After finishing two quite different books on the history of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad I will provide my impressions of the books and outline their differences and strengths.
Mossad: The Great Operations of Israel’s Secret Service
Mossad: The Great Operations of Israel’s Secret Service is written by the authors Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal. The book explains the most famous Mossad operations since it’s beginning with each chapter explaining an impressive operation. The goal from the authors seems to be to provide the reader with an enjoyable read rather than a deep understanding of how Mossad operates and the politics behind it.
The book do provide an enjoyable introduction to one of the worlds most pro-active spy-agency but neutrality of the authors cannot be expected and its almost only the good parts of the agencies history that has been put into writing.
Rise and Kill First - The secret history of Israels targeted assasinations
The book Rise and Kill First - The secret history of Israels targeted assasinations written by Ronen Bergman provides an extensive explanation on how the Intelligence agencies in Israel has evolved since their creation and examines past operations with a strong focus on the targeted assasinations towards members of organisations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, PLA and PLF.
The large amount of research shows similarities with the book The Threat Matrix in the most complimentary way. While the tone in the book is very objective one gets the feeling that the author believes that the amount of targeted killings and how they are approached is the wrong way to resolve conflicts in the region long term.
This book provides a fantastic explanation on the history of Mossad and the conflicts the organisation and the state of Israel has faced in the past and how they were approached.
Which one to read?
If you want to have an exciting read about one of the worlds most impressive intelligency agency go for Mossad: The Great Operations of Israel’s Secret Service but then finish of with Rise and Kill First to gain a wider more balanced view.