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

5.0

This is a very detailed history of Israel's targeted assassination program, and to a lesser extent of its intelligence services. Ronen Bergman was able to interview many of the figures involved, and it's sobering and fascinating reading. Bergman doesn't shy from a moral judgment of the program: that although it was superficially successful, it came at a huge moral cost, and that Israeli leaders became overly reliant on it as a tool to avoid first war and then political negotiations. At the same time, he's aware of what drove them to use the tactic--a knowledge that Israel, especially in its early years, could not win an open war, and that other countries would not back them up (brutally illustrated in the story about Munich).