Customer Reviews

Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services

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For students of the history and evolution of intelligence and it's major players, ISRAEL'S SECRET WARS is one of the best comprehensive surveys of the subject available. Messer's. Black and Morris provide a balanced, thoughtfully researched, and well-written account of the complex world of intelligence operations.

The concluding points taken are poignant, and pithy.
o Israel has consistently been good at human intelligence, the oldest form of spycraft, which remains, despite sophisticated surveillance satellites, computer cryptanalysis and the other vast technological advances of recent years, the best way to find out what an enemy is doing, thinking and planning.
o The classic ideological spy, motivated by a belief in the system of his country's enemy, does not exist in the Middle East conflict. There are no closet Arab Zionists, no Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian or Palestinian Kim Philbys who believe that the transformation of Palestine into Israel, the dispossession and partial exile of an Arab people, is a good and positive thing.
o Ingenuity, ruthlessness and dishonesty have played their part in this history, as they have done, and continue to do, to a greater or lesser degree, in the work of all intelligence and security services everywhere.
o Israel's secret services have always gone far beyond the traditional tasks of espionage and counter-espionage. Early operational versatility - was carried over {from the British}into the years of independence.
o Obtaining weapons and advanced technologies secretly, and often illegally, and denying them to enemies remain a preoccupation.
o Using the media to disseminate stories and warnings that help Israeli operations and undermine the country's enemies has long been a speciality.

Israel was spying on its Arab neighbors before it even formally existed, and has been doing it ever since. Back when the Haganah was battling the irregular Arab insurgents in the period of the British Mandate, warning of when those insurgents were going to attack, and where, was almost required. Fortunately, various Israelis who had lived among the Arabs and spoke their language were able to infiltrate those Arab groups, or suborn members of them, and gain the needed information.

When the War of Independance was won, the Israeli intelligence network settled into three different services: the Mossad, for external intelligence, the Shin Bet, for internal security, and the Aman, for military intelligence. This book covers all three in about equal measure, with digressions for other services like the small research unit that employed Jonathan Pollard, for instance. Much of the story remains classified, and is therefore either murky or just incomplete, or even unknown and not repeated here at all.

There's a scene in the movie Gettysburg where a Confederate spy named Harrison (played by the actor Cooper Huckabee) complains to his employer, Confederate General James Longstreet (Tom Berenger). Harrison had been an actor before the war, and he doesn't like spying because if you do it well, no one knows. It's only when you screw up that you get noticed. The same thing is true in the case of this book: especially in the last chapters, the story is a chronicle of the times the organization was in the news, and a spy organization like the Mossad or Shin Bet does its best to stay out of the headlines. When they fail, it's usually because of something they did wrong, or something they tried that failed. It would have been interesting to read about some of their successes too.

There is one further thing that I should register in the way of negativity. This isn't exactly a criticism, but it definitely detracts from the value of the book. Since the book was published in 1991, it's very dated, and could stand an update, if either or both of the authors would be able. I'm sure that some of the uncertainties of the late 80's in the book have been resolved, and it would be interesting to have the book continued into the 90s and beyond. Until that book comes out, this one is worthwhile, notwithstanding that it's more than a decade old.

This was a very interesting book. It gave a good background ans history of the intelligence services that serve Israel. You have to remember that Israel's very existance depends upon them having an above average intelligence machine. The Intelligence network of Israel have been acclaimed the best in the world.This book besides describing the intelligence services also tell of some of the operation that have been launched by these services. This book describes how the Israel intelligence services provided the location of all aircraft of the Arab world allowing the Israelis to destroy the aircraft of the Arab world and turn the six day war into a rout. The book also details the Israeli services gaining revenge on the terrorists who were responsible for the murder of the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 olympics. There is also a section about the kidnapping of Adolph Eichmann(the man in charge of the Final Solution) from Argentina. Especially interesting was the bombing of the Iraqui nuclear reactor that was made possible by Israeli intelligence. This book contains some very interesting reading about the accomplishments of Israeli Intelligence. This is an outstanding book that I certainly enjoyed.

In Israel's Secret Wars Ian Black and Benny Morris explore the "secret" wars Israel fought against its Arab and Palestinian foes from the pre-state institutions of the Yishuv to 1990. They begin with the earliest manifestations of an intelligence service in the attempts of the Jewish Agency's Arab Department, following the Arab revolt of the 1930s, to keep files on Arab affairs. These note cards stored in a file cabinets became the cornerstone of Israel's espionage industry. With the founding of the state, Black and Morris take us through the evolution of these cards into the Mossad (the equivalent of the CIA) and the Shin Bet (roughly equivalent to the FBI) and their challenges in the Sinai Campaign of 1956, the Six Days War of 1967, occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the struggle against Palestinian terrorism in the 1970s, both in Israel and abroad, and the Intifada in the late 80s. The book is seemingly exhaustive in its use of available sources, is well written and generally non-judgmental, keeping its conclusions close to the "facts." Overall it is the kind of scholarship we have come to expect from a first class historian like Benny Morris.

Comment on its cover: absolutely appealing! Comment on its scope: comprehensive!

What makes this book so much more fascinating is the fact that it was screened by the Israeli intelligence community before its release. Based on this fact, one would've assumed that the Israelis would censor huge chunks of information provided in the book. Which makes the historical account from the Israeli viewpoint brutally honest. If it was assassination, they'd call it assassination and take credit for it. One can't help but admire this brutal honesty.

You can probably find it in your local library, but this book is something you might want permanently in your bookshelf.

This would be an ideal book if you are an American who needs a crash course in HUMINT and War in the Middle East. In much the same way that David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan were writing by-lines from the Mekong in 1963 urging American military leaders to learn from their French antecedents, I think American military and intelligence officer's would be well served by reviewing this book as a kind of lessons learned manual of the Israeli experience. The chapters which cover the efforts of the Israeli security forces to police the occupied areas, especially Lebanon, are the most relevant today.

As someone who's enthralled with the world of intelligence, this book really made me happy. I found it to be very impartial politically, although it dealt exclusively with Israeli matters in historical order(it did not, for example, go into detail about Syrian leadership, Egyptian intelligence, or US-Israel relations). There was far more information in the book than I thought I'd encounter (the authors preface the book with their own surprise at the amount of information they were allowed to obtain and then publish), and the book depicts well the selection, work hazards, and retirement of typical spies. The book chronicles the importance of intelligence through Israel's great successes (and failures) in the military and civil spheres, and does so with style and historical accuracy. The only drawback is the book's date (published in the early 90s).

The facts, figures and dates are all there, but there are far more interesting books on this subject. (check out the others sold thru amazon.) This one reminds me of slogging thru a bland history book back in school.

An excellent history of Israel's Intelligence Services; this book really holds your interest. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this subject.

Ian Black and Benny Morris have compiled the most knowledgable and conclusive information on the Israeli intelligence services. Not only does this book provide factual details, it combines incredible quotes and sources. Black and Morris must have spent decades gathering the information, but this book is definitely the best. Although it is well over 500 pages, the read is rather quick. Again, one of the greatest books I have read...excellent choice!!