Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations

by Ronen Bergman

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first definitive history of Israel’s targeted killing programs, which have shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East, and the larger world—from the man hailed by David Remnick as “arguably [Israel’s] best investigative reporter.”

“An exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject . . . full of shocking moments, surprising disturbances in a narrative full of fateful twists and unintended consequences.”—The New York Times

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award in History • Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by Jennifer Szalai of The New York Times • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Economist, The New York Times Book Review, BBC History Magazine, and Mother Jones

The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes preemptively.

In this page-turning, eye-opening book, journalist and military analyst Ronen Bergman—praised by David Remnick as “arguably [Israel’s] best investigative reporter”—offers a riveting inside account of the targeted killing programs: their successes, their failures, and the moral and political price exacted on the men and women who approved and carried out the missions.

Bergman has gained the exceedingly rare cooperation of many current and former members of the Israeli government, including Prime Ministers Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as high-level figures in the country’s military and intelligence services: the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the Mossad (the world’s most feared intelligence agency), Caesarea (a “Mossad within the Mossad” that carries out attacks on the highest-value targets), and the Shin Bet (an internal security service that implemented the largest targeted assassination campaign ever, in order to stop what had once appeared to be unstoppable: suicide terrorism).

Including never-before-reported, behind-the-curtain accounts of key operations, and based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews and thousands of files to which Bergman has gotten exclusive access over his decades of reporting, Rise and Kill First brings us deep into the heart of Israel’s most secret activities. Bergman traces, from statehood to the present, the gripping events and thorny ethical questions underlying Israel’s targeted killing campaign, which has shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East, and the larger world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781400069712
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/30/2018
Pages:	784
Sales rank:	160,422
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Ronen Bergman is the senior correspondent for military and intelligence affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest daily paid newspaper, and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, where he reports on intelligence, national security, terrorism, and nuclear issues. Bergman is the author of five bestselling Hebrew-language nonfiction books and The Secret War with Iran, which was published in the United States by Free Press. Bergman is the recipient of the Sokolow Prize, Israel’s most esteemed award for journalism, and the B’nai B’rith International Press Award, among other honors. A member of the Israeli bar, he graduated with honors from the University of Haifa Faculty of Law and clerked in the attorney general’s office. A winner of a Chevening Scholarship from the British Foreign Office, he received a master’s in international relations from Cambridge University, where he was also awarded his PhD in history.

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Chapter 1
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Excerpted from "Rise and Kill First"
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Copyright © 2018 Ronen Bergman.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

A Note on the Sources xiii

Prologue xvii

1 In Blood and Fire 3

2 A Secret World is Born 21

3 The Bureau for Arranging Meetings with God 39

4 The Entire Supreme Command, with One Blow 52

5 "As if the Sky Were Falling on Our Heads" 61

6 A Series of Catastrophes 86

7 "Armed Struggle is the Only Way to Liberate Palestine" 105

8 Meir Dagan and his Expertise 121

9 The Plo Goes International 136

10 "I Have No Problem with Anyone That I've Killed" 154

11 "Wrong Identification of a Target is not a Failure. It's a Mistake." 175

12 Hubris 186

13 Death in the Toothpaste 208

14 A Pack of Wild Dogs 225

15 "Abu Nidal, Abu Shmidal" 248

16 Black Flag 262

17 The Shin Bet Coup 277

18 Then Came a Spark 297

19 Intifada 324

20 Nebuchadnezzar 343

21 Green Storm Rising 362

22 The Age of the Drone 382

23 Mughniyeh's Revenge 398

24 'Just One Switch, Off and On" 409

25 "Bring us the Head of Ayyash" 424

26 "Sly as a Snake, Naïve as a Little Child" 445

27 A Low Point 467

28 All-Out War 483

29 "More Suicide Bombers Than Explosive Vests" 498

30 "The Target has been Eliminated, But the Operation Failed" 516

31 The Rebellion in Unit 8200 529

32 Picking Anemones 541

33 The Radical Front 566

34 Killing Maurice 588

35 Impressive Tactical Success, Disastrous Strategic Failure 610

Acknowledgments 633

Notes 637

Bibliography 715

Index 727

Editorial Reviews

America's difficult relationship with targeted killing and the dilemmas we may face in the future are beautifully illuminated by the longer story of Israel's experiences with assassination in its own endless war against terrorism. Israel has always been just a bit farther down this slippery slope than the United States. If we're willing, we can learn where the bumps are along the way by watching the Israelis careening ahead of us. Americans now have a terrific new introduction to that story with the publication of Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First. It's easy to understand why Bergman's book is already a best seller. It moves at a torrid pace and tells stories that would make Jason Bourne sit up and say "Wow!" It is smart, thoughtful and balanced, and the English translation is superb. It deserves all of the plaudits it has already received.

The New York Times Book Review - Kenneth M. Pollack

…an exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject. Blending history and investigative reporting, Bergman never loses sight of the ethical questions that arise when a state, founded as a refuge for a stateless people who were targets of a genocide, decides it needs to kill in order to survive…[Rise and Kill First] is full of shocking moments, surprising disturbances in a narrative full of fateful twists and unintended consequences.

The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai

Ronen Bergman has set out in incontestable detail the history and scale of Israel’s use of extrajudicial killing as an instrument of defense and foreign policy. His material is stark and sensational, but he steers a steady course through it, even pausing along the way to debate the effectiveness and morality of his subject. The result is a compelling read whatever your point of view.”—John le Carré

“This remarkable account of Israel’s targeted-killing programs is the product of nearly eight years of research into what is arguably the most secretive and impenetrable intelligence community in the world. Bergman, an investigative reporter and military analyst, interviewed hundreds of insiders, including assassins, and obtained thousands of classified documents.”—The New Yorker

“America’s difficult relationship with targeted killing and the dilemmas we may face in the future are beautifully illuminated by the longer story of Israel’s experiences with assassination in its own endless war against terrorism. . . . Americans now have a terrific new introduction to that story with publication of Ronen Bergman’s Rise and Kill First. . . . It moves at a torrid pace and tells stories that would make Jason Bourne sit up and say ‘Wow!’ It is smart, thoughtful and balanced, and the English translation is superb. It deserves all of the plaudits it has already received.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Blending history and investigative reporting, Bergman never loses sight of the ethical questions that arise when a state, founded as a refuge for a stateless people who were targets of a genocide, decides it needs to kill in order to survive. . . . This book is full of shocking moments, surprising disturbances in a narrative full of fateful twists and unintended consequences.”—The New York Times

“Authoritative . . . a chilling portrait of the evolution of the assassination program . . . Bergman has a reputation as an indefatigable journalist who has developed hundreds of informed sources in the defense establishment over the past two decades. . . . Since World War II, Bergman calculates, the Jewish state and its pre-state paramilitary organizations have assassinated more people than any other country in the Western world.”—The Washington Post

“A must-read . . . [Bergman is] Israel’s premier chronicler of the country’s principal spy services—the Mossad (Israel’s CIA), Shin Bet (its internal security organ) and Aman (military intelligence).”—Newsweek

“A textured history of the personalities and tactics of the various secret services . . . makes the case that Israel has used assassination in the place of war, killing half a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists, for instance, rather than launching a military attack . . . [Bergman] says that while the [United States] has tighter constraints on its agents than does Israel, President George W. Bush adopted many Israeli techniques after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and President Barack Obama launched several hundred targeted killings.”—Bloomberg

“Leading any list of notable nonfiction books—Jewish or not—must be Ronen Bergman’s Rise and Kill First, a massive and extravagantly well-sourced history of the use of the tool of assassination by Israel’s intelligence services. . . . One’s mouth is often agape with amazement, even shock, while reading.”—Haaretz

From the Publisher

08/01/2017
The Talmud proclaims, "If a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first," something Israel has taken seriously since its difficult inception. The senior political and military analyst for Israel's largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, Bergman interviewed dozens of current and former government officials in Israel to tell the story of its state-sponsored assassination programs. Billed as news-breaking.

Library Journal

With a tone of gravitas, Rob Shapiro narrates this detailed critical history of Israel’s seventy-year clandestine war against state-supported terrorism, suicide bombings, and tangled Middle Eastern politics. Based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews, exclusive access to secret files, and years of frontline journalism, the audiobook takes listeners behind the scenes to the inner workings and ethical debates of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), Shin Bet (internal security force), and the fabled and deadly Mossad (Israel’s CIA). As the book recounts Israel’s retaliations against the leaders and the lieutenants of Black September, Shapiro’s tone never lets the listener forget that there have been, and probably always will be, brutal costs in the battle to preserve a Jewish state in the Middle East. B.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

MAY 2018 - AudioFile

With a tone of gravitas, Rob Shapiro narrates this detailed critical history of Israel’s seventy-year clandestine war against state-supported terrorism, suicide bombings, and tangled Middle Eastern politics. Based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews, exclusive access to secret files, and years of frontline journalism, the audiobook takes listeners behind the scenes to the inner workings and ethical debates of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), Shin Bet (internal security force), and the fabled and deadly Mossad (Israel’s CIA). As the book recounts Israel’s retaliations against the leaders and the lieutenants of Black September, Shapiro’s tone never lets the listener forget that there have been, and probably always will be, brutal costs in the battle to preserve a Jewish state in the Middle East. B.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

MAY 2018 - AudioFile