to have any desire to stop. Checks are ever so slight and most criticism is only after the critic has left whatever office would have made his criticism effective.
Bergman relies almost exclusively on the Israeli perspective for the merit of the actions, with a bit of faceted perspectives from its allies. You're not going to get a completely balanced portrait: this is a history of internal, not external debates, on the policy of targeted killings.
It acts as a deep fount of Israeli justifications and views, but won't help you understand the whole conflict, just how one side became increasingly seduced by its power to kill so that it sank into a quagmire that looks increasingly inescapable.
It's depressing to watch it unfold with a momentum no one with power seems to have any desire to stop. Checks are ever so slight and most criticism is only after the critic has left whatever office would have made his criticism effective.
Bergman relies almost exclusively on the Israeli perspective for the merit of the actions, with a bit of faceted perspectives from its allies. You're not going to get a completely balanced portrait: this is a history of internal, not external debates, on the policy of targeted killings.
It acts as a deep fount of Israeli justifications and views, but won't help you understand the whole conflict, just how one side became increasingly seduced by its power to kill so that it sank into a quagmire that looks increasingly inescapable.
mburnamfink's review against another edition
5.0
Rise and Kill First is an astounding history of secret assassinations, and how turning to murder as an instrument of statecraft corrodes governments. Anyone who's passed Political Science 101 knows that states are founded on the use of violence. Israel's bloody constitutional moment is closer than most. Even prior to the War of Independence in 1949, Irgun carried out a guerrilla war of assassination against British and Arab officials in the Mandate of Palestine. The Jewish Brigade had a sideline in occupied Europe bringing SS officers to justice. Even as newborn Israel celebrated liberal human rights, and a constitution that banned the death penalty, it's security services, Mossad, Shin Bet, and AMAN, wrote a very different shadow constitution. Anyone with Jewish blood on their hands would die, and to paraphrase the Talmud, "If a man comes to kill you, rise and kill him first."
Bergman traces a complicated history of professionalizing state-sponsored murder. At first Israel used letter bombs, but this methods were random and easy to foil. Human assassination teams were more precise, but the Lillehammer affair, where an innocent man was killed in Norway, was just one of the problems. Human agents could also be blown, arrested or assassinated, and close command in foreign countries was impossible.
As Israel faced threats from Egyptian scientists, the radical terrorists of Black September, and later Hamas and Hezbollah, the security services innovated. Israel prefigured the American War on Terror tactics of 'unlawful combatants', assassination via drone aircraft, and high-tech warrooms that collated intelligence to present senior officials with real time "go/no-go" choices on assassinations.
However, for all the investment, it seems like the targeted assassinations were unable to prevent the First and Second Intifada or substantially degrade the suicide bomber recruitment pipeline. Strategic weapons programs in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran were more vulnerable to 'key man' attacks. But I think it's fair to say that the use of assassination has hardened world opinion against Israel as much as the occupation and building of settlements in Palestinian territory, and the longterm running of assassinations has eroded respect for law and life. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
Bergman traces a complicated history of professionalizing state-sponsored murder. At first Israel used letter bombs, but this methods were random and easy to foil. Human assassination teams were more precise, but the Lillehammer affair, where an innocent man was killed in Norway, was just one of the problems. Human agents could also be blown, arrested or assassinated, and close command in foreign countries was impossible.
As Israel faced threats from Egyptian scientists, the radical terrorists of Black September, and later Hamas and Hezbollah, the security services innovated. Israel prefigured the American War on Terror tactics of 'unlawful combatants', assassination via drone aircraft, and high-tech warrooms that collated intelligence to present senior officials with real time "go/no-go" choices on assassinations.
However, for all the investment, it seems like the targeted assassinations were unable to prevent the First and Second Intifada or substantially degrade the suicide bomber recruitment pipeline. Strategic weapons programs in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran were more vulnerable to 'key man' attacks. But I think it's fair to say that the use of assassination has hardened world opinion against Israel as much as the occupation and building of settlements in Palestinian territory, and the longterm running of assassinations has eroded respect for law and life. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
apelaez's review against another edition
5.0
De los libros más interesantes, entretenidos y bien escritos que me he leído.
gsm's review against another edition
It is an interesting book, but in the time of COVID, I wasn't super interested in reading about government secret plots.
guiltyfeat's review against another edition
5.0
Shocking and thrilling, exhilarating and depressing. I can't imagine a better researched version of these stories and the people in them than this giant book. When you seem to have seen so much of the tradecraft contained in these pages in fictional contexts, it's hard to remember that these techniques were developed by real people to solve real problems.
While the morality behind some (many?) of the operations described here remains questionable and their cumulative effect on history debatable, the overall impact of this collected history is awe-inspiring though not always in a good way.
While the morality behind some (many?) of the operations described here remains questionable and their cumulative effect on history debatable, the overall impact of this collected history is awe-inspiring though not always in a good way.
stephang18's review against another edition
4.0
Engrossing history of targeted assassinations by Israeli intelligence services. It's hard to know who to trust when it comes to books written about Israel in terms of the author's slant. Bergman is a little bit to the left - just enough to be mildly annoying at times, particularly after 2000 and he finishes the book with a three page screed against Netanyahu that is really out of place here. Still, clear explanations with a cast of hundreds of players. Worth reading.