The coauthors bring impressive credentials in the fields of history, military strategy, intelligence, literature, politics, and media to this work. Events chronicled date from 1948 to the near present. Subjects include the struggle to break the siege of Jewish Jerusalem during the War for Independence; the Sinai Campaign; the Six Day War; Entebbe; engagements in Lebanon; Israeli attempts to deny nuclear weapons to its enemies; Iron Dome, and the growing menace of Iran.
A somber segment is entitled “The Never-Ending Story in Gaza-2008, 2012, 2014.” The epilogue features a fulfillment of the Zionist dream-the missions to bring most of Ethiopian Jewry “home” in Operations Moses and Solomon. Israeli technology, creative planning, intelligence savvy receive credit for such achievements. The heroism of individuals, some already well-known, is heralded. Ben Gurion, Begin, Shamir, Eshkol,Barak, Sharon, and the Netanyahus, Yoni and Bibi, light up the narrative. This volume offers information which will be new to some readers. Prime Minister Ehud Barak, disguised as an Arab woman, led a raid into Beirut to eliminate a leader of Black September, the terrorist group responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died in the Columbia shuttle disaster, was one of the pilots who destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. A prominent military officer, Raful Eitan, was a descendant of the Subotniks, a non-Jewish Russian sect whose members converted and immigrated to Palestine in the late nineteenth century. The first President Bush, never regarded as a strong supporter of Israel, played a significant role in the rescue of Ethiopian Jewry. This is an exciting and worthwhile rendering of responses to threats to Israel’s survival. The style of writing is popular. However, the organization in eight parts and 27 chapters does not make for easy reading.
Acknowledgements, bibliography, glossary, index, photographs, source notes.
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