...from the looks of Rise and Kill First, he knows more than he’s supposed to ... What follows is an exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject. Blending history and investigative reporting, Bergman never loses sight of the ethical questions ... far from an apologia. If anything, Bergman suggests that Israel’s honed aptitude for clandestine assassinations led the country to rely on them to a fault, approaching some complex strategic and political concerns as problems that an extrajudicial killing could fix ... This book is full of shocking moments, surprising disturbances in a narrative full of fateful twists and unintended consequences.
His book is not a rant: based on a thousand interviews and vast numbers of leaked documents, it is often exciting, sometimes moving and always considered. And if his narrative sometimes has a hint of John le Carré, it always has a moral core ...
Some of Bergman’s findings are so extraordinary as to be barely credible ... Not only is Bergman’s book a stunning feat of research and a riveting read, it is also testament to the author’s personal courage.
...authoritative and exhaustive ... Many of the stories Bergman offers are not new, but he adds telling details. Still, after a while the accounts begin to blur and the chapters start to read like an endless police blotter. Call it, literally, 'Israel's Greatest Hits' ... Bergman paints a chilling portrait of the evolution of the assassination program.
Showing the unique mentality of Israelis when it comes to dealing with their violent neighbors, Bergman presents a range of viewpoints on the impact assassinating terrorists has had on the entire history of the State of Israel ... In its presentation of new information regarding previously known hits and misses, gleaned through meticulous research and interviews with key players on both sides of the continual military struggle, Bergman's work is unquestionably authoritative. He succeeds masterfully in telling the tale of a nation reborn.
Ronen Bergman’s account of his country’s targeted assassinations contains a wealth of detail about this and other killings ... Bergman is one of Israel’s leading investigative journalists with a reputation for scoops on shadowy subjects ... he clearly has remarkable access, citing internal accounts of operations and scores of interviews with spymasters, agent-handlers and killers, keen to tell their stories ...
Bergman’s style tends to the sensational but that does not mask a critical strand that questions the morality and effectiveness of Israel’s approach to dealing with the enemy in its own backyard.
Reading Bergman's prodigiously researched book prompts many conclusions, but foremost of them is this: nobody anywhere in this huge, bristling story has any monopoly on morality ... It's a mile-wide moral distinction, but it's irrelevant junk on the roadside throughout Bergman's book, which relates in unprecedented detail the decades-long history of Israel's Mossad ... Many of these particular stories have never been told before, and virtually none of them have been told this well, in this much detail. Bergman's skill at sketching characters extends ... Bergman is exceedingly skilled at all this ... illuminating.
...[an] excellent account ... long but event-filled ... While recognizing the efficacy of political assassination, Bergman is also sharply critical of its use, which is rife with those unintended consequences and often involves the killing of civilians—leading, in turn, to the deaths of civilian Israelis ... A significant contribution to our understanding of Middle Eastern politics and its far-reaching effects.
