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A review by mburnamfink
Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman
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.