Israel
Rise and Kill First – The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations
Reviewed by BERNIE BELLAN
How many of us get a vicarious thrill when we hear about yet another daring Israeli exploit that leaves people everywhere wondering: “What will they do next?”
Yet, as often as we may have heard stories of one or another of Israel’s security agencies, especially the Mossad, accomplishing some incredibly daring feat, whatever it is that may be in the news at a particular period has always been accompanied by the following qualifying statement: “Israel would neither admit nor deny that it had anything to do with….”.
The mystery surrounding Israel’s intelligence and counter intelligence operations only lends a greater aura of supreme capability to Israel. One wonders, therefore, whether pulling back the curtains on Israeli intelligence operations through the seven decades of her existence is at all damaging to that country’s reputation.
Yet, that is precisely what Israeli military censors have feared ever since the state was established. In this comprehensive and lengthy tell-all, author Ronen Bergman has managed to thoroughly pierce the veil of secrecy that has enveloped Israel’s spy networks. In doing so, however, he has apparently infuriated those in Israel who are tasked with keeping a tight lid on those secrets.
At the end of his book, Bergman notes that he did not receive cooperation from any of the branches of Israel’s security services in writing his history of targeted assassinations conducted over the years by the Mossad, Shin Bet, and Israel Defense Forces, although he did conduct over 1,000 interviews in advance of writing this book. Here is how the historian for one very secretive division of the Mossad, known as “Caesarea” responded to Bergman’s request for an interview:
“Even if I were the last person in the intelligence establishment who has not yet made the pilgrimage to you, I would by no means cooperate with you. I despise whoever it was that gave you my phone number, just as I despise you.”
Notwithstanding the admonition not to talk to Bergman, hundreds of individuals associated with one or another branch of Israel’s security apparatus did just that. Some of them were old men who figured that there would be no harm in divulging details of secret operations with which they were involved – at this late stage in their lives. Others were individuals who bore grudges against certain individuals who, they alleged, had actually harmed Israel’s interests through their recklessness or, in some cases, timidity.
Then there were those individuals who had been at the forefront of defending Israel through the years, and who were deeply critical of two aspects of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies which, they have argued, are detrimental to Israel’s long term security: His disregard for the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians, and his undermining of the accord that was reached with Iran that saw Iran retreat from its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
One name shines through in this book as a true hero though, and that is former Mossad chieftain Meir Dagan. Interestingly, Rise and Kill First is the third book I have now read in the past six months that lionizes Dagan. The first was Harpoon, which told of Israel’s success in attacking the financial sources of terrorism; and the second was Bibi, the most recent biography of Binyamin Netanyahu.
In all three books Dagan’s brilliance as a commando, strategist, organizer, analyst, and finally, as a top-level bureaucrat who was not afraid to challenge the prime minister of the day, whoever it was, should ensure his place near the very top of the list of individuals who have been key to safeguarding Israel from all conceivable threats.
It would be impossible to summarize the content of Rise and Kill First in a short book review, since it is a painstaking examination, not only of the hundreds of targeted assassinations in which Israeli security forces have been involved over the years, it is also a meticulous detailing of many of the methods Israel has employed in order to infiltrate all levels of so many of her enemies’ security apparatuses.
Is Bergman betraying any secrets, therefore, in writing this book? For anyone who has had any sort of fascination with the lethal reputation of the Mossad, for instance, Bergman is simply recounting stories that have been bandied about for years. What he does, however, is obtain first hand confirmations from the very men who were involved in so many of those exploits, many of which are legendary. He never puts anyone still active in espionage at risk by revealing their names. Instead he uses code names to refer to certain agents.
It hasn’t been all glory though for Israeli undercover operations against her enemies. Many were botched, others proved to be quite useless. What Bergman explains quite thoroughly though, is the level of planning involved in most intelligence and counter-intelligence operations. In addition, despite the oft-hurled accusation that Israel targets civilians or is indifferent to civilian casualties Bergman shows that to be a largely unfair criticism in Rise and Kill First. So many operations that might have removed dangerous foes in the enemy camp were scotched at the last minute when civilians were found to be in the area of the targeted killing.
As I noted though in the last issue of this paper – before I had finished reading this book, one individual in particular, Ariel Sharon, came in for some fiery criticism from Bergman over his indifference to sacrificing civilian lives in Lebanon when he orchestrated Israel’s totally unnecessary war in that country in 1982. Later in life, however, Sharon seemed to admit to the error of his ways when he held back from ordering a full-scale assault on Palestinian areas during the second Intifadeh (which began in 2000 when Ehud Barak was Prime Minister.)
In addition to missions that went awry, Bergman also discusses targeted killings that may have accomplished their purposes, but whose consequences ultimately proved to be more harmful to Israel’s security interests, particularly when it came to targeting certain leaders of Palestinian groups. This is not to say that the overall policy of targeted killings has proven unsuccessful; just the opposite: Not only has it put fear into the hearts of Israel’s enemies everywhere, from a tactical perspective removing individuals who were responsible for planning and implementing terrorist acts has been and remains an indispensable component of Israel’s war against terrorism.
What Bergman demonstrates though is that, in certain cases, elimination of someone who might have been considered relatively moderate only led to that person’s replacement by someone who proved to be far more militant – and dangerous to Israel, in the long term. Because Rise and Kill First is so very long – and detailed, Bergman takes the time to make the case for prudence in planning targeted assassinations by explaining why certain operations that might have seemed ostensibly successful were, in actual fact, counter productive.
The book is written in chronological order of events, so it is possible to see the growth and increasing sophistication of Israel’s targeted assassinations through the years. As Meir Dagan noted to Bergman in an interview he gave him following his forced retirement from the Mossad in 2010 (when he simply could not abide Netanyahu’s obsession with attacking Iranian nuclear installations – something Dagan feared would result in a terrible cost to Israel in both military and civilian deaths), the Mossad had grown so adept at taking out individuals – even in Tehran, for instance, that whereas previously a mission might take months to plan and implement, during the time Dagan was head of the Mossad (from 2000-2010), the agency grew capable of carrying out as many as four or five targeted killings a day.
Rise and Kill First is both a history and a guide to undercover operations. I’m sure that, by now, it has been made required reading in every intelligence agency in the world – even in countries like Iran. If you weren’t in awe of Israeli brilliance in carrying out the most dangerous operations imaginable before, after reading this book you will have no doubt that Israel is capable of just about anything when it comes to taking out her enemies. We should be grateful though, that for the most part, the men responsible for leading the agencies responsible for carrying out those lethal operations have been quiet, cool thinkers and not egomaniacal politicians.
Ri and Kill First – The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations
By Ronseen Bergman
Published
January 2018
Random House
753 pages
Israel
Hamas murdered their friend. Now, they help Israeli soldiers to keep his memory alive
By VIRGINIA ALLEN (The Daily Signal) David Newman sent a text to a friend the morning of Saturday, Oct. 7. Something terrible had happened. Word quickly spread among Newman’s group of friends, who had known each other since high school.
Newman, 25, had traveled the night before to the music festival in southern Israel, close to the border with the Gaza Strip. It was supposed to be a fun weekend with his girlfriend “celebrating life,” something Newman, who served with the Israel Defense Forces, was good at and loved to do, friend Gidon Hazony recalls.
When Hazony learned that Newman, his longtime friend, was in danger, he and another friend decided they were “going to go down and try and save him.” Trained as a medic and armed with a handgun and bulletproof vest, Hazony started driving south from Jerusalem.
Hazony and his friend ended up joining with other medical personnel and “treated probably around 50 soldiers and civilians in total that day,” Hazony recalls, but they kept trying to make it south to rescue Newman.
But the two “never made it down to the party, and that’s probably for the best,” Hazony says, “because that area was completely taken over by terrorists. And if we had gone down there, I think we would’ve been killed.”
Hazony later learned that Hamas terrorists had murdered Newman on Oct. 7, but not before Newman had saved nearly 300 lives, including the life of his girlfriend.
When the terrorists began their attack on the music festival, many attendees began running to their cars. But Newman and his girlfriend encountered a police officer who warned them to run the opposite direction because the terrorists were near the vehicles, says David Gani, another friend of Newman’s.
Newman “ran in the opposite direction with his girlfriend and whoever else he could kind of corral with him,” Gani explains during an interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
“They saw two industrial garbage cans, big containers, and so David told everyone, ‘Hide, hide in those containers,’” Gani says. “And so what he did over the course of the next few hours is, he would take people and … he was this big guy, and he would just chuck them in that container. And then he would go in, wait, wait till the coast is clear, and then he’d go back out, find more people, put them in there.”
Newman’s actions that day, and the atrocities Hazony and so many others in Israel witnessed Oct. 7, led Hazony, Gani, and several friends to quit their jobs and set up a nonprofit called Soldiers Save Lives. The organization is working to collect tactical and humanitarian aid for the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF.
According to the group’s website, Soldiers Save Lives has supplied over 20 IDF units and civilian response teams “with protective and self-defense gear.”
Gani, board chairman, chief financial officer, and chief technology officer of Soldiers Save Lives, and Hazony, president of the organization, recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to raise support and awareness for their mission to provide IDF troops with needed supplies.
If you would like to find out more about Soldiers Save Lives or donate to them, go to https://www.soldierssavelives.org/
Reprinted with permission.
Israel
Our New Jewish Reality
By HENRY SREBRNIK Since Oct. 7, we Jews have been witnessing an ongoing political and psychological pogrom. True, there have been no deaths (so far), but we’ve seen the very real threat of mobs advocating violence and extensive property damage of Jewish-owned businesses, and all this with little forceful reaction from the authorities.
The very day after the carnage, Canadians awoke to the news that the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust had inspired sustained celebrations in its major cities. And they have continued ever since. I’d go so far as to say the Trudeau government has, objectively, been more interested in preventing harm to Gazans than caring about the atrocities against Israelis and their state.
For diaspora Jews, the attacks of Oct. 7 were not distant overseas events and in this country since then they have inspired anti-Semitism, pure and simple, which any Jew can recognize. Even though it happened in Israel, it brought back the centuries-old memories of defenseless Jews being slaughtered in a vicious pogrom by wild anti-Semites.
I think this has shocked, deeply, most Jews, even those completely “secular” and not all that interested in Judaism, Israel or “Zionism.” Jewish parents, especially, now fear for their children in schools and universities. The statements universities are making to Jewish students across the country could not be clearer: We will not protect you, they all but scream. You’re on your own.
But all this has happened before, as we know from Jewish history. Long before Alfred Dreyfus and Theodor Herzl, the 1881 pogroms in tsarist Russia led to an awakening of proto-Zionist activity there, with an emphasis on the land of Israel. There were soon new Jewish settlements in Palestine.
The average Jew in Canada now knows that his or her friend at a university, his co-worker in an office, and the people he or she socializes with, may in fact approve, or at least not disapprove, of what happened that day in Israel. Acquaintances or even close friends may care far more about Israel killing Palestinians in Gaza. Such people may even believe what we may call “Hamas pogrom denial,” already being spread. Many people have now gone so far in accepting the demonization of Israel and Jews that they see no penalty attached to public expressions of Jew-hatred. Indeed, many academics scream their hatred of Israel and Jews as loud as possible.
One example: On Nov. 10, Toronto officers responded to a call at an Indigo bookstore located in the downtown. It had been defaced with red paint splashed on its windows and the sidewalk, and posters plastered to its windows.
The eleven suspects later arrested claimed that Indigo founder Heather Reisman (who is Jewish) was “funding genocide” because of her financial support of the HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers, which provides scholarships to foreign nationals who study in Israel after serving in the Israeli armed forces. By this logic, then, most Jewish properties and organizations could be targeted, since the vast majority of Jews are solidly on Israel’s side.
Were these vandals right-wing thugs or people recently arrived from the Middle East? No, those charged were mostly white middle-class professionals. Among them are figures from academia, the legal community, and the public education sector. Four are academics connected to York University (one of them a former chair of the Sociology Department) and a fifth at the University of Toronto; two are elementary school teachers; another a paralegal at a law firm.
Were their students and colleagues dismayed by this behaviour? On the contrary. Some faculty members, staff and students at the university staged a rally in their support. These revelations have triggered discussions about the role and responsibilities of educators, given their influential positions in society.
You’ve heard the term “quiet quitting.” I think many Jews will withdraw from various clubs and organizations and we will begin to see, in a sense like in the 1930s, a reversal of assimilation, at least in the social sphere. (Of course none of this applies to Orthodox Jews, who already live this way.)
Women in various feminist organizations may form their own groups or join already existing Jewish women’s groups. There may be an increase in attendance in K-12 Jewish schools. In universities, “progressive” Jewish students will have to opt out of organizations whose members, including people they considered friends, have been marching to the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and similar eliminationist rhetoric, while waving Palestinian flags.
This will mostly affect Jews on the left, who may be supporters of organizations which have become carriers of anti-Semitism, though ostensibly dealing with “human rights,” “social justice,” and even “climate change.”
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg took part in a demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm on Oct. 22 in which she chanted “crush Zionism” along with hundreds of other anti-Israel protesters. Israel is now unthinkingly condemned as a genocidal apartheid settler-colonialist state, indeed, the single most malevolent country in the world and the root of all evil.
New York Times Columnist Bret Stephens expressed it well in his Nov. 7 article. “Knowing who our friends aren’t isn’t pleasant, particularly after so many Jews have sought to be personal friends and political allies to people and movements that, as we grieved, turned their backs on us. But it’s also clarifying.”
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.
Israel
Former Winnipegger Vivian Silver, at first thought to have been taken hostage, has now been confirmed dead
Former Winnipegger and well-known Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver has now been confirmed as having been killed during the massacre of Israelis and foreign nationals perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Vivian, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri was originally thought to be among the more than 1200 individuals who were taken hostage by Hamas.
To read the full story on the CBC website, go to https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/israel-gaza-vivian-silver-1.7027333
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