A review by ninaandtheb00ks
Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman

5.0

This is one of my favorite non-fiction books. It tells the story of the intelligence services of Israel, with a special focus on its targeted killings, from the time of the Yishuv until now. In order to do so, Ronen Bergman has interviewed countless state officials, who are directly quoted in his retelling. What I appreciate about this book is that it doesn’t only tell the success stories, but also discloses the wrongdoings and even blatant failures, which are sometimes so amateurish that they’re almost funny. I also liked that even though a large part of this book is about the conflict with Palestine, the author has tried to remain objective, and makes an effort to include both sides of the story. He’s honest: none of the players are pure and all of them are selfish. It’s quite a pill (800+ pages), filled with moral and strategic dilemma’s and a shocking amount of assassinations. I thought it was very informative; there was so much information that I think I already forgot half of it. Nonetheless, highly recommendable and thoroughly enjoyable.