Pumpkinflowers

Pumpkinflowers PDF Author: Matti Friedman
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 161620608X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
“A book about young men transformed by war, written by a veteran whose dazzling literary gifts gripped my attention from the first page to the last.” —The Wall Street Journal “Friedman’s sober and striking new memoir . . . [is] on a par with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried -- its Israeli analog.” —The New York Times Book Review It was just one small hilltop in a small, unnamed war in the late 1990s, but it would send out ripples that are still felt worldwide today. The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; flowers was the military code word for “casualties.” Award-winning writer Matti Friedman re-creates the harrowing experience of a band of young Israeli soldiers charged with holding this remote outpost, a task that would change them forever, wound the country in ways large and small, and foreshadow the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Pumpkinflowers is a reckoning by one of those young soldiers now grown into a remarkable writer. Part memoir, part reportage, part history, Friedman’s powerful narrative captures the birth of today’s chaotic Middle East and the rise of a twenty-first-century type of war in which there is never a clear victor and media images can be as important as the battle itself. Raw and beautifully rendered, Pumpkinflowers will take its place among classic war narratives by George Orwell, Philip Caputo, and Tim O’Brien. It is an unflinching look at the way we conduct war today.

Pumpkinflowers

Pumpkinflowers PDF Author: Matti Friedman
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 161620608X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
“A book about young men transformed by war, written by a veteran whose dazzling literary gifts gripped my attention from the first page to the last.” —The Wall Street Journal “Friedman’s sober and striking new memoir . . . [is] on a par with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried -- its Israeli analog.” —The New York Times Book Review It was just one small hilltop in a small, unnamed war in the late 1990s, but it would send out ripples that are still felt worldwide today. The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; flowers was the military code word for “casualties.” Award-winning writer Matti Friedman re-creates the harrowing experience of a band of young Israeli soldiers charged with holding this remote outpost, a task that would change them forever, wound the country in ways large and small, and foreshadow the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Pumpkinflowers is a reckoning by one of those young soldiers now grown into a remarkable writer. Part memoir, part reportage, part history, Friedman’s powerful narrative captures the birth of today’s chaotic Middle East and the rise of a twenty-first-century type of war in which there is never a clear victor and media images can be as important as the battle itself. Raw and beautifully rendered, Pumpkinflowers will take its place among classic war narratives by George Orwell, Philip Caputo, and Tim O’Brien. It is an unflinching look at the way we conduct war today.

Every Spy A Prince: The Complete History of Israel’s Intelligence Community

Every Spy A Prince: The Complete History of Israel’s Intelligence Community PDF Author: Dan Raviv
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
On the New York Times Best Seller list for 12 weeks (August 12-October 28, 1990) “This is a comprehensive history of Israel’s security establishment. The authors celebrate successes like Eichmann’s capture, but far more interestingly, they do not shy away from examining the security services’ failures... the book is riveting because Israel’s early intelligence feats still resonate in today’s world... the book makes valuable reading for anyone interested in Israel’s world-wide plans to deal with matters affecting its security.” — Wall Street Journal “The authors... obviously found enough talkative sources... to provide them with the remarkable case histories they describe here. Even though some of the Israeli operatives sound boastful, the book is not propaganda or disinformation. While it is filled with many examples of how Mossad pulled off major coups, the authors are at pains to point out that the Israelis sometimes goofed... The authors flesh out stories that once made headlines with fresh material. Not all the Israeli intelligence triumphs involved violence. The Israelis managed to outrun the C.I.A. and all of Western Europe’s spy agencies in getting their hands on a copy of Nikita S. Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956 to a special Communist Party Congress in Moscow that exposed the horrors of the Stalin era... The story of the 1960 capture in Buenos Aires of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal, by Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, is lovingly re-created. A high point of Israeli intelligence came in 1967, during the Six-Day War, when foreknowledge of enemy positions and abilities paved the way for a rapid victory. The astonishing rescue in 1976 by army commandos of hijacked passengers from Entebbe airport in distant Uganda gained added respect for Israel in the Western world. Against the triumphs, the authors balance these failures: Mossad’s misjudgments in Lebanon, Shin Bet’s killings of Arab terrorists in captivity, and the involvement of Israel in the disarray of Irangate. In addition, double agents were used in Britain and caught there; an American, Jonathan Pollard, was encouraged to spy and sell military secrets to Israel, and faulty intelligence resulted in ‘misleading the Government over the future of the occupied territories, just as a Palestinian uprising was beginning.’... [a] highly revealing book.” — New York Times “Everything you wanted to know about Israel’s spies and secret services — but were afraid to discover. This comprehensive history and analysis of the Israeli intelligence community offers many original insights into the secret psyche of the Jewish State... The book presents new information on some of Israel’s greatest intelligence coups and failures.” — Kirkus “Basing their work on interviews with former operatives and on declassified documents, CBS news correspondent Raviv and Israeli journalist Melman here produced a revealing critical history of the rise and decline of Israel’s vaunted security and intelligence arm.“ — Publishers Weekly “[A] detailed history of Israel’s intelligence agencies.“ — Washington Post “Every Spy a Prince is by far the best book ever published on Israel’s intelligence community, filled with new and fascinating information, skillfully and intelligently written and, above all, bold and judicious in its assessments of the triumphs and failures of one of the most remarkable espionage organizations in the world.” — San Francisco Chronicle “A highly readable, well-organized portrait of the main Israeli intelligence services .. . . Every Spy a Prince is a valuable, balanced addition to the mushrooming literature about the world’s second oldest profession.” — Newsday

The Aleppo Codex

The Aleppo Codex PDF Author: Matti Friedman
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 161620270X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Winner of the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature A thousand years ago, the most perfect copy of the Hebrew Bible was written. It was kept safe through one upheaval after another in the Middle East, and by the 1940s it was housed in a dark grotto in Aleppo, Syria, and had become known around the world as the Aleppo Codex. Journalist Matti Friedman’s true-life detective story traces how this precious manuscript was smuggled from its hiding place in Syria into the newly founded state of Israel and how and why many of its most sacred and valuable pages went missing. It’s a tale that involves grizzled secret agents, pious clergymen, shrewd antiquities collectors, and highly placed national figures who, as it turns out, would do anything to get their hands on an ancient, decaying book. What it reveals are uncomfortable truths about greed, state cover-ups, and the fascinating role of historical treasures in creating a national identity.

Spies for Hire

Spies for Hire PDF Author: Tim Shorrock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743282248
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
Reveals the formidable organization of intelligence outsourcing that has developed between the U.S. government and private companies since 9/11, in a report that reveals how approximately seventy percent of the nation's funding for top-secret tasks is now being funneled to higher-cost third-party contractors. 35,000 first printing.

The Spy and the Traitor

The Spy and the Traitor PDF Author: Ben Macintyre
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101904208
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. “The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.

War of Shadows

War of Shadows PDF Author: Gershom Gorenberg
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610396286
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
In this World War II military history, Rommel's army is a day from Cairo, a week from Tel Aviv, and the SS is ready for action. Espionage brought the Nazis this far, but espionage can stop them—if Washington wakes up to the danger. As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led his Axis army swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Each step was informed by detailed updates on British positions. The Nazis, somehow, had a source for the Allies' greatest secrets. Yet the Axis powers were not the only ones with intelligence. Brilliant Allied cryptographers worked relentlessly at Bletchley Park, breaking down the extraordinarily complex Nazi code Enigma. From decoded German messages, they discovered that the enemy had a wealth of inside information. On the brink of disaster, a fevered and high-stakes search for the source began. War of Shadows is the cinematic story of the race for information in the North African theater of World War II, set against intrigues that spanned the Middle East. Years in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war. It portrays the conflict not as an inevitable clash of heroes and villains but a spiraling series of failures, accidents, and desperate triumphs that decided the fate of the Middle East and quite possibly the outcome of the war.

Rise and Kill First

Rise and Kill First PDF Author: Ronen Bergman
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679604685
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 784

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first definitive history of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF’s targeted killing programs, hailed by The New York Times as “an exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject.” WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN HISTORY NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY JENNIFER SZALAI, THE NEW YORK TIMES NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Economist • The New York Times Book Review • BBC History Magazine • Mother Jones • Kirkus Reviews The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes preemptively. In this page-turning, eye-opening book, journalist and military analyst Ronen Bergman—praised by David Remnick as “arguably [Israel’s] best investigative reporter”—offers a riveting inside account of the targeted killing programs: their successes, their failures, and the moral and political price exacted on the men and women who approved and carried out the missions. Bergman has gained the exceedingly rare cooperation of many current and former members of the Israeli government, including Prime Ministers Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as high-level figures in the country’s military and intelligence services: the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), the Mossad (the world’s most feared intelligence agency), Caesarea (a “Mossad within the Mossad” that carries out attacks on the highest-value targets), and the Shin Bet (an internal security service that implemented the largest targeted assassination campaign ever, in order to stop what had once appeared to be unstoppable: suicide terrorism). Including never-before-reported, behind-the-curtain accounts of key operations, and based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews and thousands of files to which Bergman has gotten exclusive access over his decades of reporting, Rise and Kill First brings us deep into the heart of Israel’s most secret activities. Bergman traces, from statehood to the present, the gripping events and thorny ethical questions underlying Israel’s targeted killing campaign, which has shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East, and the entire world. “A remarkable feat of fearless and responsible reporting . . . important, timely, and informative.”—John le Carré

Spies Against Armageddon

Spies Against Armageddon PDF Author: Dan Raviv
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780985437893
Category : Intelligence service
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Authors' names reversed in original Hebrew printing.

Red Sea Spies

Red Sea Spies PDF Author: Raffi Berg
Publisher: Icon Books
ISBN: 1785786016
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
THE TRUE STORY THAT INSPIRED THE NETFLIX FILM THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT. 'Secret missions, brazen deceptions and thrilling, clandestine operations - Red Sea Spies has it all. But it has something more important, too - a genuine human mission that made a difference.' David Hoffman, author of The Billion Dollar Spy '[A] thrilling and meticulous account.' The Times In the early 1980s on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury holiday resort opened for business. Catering for divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the holidaymakers know that the staff were undercover spies, working for the Mossad - the Israeli secret service. Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews who had been languishing in refugee camps, and the spiriting of them to Israel. Written in collaboration with operatives involved in the mission, endorsed as the definitive account and including an afterword from the commander who went on to become the head of the Mossad, this is the complete, never-before-heard, gripping tale of a top-secret and often hazardous operation. 'Red Sea Spies is what really happened. There is none of the Hollywood colouring-in, and yet the book is all the more vivid for it ... part thriller, part dark comedy, all true ... Berg brings out the native drama in an improbable story of a clandestine homecoming.' Spectator

Like Dreamers

Like Dreamers PDF Author: Yossi Klein Halevi
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062274821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
“Powerful. . . . beautifully written . . . . There is much to admire . . . especially Mr. Halevi’s skill at getting inside the hearts and minds of these seven men” —Ethan Bronner, New York Times Following the lives of seven young members from the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade, the unit responsible for restoring Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War, acclaimed journalist Yossi Klein Halevi reveals how this band of brothers played pivotal roles in shaping Israel’s destiny long after their historic victory. While they worked together to reunite their country in 1967, these men harbored drastically different visions for Israel’s future. One emerges at the forefront of the religious settlement movement, while another is instrumental in the 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. One becomes a driving force in the growth of Israel’s capitalist economy, while another ardently defends the socialist kibbutzim. One is a leading peace activist, while another helps create an anti-Zionist terror underground in Damascus. Featuring eight pages of black-and-white photos and maps, Like Dreamers is a nuanced, in-depth look at these diverse men and the conflicting beliefs that have helped to define modern Israel and the Middle East. “A beautifully written and sometimes heartbreaking account of these men, their families, and their nation.” —Booklist, starred review “Halevi's book is executed with imagination, narrative drive, and, above all, deep empathy for a wide variety of Israelis, and the result is a must-read for anyone with an interest in contemporary Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Mr. Halevi’s masterly book brings us into [the] . . . debate and the lives of those who live it.” —Elliott Abrams, Wall Street Journal