Books I’m Reading 14) Striking Back by Aaron Klein
http://www.amazon.com/Striking-Back-Olympics-Massacre-Response/dp/0812974638/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241874954&sr=8-2
I’m a fan of the CBS show The Unit, which incidentally appears to be on the chopping block for next season which kinda bums me out since it found a good cast and a nice niche in TV drama, but I digress. This book is something of an interesting mix between historical recount with good research and a dramatization of Israeli assassination missions stemming from their response to the terrorist attack against the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Olympics. I say it’s well researched and I’m pretty sure it is but honestly didn’t really go through many of the notes. Still it sounds good. I bring up the TV show here because the commonalities of the fictional team in that show and the real Israeli team known as “The Unit” are less commonly realized.
The first half of this book is mostly devoted to historical recount of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorism event and an analysis that pretty much slams the Germans. In something of an irony, the German anti-terror groups since then have developed a solid reputation since the fallout of this sad event.
And I have to admit I’m feeling like kind of a wuss while reading some of this getting choked up during the recount. I’m pretty sure that some of the dramatic liberty is taken with the actual recount, rather than a simple bland historical recount, but it serves to better tell the story.
A little more than half of the book is devoted to a recount of different Israeli missions that came as a result of the 1972 attacks. It’s told less from a historical perspective and more from a dramatic angle. Repetitious at times (for example there’s multiple mentions of the fact that Mossad SOP is to have the getaway car exactly two 90 degree turns away from the site of an assassination, and honestly do I care if it’s two or three? Not really) it still tells a compelling narrative, especially to those who aren’t very familiar with it.
Overall it’s a good book but one that is missing in some key areas. There’s a little discussion of the political debate regarding Israel’s terrorist assassination policies but not much on the moral side. Klein does a quick brush over talking about the three justifications for such action (deterrence, prevention and revenge) but no real discussion of the moral nor the practical consequences of such action. While I have great respect for the skills of Israeli commandos, I think a greater discussion of state sponsored vs non-state terrorism is warranted. There’s a significant difference in how one can react to state vs non-state actors that deserves to be flushed out. How does one react to a group which has no bases? You can’t launch an airstrike against a group which has no physical buildings to destroy. How does one attempt to minimize the inevitable collateral damage and what is an acceptable level of collateral damage? How does one objectively distinguish between the justifiable (personal opinion here) deterrence and prevention rationales and the pointless (again personal opinion) actions of revenge?
Overall it’s a good read and one worth the time if you’d like a good dose of military history but told as a drama. And anyway it’s always nice to think about a future Israeli PM (Ehud Barak) as a cross-dresser.
I’m a fan of the CBS show The Unit, which incidentally appears to be on the chopping block for next season which kinda bums me out since it found a good cast and a nice niche in TV drama, but I digress. This book is something of an interesting mix between historical recount with good research and a dramatization of Israeli assassination missions stemming from their response to the terrorist attack against the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Olympics. I say it’s well researched and I’m pretty sure it is but honestly didn’t really go through many of the notes. Still it sounds good. I bring up the TV show here because the commonalities of the fictional team in that show and the real Israeli team known as “The Unit” are less commonly realized.
The first half of this book is mostly devoted to historical recount of the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorism event and an analysis that pretty much slams the Germans. In something of an irony, the German anti-terror groups since then have developed a solid reputation since the fallout of this sad event.
And I have to admit I’m feeling like kind of a wuss while reading some of this getting choked up during the recount. I’m pretty sure that some of the dramatic liberty is taken with the actual recount, rather than a simple bland historical recount, but it serves to better tell the story.
A little more than half of the book is devoted to a recount of different Israeli missions that came as a result of the 1972 attacks. It’s told less from a historical perspective and more from a dramatic angle. Repetitious at times (for example there’s multiple mentions of the fact that Mossad SOP is to have the getaway car exactly two 90 degree turns away from the site of an assassination, and honestly do I care if it’s two or three? Not really) it still tells a compelling narrative, especially to those who aren’t very familiar with it.
Overall it’s a good book but one that is missing in some key areas. There’s a little discussion of the political debate regarding Israel’s terrorist assassination policies but not much on the moral side. Klein does a quick brush over talking about the three justifications for such action (deterrence, prevention and revenge) but no real discussion of the moral nor the practical consequences of such action. While I have great respect for the skills of Israeli commandos, I think a greater discussion of state sponsored vs non-state terrorism is warranted. There’s a significant difference in how one can react to state vs non-state actors that deserves to be flushed out. How does one react to a group which has no bases? You can’t launch an airstrike against a group which has no physical buildings to destroy. How does one attempt to minimize the inevitable collateral damage and what is an acceptable level of collateral damage? How does one objectively distinguish between the justifiable (personal opinion here) deterrence and prevention rationales and the pointless (again personal opinion) actions of revenge?
Overall it’s a good read and one worth the time if you’d like a good dose of military history but told as a drama. And anyway it’s always nice to think about a future Israeli PM (Ehud Barak) as a cross-dresser.
posted by rpalmeira at 6:37 AM
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