Book Description
Created in 1951 to ensure an embattled Israel's future, the Mossad has been responsible for the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counterterrorism, and assassination ever ventured. Gordon Thomas's 1999 publication of Gideon's Spies, resulting from closed-door interviews with Mossad agents, informants, and spymasters, and drawing from classified documents and top-secret sources, revealed previously untold truths about the Israeli intelligence agency. And now, in this fourth edition, Thomas updates his classic text and shows a Mossad as it has historically been: brilliant, ruthless, and flawed, but ultimately awesome. Six all-new chapters and updated appendices and glossaries examine: *The London bombings: the untold full story of Mossad's involvement*Mossad's key role in the G8 Summit in Scotland*How Mossad discovered that by June 2005 Al Qaeda had acquired fissionable material from Pakistan and former Soviet Union Islamic Republics*Secret phone calls to Washington that led to Tony Blair changing his position over war with Iraq *WMD and Libya, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, China, and the House of Saud*The mega spy in the Bush and Clinton administrations*The PLO, Fatah, and Hamas* The technology wars, and North Korea's bird-flu war games and 'ethnic bombs'*The Chinese involvement in the Los Alamos fiasco
Customer Reviews:
Mossad's reach.......2007-10-17
What I found most interesting in this book is the reach of the Mossad. Because Jews can be found in most of the countries of the world, the Mossad has friends in place who can assist Mossad's agents. No other intelligence service in the world has this sort of assistance. And it is because Jews are bound by something more than nationalism. Their bond trancends loyalty to country, and it is even more so since the Holocaust. In part it is survival in a hostile world.
As flawed as the earlier editions.......2007-09-10
This is a heavily embroidered mish mash of anecdotes, the majority told elsewhere with more style. Lots of fascinating and entertaining stuff, no question, but Gordon Thomas is a myth-maker, so accuracy takes a back seat to speculation and romanticized conspiracy theorizing at every turn. If the guy can't get something simple like Sayaret Matkal right (Sayanet Maktal?!), as one of numerous examples, he's also just plain careless. The update doesn't really add a whole lot of new information. I'd recommend The Volunteer by Michael Ross -- a Mossad officer talks about the real-life functioning and actions of ha'misrad in the 1990's and the relationship with our CIA -- along with The Mossad, and Israel's Secret Wars.
Excellent Read!!!.......2007-08-25
This book is amazing. You will find some real pearls in here. The Princess Diana story was quite telling. The book is shocking in some parts, hard core in others, but the book is so well written, it is difficult to put it down.
Arguably, the Most Reliable, Accurate Book on the Subject.......2007-04-09
Books about the history and activities of espionage organizations (both gathering intelligence and covert operation) are by nature subject to be taken with a grain of salt, since the nature of the business is secrecy.
Gordon Thomas does a good job unveiling that secrecy through his various sources, some named, some not, some within the Mossad organization itself, and many from without. He explicitly names these sources on an "acknowledgment page," citing his sources within Israel and Elsewhere. One can only judge the credibility of the information by comparing it to other accounts of the same operations, and asking oneself if it is believable based upon consistency with factual events.
Thomas pulls no punches in portraying the Mossad as arguably the most effective intelligence service in the world. He reveals their various tactics including psychological warfare, their legendary human intelligence capabilities, their worldwide presence (Thomas claims the Mossad has a mole in the White House, which the FBI has been searching for for years), and their covert assassination teams (known as kidons), and their ruthlessness in getting the job done in the defense of the State
Thomas excels at this, especially with this new, updated 2007 edition that covers the role Mossad plays and continues to play in the Iraq War, and probably an upcoming pre-emptive war with Israel's arch foe, Iran. He reveals tidbits of information, such as the unconfirmed "fact" that Israel possesses three nuclear missile armed submarines, currently in the Persian Gulf, off the coast of Iran, completing its triad of nuclear umbrella cover. This, as an example, is something that Israel would probably never really officially confirm or deny. But it passes the "does it make sense?" test with flying colors. Israel's land based nuclear facilities at Dimona (in the Negev Desert) is probably the worst kept military "secret" in the world." Nuclear payloads can be delivered by missile, aircraft, or seaborne vessels. Bombing Iran by air would not be practical due to the long ranges involved, so it does indeed make sense that it would need a third, seaborne leg of its nuclear capabilities.
Other accounts conflict to varying degrees with other sources. Since covert agents routinely use aliases, this is not unexpected; however, Thomas identifies the famous "man who captured Eichman" as the long term Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan. Others, including Peter (Zvi) Malkin wrote a book on the subject some years ago, in which he takes credit for making the first physical contact with Eichman on that audacious mission in 1960.
There are several useful resources included in the book, including a comprehensive index, a list of the Directors-General of Mossad, along with their years of service from 1951 through the present, a general glossary, and an additional brief glossary of Arabic terms, and of course a bibliography and acknowledgment of sources and credits.
My only criticism is that the time line of events recounted is not linear, sometimes making it difficult to follow. But the more you know about Israeli history, the easier it is to overcome this. Also, the sheer length of the book (587 pages, not including addenda), makes for a long, but fascinating read. The newly released 2007 version of this came out just in time - a lot has happened since the original version.
This book should appeal to anyone interested in Israeli defense, politics, and especially espionage. Highly recommended for serious students of Israel..
Book Description
This is the first documented, comprehensive history of all three of Israel's intelligence services, from their origins in the 1930s, through Israel's five wars, up to the present, with a new chapter updating the book through the Gulf War. Highly readable and exhaustively researched, it provides the most balanced view yet of this controversial subject.
Customer Reviews:
A good primer on all things Humint .......2007-08-19
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 way that David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan were writing by-lines from the Mekong in 1963 urging American's to learn from the experiences of their French antecendents, I think American military and intelligence operatives would be well served by reviewing this book as kind of a lessons learned manual of the Israeli experience. The chapters covering the efforts by the Israeli security forces to police the occupied areas (including Lebannon) are the most relevant today.
A must read for student's of the intelligence industry and it's players........2005-07-14
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.
History of Israeli Intelligence is somewhat dated.......2003-05-10
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.
An Interesting Look At The Intelligence Services of Israel!.......2000-08-14
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.
Not as good as expected to be........1999-03-08
Despite of 500 pages of text the book however does not contain the details of secret operations. The fact of operation is stated and the poor detail is given. Also the book contains big and , to my mind, useless and bore description of internal MOSSAD intrigues. Few action. I've expected to find more.
Amazon.com
The Mossad was formed in 1951 to coordinate the intelligence-gathering efforts of the still-young nation of Israel. In the nearly half century since, it has become a force to be reckoned with, boasting an impressive track record of counterterrorist actions and assassinations. Gideon's Spies is loaded with anecdotes of their greatest exploits (and a few colossal blunders). Among the most interesting sections are the suggestions that Mossad agents killed media tycoon Robert Maxwell in 1991, that the agency's attempted recruitment of Henri Paul, the driver of Princess Diana's car that fateful night, may have caused sufficient emotional distress to be a contributing factor in the accident, and that Mossad operatives in America had tapes of the phone-sex conversations between President Bill Clinton and his lover Monica Lewinsky. There's also some extensive material on the links between the Israelis and the Vatican, including the Mossad's role in the investigation into the attempted 1981 assassination of Pope John Paul II and the agency's constant battles against the PLO. An interesting nonfiction read for fans of international spy thrillers.
Book Description
Created in 1951 to ensure the future of an embattled Israel, the Mossad has been responsible for the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counterterrorism, and assassination ever ventured. Gordon Thomas's 1999 publication of Gideon's Spies, resulting from closed-door interviews with Mossad agents, informants, and spymasters as well as from classified documents and top-secret sources, revealed previously untold truths about the Israeli intelligence agency. And now, in this edition, Thomas updates his classic text and shows the Mossad as it truly is: brilliant, ruthless, and flawed, but ultimately awesome.Three all-new chapters cover topics including:- How the Mossad planned to assassinate Saddam Hussein- Saddam's food-testing ritual, and the surprising "source" within his government- China's U.S.-based front-companies, and its relationship with bin Laden- Mossad's untold role in the events before and after 9/11- Mossad and revelations about Princess Diana's death- The disappearance of the millions transferred from the Vatican Bank to the Polish Solidarity movement- How extremists recruit suicide bombers, including women- Mossad's untold role in the Iraq war and the hunts for Saddam and bin Laden- Saddam's plans for trial
Customer Reviews:
Read the book and annoy your friends daily with the astonishing stories........2007-07-12
It is very difficult not to call this book astonishing, but, as with any book on intelligence services, it earns itself a caveat. The problem with reading anything but an academic book on intelligence is that there is no way to verify any of the stories and separate fact from fiction, or more appropriately, myth. The stories in 'Gidion's Spies' could just as easily have been drawn out a script from James Bond as real life intelligence work. But the fact remains that we just don't know what goes on in the shadows of international relations. Having said that the detail and sources in the book gives these stories a frightening plausibility.
It is a macabre history of the 'self-proclaimed' most feared intelligence agency in the world. For sheer entertainment value 'Gideon's Spies' is highly recommendable and it will have you annoying your friends and colleagues on a daily basis with last nights 20 pages before you nodded off. That's if you can put the book down in the first place.
informing.......2006-07-24
I liked this book. I saw it some time ago in B&N and could not put it down. It does go into the give and take involved in espionage and shows that there is a gray line of right and wrong in fighting for your country. I myself both liked and disliked what was done by mossad. I do not know what history will say about the mossad but they have served a purpose. If you like stories about spying and what goes on behind the scenes then buy this book. It is clear, interesting and fun.
Interesting, but could be better........2006-05-31
Gordon Thomas's " Gideon's Spies : The Secret History of the Mossad " is a must read for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of Israel's intelligence service agency Mossad, and its working. I found the details and engrossing descriptions of the events to be extremely enlightening. Mossad, (formed in 1949 by the then prime minister of Israel - David Ben-Gurion) proved that it could go to any length in saving the interests of Israel. Events described in this book go from killing of Princess Dianna to attempted assassination of Pope. Because the events described in the book are from all over the globe, sometimes it makes you think that the book has nothing to do with Mossad. At the same time, those incidents are somewhere related (even remotely) with Mossad.
That being said, this is a very readable book. It's not light reading, but once you start, make a pot of coffee because you won't want to put it down, not before finishing it.
For me, this was a can't-put-it-down read.
A "Grassy Knoll" approach to history.......2006-02-21
I purchased Thomas' book with high hopes that it would be a reasoned, intelligent review of the history of Mossad, one of the world's most effective intelligence services, along the lines of Israel's Secret War's.
Sadly, such was not the case. Thomas is a conspiracy theorist who relies on innuendo and rumor to justify mindless theories and meaningless concepts, all in lieu of research and facts to tell what is an incredible story on its own. From little things, like referring to the Echelon surveillance system operated by the National Security Agency as monitoring every conversation between every individual virtually anywhere in the world (Echelon monitors electronic conversations, not every possible conversation) to secondhand references to the late William Casey, the then-director of the CIA, as suggesting that Mossad supplied arms to Hezbollah in the early 1980's when Israel invaded Lebanon, Thomas studiously avoids anything approaching professionalism or reasoned analysis.
Mossad is a rich topic for investigation, and there are excellent treatments on the subject. Thomas, unfortunately, is an unprofessional, sloppy and pathetic writer whose book demeans its subject.
Random bits of information.......2006-01-27
This book reminds me of the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist. Mr Thomas has a terrible tendancy of starting stories showing operatives in the present (which is totally uninteresting) then flashing back to the past. Often the flashbacks never revert to the present, or have another flashback within a flashback.
I am no expert on Israeli intelligence activities, but when an author falsly reports a simple fact "Israel has developed its own over-the-horizon accuracy for three German-build nuclear-powered submarines it had bought" (Germany doesn't have nuclear powered submarines, and Israel certainly doesn't have them) I begin to question his more controvertial theories and "facts."
Book Description
The House on Garibaldi Street is the true story of one of this century's most audacious intelligence operations - the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina by the Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence service. In a daring operation which shook the world, a team of elite Mossad agents, under the personal command of the legendary Mossad leader Isser Harel, kidnapped Eichmann and smuggled him to Israel. Eichmann's trial received unparalleled media coverage, and brought home to millions around the world the horror of the Holocaust through its principal co-ordinator. Eichmann was found guilty of genocide and was executed two years later. Harel's account was first published in 1975 and won world acclaim, being translated into more than 20 languages and selling more than a million copies. This new edition has been completely revised and updated. For the first time the real names and details of all Mossad personnel are revealed, as are important diplomatic contacts which shed new light on the political acceptability of the kidnapping, the operation being officially sanctioned not only by Israel, but also by West Germany. Shlomo Shpiro who worked personally with Isser Harel on the preparation of this new edition is an Israeli scholar specialising in intelligence and security issues. The House on Garibaldi Street has all the suspense, action and drama of a classic intelligence story - it is also an engrossing account to rival the best spy fiction.
Customer Reviews:
The best in its class.........2007-09-04
After reading various books on espionage, covert operations and israel intellingence, I haven't found anything so detailed, clearly and methodically narrated. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the holocaust .... The best..
Early days in the snatch and run business? Truth or fiction.......2007-04-21
I agree with Reviewer: Eric Maroney. A lot of it just didn't add up to me. Particularly the timing of the snatch and
some way over the top preparations (eg. teams arriving plane itineraries, the many rental cars, many rental houses, the roving cafe headquarters, the doctors certificate).
I mean reading this, Mr. Harel is talking as tho he's planning on holding off a siege once he gets Eichmann into a safe house (he calls them fortresses).
He talks of constructing hideouts within these rental houses, building secret passages in them, of installing "innocent families" as cover.
He sounds like he's going to stay in Argentina forever! Better safe than sorry, you say? These guys were making spectacles of themselves.
Mr. Harel knew the days when the plane was going to arrive (may 19) and depart (may 21). Yes the days had been postponed twice from the orig. May 11 date, but so what. All they had to do was snatch Eichmann and get em on the plane. KISS
Instead they grabbed him May 11 and held him. for ten days!! Doing so put them in much greater risk. Plus their guys were bitching cuz they had to wash and feed Eichmann and fake out the neighbors.
Where was Eichmann's place of work anyway? They never followed him from his house to his work. Why? Weren't they even curious as to what he did for a living?. Why was Eichmann living in such poverty (no indoor plumbing or electricity)?
It sounded like one big over-the-top disorganized mess.
Some parts lack veracity.......2006-11-30
Most reviews here stress the "true" elements of this book, and there is no doubt that a team of Mossad agents captured Eichmann in Argentina and brought him successfully back to Israel for trial under Harel's direction. But many scholars have doubted some of Harel's assertions. To see some of these, I suggest "Israel's Secret Wars" by Benny Morris and Tom Segev's section on the Eichmann trial in "The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust." Both scholars offer illuminating and critical comments on Harel's account.
Two elements which strike me as lacking plausibility is the account Harel gives of his attempts to capture Mengele while holding Eichmann. He continually stresses how time consuming the Eichmann mission is, but then devotes valuable time to hunting down Mengele. This parts seems apologetic: he is responding to (later) criticism of not being able to capture Mengele. In another part, Harel instructs the agent who will be handcuffed to Mengele if the transport to the airport is botched to inform the authorities of Harel's location. This seems the height of implausibility. Would the head of the Mossad offer his head up to the Argentinean authorities? He would be just the man who should NOT be captured in such a mission.
That said, this is an compelling book that is hard to stop reading. The reader just needs to keep aware that a book such as this will often have more motivations than simply telling the "truth."
true intelligence trumps fiction again.......2005-09-14
After months of search, I found and read this thriller. Here is a true story of daring, resourcefulness, dedication, and diligence in bringing to justice a mass murderer.
How the Mossad did this without beepers, cellphones, pagers, walkie-talkies or other "modern" paraphernalia of the espionage trade makes for non-stop fascinating reading. Not to be missed!!
An illuminating book about the world ot espionage.......2001-12-13
This book is a must read for those who are fasinated by the shadowy world of espionage. A magnificant account of the capture of the nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman, by the Mossad. Written by the chief Israeli spy master, Isser Harel, it is an in depth discription of how Eichman was found, tracked, captured, smuggled out of Argentina, and brought to trial. Get your hands on this book, it is truely amazing.
Book Description
A mesmerizing recreation of a village in Palestine and its characters, each gently and carefully called back from the past to tell their stories in a literary narrative of uncommon power and affection.
In 1917, the members of a spy ring who sought to assist the British in driving the Turks from Palestine were betrayed. Two were hanged; one, the iconically beautiful Sarah Aaronsohn, shot herself to escape torture and died a lingering death four days later. It was said that four of the women of the town of Zichron were seen laughing hysterically as the arrests of their neighbors were carried out. Each met a strange fate: one died prematurely, the second went mad, the third was an invalid and the fourth lived out her life in disrepute.
When Hillel Halkin read this story of the village that he lived in, it inspired him to begin a journey into the past. His friends and neighbors each offered a different version of the events of 1917, and Halkin discovered that each of them was in some way affected by the legendary fate of the spy ring. So he began to dig: into the stories, the artifacts and debris of the town, in which he found beguiling traces of events that had taken place half a century earlier. Most of all, Halkin listened to the village's storytellers, of whom none is more expansive than Yanko Epstein, who runs the town museum. Yet even Epstein, for all his love of a good yarn, proves to have a jaw like a steel trap when confronted with aspects of the ancient betrayal.
A journey into the place where history and legend overlap, a murder mystery, a lyrical evocation of the doomed attempt to build a Languedoc town on the Eastern Shores of the Mediterranean, a deft investigation into the betrayal of idealism- A Strange Death is all of these.
Customer Reviews:
Hardly the type of book that's easy to review.......2006-12-22
This story is not about the rhetorical question stated in the title as it would relate to a person, but is more as it relates to a time and era. The town of Zichron Ya'acov (memory of jacob) was named for Edmond de Rothschild who wanted to help settle pre-WWI Palestine with jewish farmers from Eastern Europe. They would grow their own food and be self-sufficient towns, but land would be personal property and not communal (like on a kibbutz).
During WWI a group of settlers in the town decided to help the British in the fight against the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire. They were known as NILI and are very much a part of Israeli history and lore, as Nathan Hale is to americans. The mystery of the story is that of four woman who celebrated when the NILI were taken by the Turks, they all had strange deaths, and maybe more than one of them was murdered.
Halkin's tale is more about the birth of Israel and the trials and deaths suffered under both the Turks and the British Mandate. It relates, on a first person basis, how Jews and Arabs viewed each other prior to WWII and how tensions grew as more and more Jews poored into Palestine in the 1930s. Lastly the story is about how little towns like Zichron have been turned into tourist meccas that have no relationship to the original towns. They're like 42nd Street after it's been cleaned up by Disney.
A Strange Book - What a Disappointment!.......2005-10-06
This book was a huge disappointment to me. Like many other Israelis I grew up with the story of "Nili" (there was a wonderful children's book about the secret organization that we all were assigned to read at school in the seventies). When I heard that a new book had been published about Nili, one that promised to uncover mysteries about the organization, I ran to order it.
What a flop. This book reads like a combination of a not-funny "Toujours Provence" and a very confusing "A Thousand and One Nights."
The book is divided between two subjects. On the one hand, are the author's memories of his life in Zichron in the seventies. The memories are neither interesting nor illustrative. I've been to Zichron a number of times and yet I had a hard time garnering any kind of mental image of the place based on Halkin's book. It's just a collection of disjointed impressions with very little meat and no connecting threads.
More irritating are the significant sections of the book devoted to Nili. In the first place, there are a lot of people mentioned; and it's like a shtetl story - "the aunt of the sister of the brother-in-law" - practically impossible to wade through the people mentioned without a card index. A couple of genealogical tables would have been hugely helpful.
Second, the many anecdotes do not really connect to each other. Some are pertinent to the story and some aren't. I knew the history of the case pretty well before starting the book and I had the hardest time "connecting the dots." The author doesn't really resolve any important mysteries, in my opinion--he just confused the hapless reader. I cannot imagine being able to make any sense of the situation had I not already known so much about the case. Halkin never really takes on the main characters in the Nili story. They remain shadowed behind mountains of meaningless gossip. So many important questions could have been debated at length and are never really touched. I did not leave the book with a better understanding of the period or the characters involved.
The bottom line is that I am uncertain what the author really wanted to tell us in this book and I have the feeling that he is just as confused. It's not a finished book and not an edited book. It's also not a book you should buy.
A interesting story full of intrigue.......2005-06-27
An interesting book. And from the author...
Jun. 23, 2005 13:19
Essay: Why bother writing books? (JERUSALEM POST)
By HILLEL HALKIN
I've just come back from a book tour in America. It's called a "book tour," it turns out, because of all the airplane flights and hotel rooms that have to be booked for it.
Not that it didn't have its moments. In a Barnes & Noble's in Manhattan I read from a new book of mine for a turnout that filled every seat. A big part of my audience was rounded up for the occasion by my 91-year-old mother-in-law, who was proud of the poster with her son-in-law's picture in the window.
Before I had left at the evening's end this had already been removed, in confirmation of Andy Warhol's well-known prediction that in the future everyone will be famous for at least 15 minutes.
Elsewhere, the crowds were not as large. In Chicago, where I was scheduled at a university bookstore in the middle of final exam week, I appeared before an audience of 10, which included a cousin of my wife's, an old high-school friend, and the store's manager. Two people bought books - a reasonable percentage that almost covered the taxi fares.
And then there was the night I arrived at my New York hotel after a grueling flight from Los Angeles. At the front desk was a note from my publishing house. I had half-an-hour, it said, to get to a broadcasting studio where I had been slotted into a Jewish talk show. I rushed, sweaty and unshaven, to the address given me, where I found myself in a recording studio in a West Side apartment, in the room next to which two little children lay fast asleep on the floor. My host, the father of five such progeny, informed me that on a good night he had half-a-million listeners.
After we had chatted over the air about my book, he took telephone calls. The one caller to pick up the phone was someone anxious to know my opinion on disengagement.
Before I returned to Israel we held a post-mortem at the publisher's.
"You know," I said, "this was pointless. We wasted my time and your money. What did we do this for?"
My publicist looked at my editor. My editor looked at my publicist. I had the impression that no author had ever asked them such a question before.
"We didn't want to disappoint you," my editor said.
SO now I knew: Book tours are designed for authors who love flying from city to city to entertain small groups of people who have been unable to obtain theater tickets or bridge club invitations for the evening. It would be cruel to disappoint them.
What's for sure is that low-budget book tours don't sell books. But then, what does? Not good reviews. (I can vouch for that, because my books have had plenty of them.) Not the Internet either, which is useful for buying books that you've already heard about, but not for discovering ones you haven't.
And certainly not bookstores, 80% of which belong to big chains that wouldn't display a new book prominently, even if it were a lost volume of the Bible, without a sizable payment from its publisher. In the absence of such kickbacks, the most a book can hope for is to stand on a shelf with hundreds of others, its pinched spine facing outward like a condemned man before the firing squad.
What sells books is money. Lots of it. The more a publishing house spends on promotion, the more it stands to make in return. The problem is that there's an element of risk involved, and nowadays, when editors and their bosses are hired and fired by the managers of the conglomerates they work for as quickly as baseball managers by major-league owners, risks are not something that many of them want to take.
It works like this. Suppose Arnold Hopeful has written a novel and gotten a modest $25,000 advance for it. Suppose, too, that it's judged to be good but no blockbuster, and that Hopeful's publisher, Doomed Books, might sell 20,000 copies and earn $250,000 if it put $50,000 into promotion. But then again, it might not - and if it doesn't its directors know that at the end of the year an accountant from General Business or Amalgamated Investments is going to come around and demand to know why $50,000 were thrown away on a bummer.
This accountant, who may never have read a book in his life, will be less interested in Hopeful's literary talents than in the editor-in-chief of Doomed Books' scalp - which is why said editor will let Hopeful's novel fend for itself while relying on reviews and word-of-mouth to sell the 2,500 copies needed to recoup the initial investment. Better to break even and be asked no questions than to try to make money and jeopardize one's job.
ON THE other hand, suppose Doomed Books has gone and paid a $500,000 advance to the young superstar Nathan Flashpan, who has submitted a manuscript no better than Hopeful's. If our editor-in-chief wishes to avoid the ax, he may pour a million dollars into publicizing Flashpan's book in the hope of selling 100,000 copies and earning the advance back. In this sense, most publishing today is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a publisher feels a book must do well and spends accordingly, it probably will do well. If not, its prospects are slim.
The overwhelming majority of books published are the second kind. They face, if not the firing squad, Siberia. The same abundantly stocked stores such as Borders or Barnes & Noble's that seem so wonderfully inviting to book buyers are depressingly grim places for authors. Over 600 volumes are reputedly published in America every day, most of which never make it into the bookstores at all, but even those that do are up against hopeless odds. If they're not lucky enough to be displayed in the windows or on the front tables they have about as much chance of being picked out for adoption as a stray dog at the pound.
Why anyone continues to write books at all under such conditions is a good question. Presumably, it's just a habit we can't break. Indeed, it might be best at this point to declare a 100-year moratorium on all book writing so that readers can be given the opportunity to catch up with what's already on the shelves.
Meanwhile, I beg you all to buy my new book. It's .
The remainder of this sentence has been deleted by the editors of this newspaper, to whom Mr. Halkin did not pay a kickback.
Book Description
A hugely controversial work that exposes a series of scandals from Oliver North to the British royal family, The Secret War Against the Jews reveals as much about political corruption inside Western intelligence as it does about Israel. Using thousands of previously top-secret documents and interviews with hundreds of current and former spies, Loftus and Aarons, both veteran investigators, Nazi-hunters, and authors, present a compelling narrative.The authors demonstrate that numerous Western countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, have conducted repeated and willful spying missions on Palestine and later Israel over many decades. While on the surface these two countries and others profess to be ardent allies of Israel, they work, in fact, through their intelligence services to betray Israel's secrets to the Arabs. Their motive: oil and multinational profits, which must be attained at any price through international covert policies.The pageant of characters appearing in this narrative is vast and shocking. This is not only a compelling work of history, but also a volume whose grave allegations will be debated for years to come.
Customer Reviews:
The Hobo Philosopher.......2007-08-24
This was a difficult book. I bought it because of its promised research between the wars and the American Nazi connection. I wanted to see if the "spy" business corroborated information that I have been discovering with regards to the funding of Hitler. It did. I was also impressed by the backgrounds of the authors. The remainder of the book dealing with after World War II, I can not vouch for. From my perspective we will just have to wait and see. All the allegations are possible but only future historical investigations will supply the truth. The book kept my interest and I read every page but its scope and deviousness is really beyond me. I still haven't made up my mind whether I am convinced enough to buy the authors other book about the Catholic Church. I may.
Secret War Against The Zionists.......2007-03-21
After having read Loftus's and Aarons's book, I realized its major flaw -- the title of their book: "The Secret War Against The Jews." To be fair and objective toward the proper analysis of modern history, the title of their book should have been: "The Secret War Against The Zionists!"
The authors seem to imply throughtout their book that ALL Jews are Zionists and that ALL Zionists are Jews (not true); and that ALL Jews believe they need a homeland (Israel) where they can be FREE to be Jews, as if the United States and the Statue Of Liberty never existed! (It's easy to prove that more Jews died of anti-semitism in Israel, in the last 60 years, than in the whole 250 year history of the United States! To imply that the U.S. is not safe for Jews (to be Jews) is, in and of itself, un-patriotic and anti-American!)
Before 1930, the Zionist's greatest enemies were not the anti-semites, but the vast multitude of world Jewry itself! Most Jews (who were essentially non-Zionists) were content to live in the nations of their birth. Those who were forced to migrate, because of anti-semitic pogroms (e.g., Russia and Eastern Europe), preferred to migrate to Western Europe and the United States, not Palestine! The Zionist's major dilemma (at the time, pre-1933), was a major lack of Jewish VOLUNTEERISM to go to Palestine! Without a Jewish people, there can be no Jewish state (i.e., Israel). This is one of the greatest 'epiphanies' of modern history, which is a major factor avoided in John Loftus's and Mark Aarons's book! When mass VOLUNTEERISM (Jews for Palestine) doesn't work, how might fanatical Zionists accomplish their goal of creating and populating the state of Israel??
The real secret war against "The Jews" came from the Zionists (themselves) and their (e.g., Stern Gang) covert collaboration with anti-semites (e.g., helping to bring the Nazis to power) in order to create a mass refugee class of Jews (non-volunteers) to go to Palestine. Without Hitler, there could be no Israel! Thus, the Holocaust which resulted in 6 million Jews dying and the creation of tens of thousands of surviving refugees with nowhere to go but Palestine! As a result, Western leaders tried to stop the forced migration of refugee Jews, by Zionists, to Palestine. The foreign policy establishment of both Britain and the United States (then & now) waged a secret war against the Zionists to keep them from destabilizing the Middle East by provoking the oil cartels' Islamic partners on the eve of a profitable 'Petroleum Era!'
There is also an important analogy that Loftus and Aaron avoided in their book! In the 1960's, Blacks (e.g., Martin Luther King, et al) fought for their HUMAN and CIVIL RIGHTS as citizens, here, in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement was NOT a campaign for the "right of Blacks to emigrate to a nation of their own, where Blacks can be safe to be Black!"
There will never be peace in the Middle East until people learn that there is a distinct difference between anti-semitism (racist bigotry against Jews) and anti-Zionism (a political campaign against Israeli national , ethnic, religious supremism); and that there is a common denominator (factor) that binds most Zionists with the objectives of most anti-semites (with the exception of the Arabs, of course): they would love for all Jews to go live in Israel!
The greatest suspense story of treachery against 20th Century Jews .......2007-01-11
This book is filled with the most incredible documented secret and unknown facts of treason agains the entire Jewish people around the world by "civilized" countries during the 20th Century and should be a required history textbook for all schools. It is also one of the best suspense and spy books ever written. I have already purchased 7 copies and given them as gifts and will continue to do so in the future.
Can the past be prologue?.......2006-08-31
Having been involved in intelligence work early in my life and having kept watching intel shenanigans, a book about the secret war against the Jews got my attention and I had an opportunity to read and research much of its contents. I found answers to questions I had not found since the creation of Israel. Why would such a widely divergent group of political leaders suddenly see eye to eye and approve something as controversial and futile as creating a Jewish State surrounded by masses of Arabs seeking their destruction? It is amazing how the founders of Israel were able to use the weaknesses of these world leaders to effectively blackmail them. In view of the current situation in Lebanon, Syria and Iran it was very educational to learn about the USS Liberty betrayal and subsequent conspiracy to hide the facts.
This is a disturbing yet revealing book that makes you wonder about how much you really know about the machinations and motivations of world leaders as compared to their public pronouncements and soundbites. If you are a serious reader blessed, or cursed, with sufficient cynical curiosity, you should read the book and judge its accuracy for yourself. I am warning you, however, you may have sleepless nights realizing how we have been and are being misled by a cynical shadow intel establishment.
The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People.......2006-07-19
The book was in great conidtion; I have no complaints.
Average customer rating:
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The Nili Spies
Anita Engle
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0714648035 |
Book Description
An extraordinary tale, much-neglected by historians, of courage, bravery and eventual tragedy which took place during the First World War in the Middle East. It is the story of a small group of people, of whom Sarah and Aaron Aaronsohn were the core, who were devoted to the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, and who were convinced that it was in imminent danger of extinction from the Turks.They resolved to help the British in Egypt by collecting military intelligence. Unfortunately, as Peter Calvocoressi points out, their understanding of the British position was quite wrong...[their] miscalculations created the tragedy which this book recounts...'
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AGENTS OF EMPIRE: Anglo-Zionist International Operations
Antony Verrier
Manufacturer: Brassey's UK
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1857530349 |
Book Description
Agents of Empire is the story of a unique partnership, forged by war and matured in friendship. Brigadier Walter Gribbon, formerly of the King's Own Royal Regiment, after junior staff service in the early stages of the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War 1, was posted to the War Office to serve as a major under Major General George Mcdonogh, the Director of Military Intelligence. Aaron Aaronsohn was a distinguished agronomist working in Palestine, occassionally in the Turkish Administration. He was also a Jew and a Zionist.
Increasingly convinced that a future for his people depended on British support, Aaronsohn and his family offered their services as intelligence agents to the Brirish in Cairo. They were rebuffed. Aaron then journeyed from Damascas to London, where, in October 1916, he met Walter Gribbon. With the support of Zionists such as Mark Sykes and Wyndham Deedes, Gribbon amd Aaronsohn set in train an intelligence operation which greatly helped General Allenby to defeat the Turkish Army in the Levant to give Britain its 'moment' in the Middle East and lay the foundations for a Zionist state.
Bringing together for the first time Gribbon's private papers and Aaronsohn's diaries, in addition to other previously unpublished material, Agents of Empire reveals the extent of British political and strategic support for a Zionist state in the latter part of World War 1.
Average customer rating:
- A brillant story well told
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False Flag: The Soviet Spy Who Penetrated the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service
Zeev Avni
Manufacturer: Little, Brown Book Group
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0953615111 |
Book Description
A "False Flag" is the most complex and dangerous of intelligence operations—it is the recruitment of an agent who believes he is working for an entirely different country. Raised in Switzerland and fluent in German, Zeev Avni's specialty in Mossad was to cultivate former Nazis employed as military advisers to rebuild Egypt's army. None would willingly have cooperated with him if they had suspected for one moment that he was a Jew and a professional Israeli intelligence officer. Nor would Mossad have promoted him if they had known that their star performer was a long-term mole who for years had hemorrhaged secrets to the Soviets. When Avni's triple life was eventually exposed, he was tried in secret and sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment. Now, for the first time, he tells the story Mossad would prefer to forget. His engrossing story of commitment, duplicity, and betrayal is the only documented case of Mossad's penetration by Soviets, and it will be regarded as a classic by aficionados of espionage.
Customer Reviews:
A brillant story well told.......2007-07-30
I thought that this was an incredible story of a Russian agent Zeev Avni who penetrated the Mossad.
His story read like a novel with the advantage that it was true.
I found it stunning how easy it was to catch him. The Russians never coached him what to say maybe because to the Russians a caught spy had little value anyway so why bother. Still that costed them a valuable spy.
Later I found it fascinating the way his outlook changed because of Khrushchev's speech against Stalin. I found it interesting the way he changed away from a communism. I see a likeness between his change from communism in jail and Arthur Koestler's who also in jail turned against communism.
I do wish the book would have covered more what Zeev Avni's actually did both in WW2 in a Soviet espionage in Switzerland and later in the Mossad. Either would make a great sequel although I suspect the secrets he told the Russians are still marked not to be released in Israel.
Books:
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- Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam
- Had Enough?: A Handbook for Fighting Back
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- How to Get Your Lover Back: Successful Strategies for Starting Over (& Making It Better Than It Was Before)
- How to Run for Local Office : A Complete, Step-By-Step Guide that Will Take You Through the Entire Process of Running and Winning a Local Election
- Hugo Chavez: The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela
- India: Emerging Power
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