Israel Targeted Assassinations: What Rise and Kill First Reveals About Mossad's Secret War
Ronen Bergman wrote Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. The book covers Israel's use of preemptive killings as a tool of national defense from the founding of the state in 1948 through modern Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF operations. Bergman is an Israeli journalist who spent years gaining access to classified files and key figures — including Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak, and top Mossad operatives. No outside writer had that level of access before him. The result reads like a thriller but every word comes from real events and real people.
The book builds its case around a simple but heavy idea. Israel surrounded by enemies that want it gone chose to strike first rather than wait. The Talmud gives the doctrine its name. If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first. Israel took that seriously. Bergman traces how that doctrine shaped decades of covert operations against Hamas bombmakers, PLO commanders, Hezbollah operatives, and Iranian nuclear scientists. Each mission gets enough detail to understand the decision behind it and the cost that followed.
The high-profile cases hit hard. The killing of Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash. The assassination of PLO commander Abu Jihad. The allegations tied to Yasser Arafat's death. A botched Mossad operation in Dubai caught on CCTV that caused international fallout and public shame. Bergman does not hide the failures. He shows how each mistake created new enemies and damaged Israel's standing in the world. That honesty gives the book its weight. It is not a celebration of Israel's secret war. It is a clear-eyed account of its costs and consequences.
Bergman also shows how Israel's methods influenced other nations. After the September 11 attacks, the United States studied Israel's targeted killing model and applied it in its own war on terror. That connection makes the book more than a Middle East story. It becomes a global argument about the ethics and long-term impact of state-sanctioned killing. Bergman raises hard questions and does not offer easy answers. Can targeted assassinations bring lasting security? Or do they plant seeds for the next generation of enemies? The book asks both and trusts the reader to sit with the discomfort.
This is a 5-star book. The writing is sharp and the pace never slows. Bergman knows how to build tension without losing the facts. Anyone who follows espionage history, Middle East conflict, or counterterrorism strategy will find this book essential. It is one of the most important intelligence books written in the past two decades. Read it and see what war looks like when it happens in the shadows long before the headlines catch up.
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