{"product_id":"striking-back-isbn-9780812974638","title":"Striking Back","description":"“This is a thriller, a page-turner, a probing look into the inner workings of the assassination squads that Israel mobilized after the Munich massacre.”\u003cbr\u003e–David K. Shipler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eArab and Jew\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Gratitude is due to Mr. Klein for his painstaking . . . book, the best one could possibly hope for.”\u003cbr\u003e–Walter Lacquer, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAward-winning journalist Aaron J. Klein tells, for the first time, the complete story of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and the Israeli counterterrorism operation it spawned. With unprecedented access to Mossad agents and an unparalleled knowledge of Israeli intelligence, Klein peels back the layers of myth and misinformation that have permeated previous books, films, and magazine articles about the “shadow war” against Black September and other related terrorist groups. In this riveting account, long-held secrets are finally revealed, including who was killed and who was not, how it was done, which targets were hit and which were missed. In the end, Klein shows that the Israeli response to Munich was not simply about revenge, as is popularly believed. By illuminating the tactical and strategic purposes of the Israeli operation, \u003ci\u003eStriking Back \u003c\/i\u003eallows us to draw profoundly relevant lessons from one of the most important counterterrorism campaigns in history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Klein] makes it clear why [the Munich attacks were] a pivotal event in the evolution of global terrorism.” \u003cbr\u003e–Janet Maslin, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A drama-filled look at the murders and Israeli reprisals.”\u003cbr\u003e–Billy Heller, \u003ci\u003eNew York Post\u003c\/i\u003e (“Required Reading”)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A real thriller that will unnerve as much as it captivates.”\u003cbr\u003e–Laurence Washington, \u003ci\u003eRocky Mountain News\u003c\/i\u003eAaron J. Klein is Time magazine’s Military and Intelligence Affairs correspondent in the Jerusalem Bureau. He was the recipient of 2002 Henry Luce Award and has been a consultant for CNN. Klein was the military\/security correspondent and analyst for Hadashot and Al-Hamishmar, two of Israel’s leading national newspapers. He is a contributor to Malam, the journal for former IDF Intelligence, Mossad and Inernal Security Agency officers. He teaches at Hebrew University and is a Captain in the IDF’s Intelligence.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    TWENTY YEARS LATER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    PARIS, LE MERIDIeN MONTPARNASSE HOTEL\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    MONDAY, JUNE 8, 1992, 1545H\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The white Jeep Renegade hurtled down A-22 on its way to Paris. The   driver was alone in the vehicle. He stopped twice, to buy food from a   vending machine and gas from a pump. Five hours later, his surveillance   tail almost lost him in the swirling rush-hour traffic of a Paris   afternoon. On Rue du Commandant Mouchotte the trackers watched the new   Renegade with the German plates, B-585X, make a sudden right turn. The   driver of the surveillance car floored the accelerator and caught a   glimpse of the Jeep as it dropped into the shadows of an underground   parking garage. A quick look at the building explained the unexpected   move: the garage belonged to the Le Méridien Montparnasse Hotel, an   old, quality establishment in the heart of the upscale Montparnasse   district, with over nine hundred rooms and suites, and a reputation for   discretion. The visitor took the elevator to reception on the first   floor. He registered under a pseudonym, paid cash, and went straight up   to Room 2541 with a small suitcase in his hand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The hotel guest was Atef Bseiso, a round-faced, elegantly dressed   forty-four-year-old Palestinian who had been living in Tunis for the   last ten years. He was the Palestine Liberation Organization-the   PLO-liaison officer, working with, among others, the French internal   security service, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST).   He was considered a rising star in his organization. His good relations   with European intelligence agencies were, in large part, a product of   his personal charm and charisma.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Bseiso was drained from the drive-he had covered the six-hundred-mile   journey in nine hours flat. Despite his fatigue and the alluring pull   of the room's king-size bed, he went to the phone. Bseiso did not want   to pass his only night in Paris with a remote control in his hand. He   took out an address book and dialed the number of a PLO bodyguard. In   Tunis, Bseiso felt safe; in Europe, he feared the Israelis. He had a   list of names and numbers of men, frequently unarmed, who would   accompany senior PLO officials in Europe to give them a sense of   security. He told the man he'd be going out to dinner. The bodyguard   offered to pick Bseiso up at the hotel. \"I've driven enough for today,\"   Bseiso said. \"Let's say nine at the entrance to the hotel. A tout à   l'heure.\" He showered and got dressed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shabtai Shavit, the head of Israel's Institute for Intelligence and   Special Operations, the Mossad, received a brief message in the   operation's war room, located in a safe house in the 11th   Arrondissement: \"He's in the Méridien Montparnasse. We're getting   ready.\" Shavit leaned back in his chair. The operation was in high   gear. Shavit, in his early fifties, had run the Mossad for the past   three years, and was well acquainted with undercover operations. He had   served for six years as commander of the Mossad's Caesarea unit, which   was charged with special operations and with running undercover Mossad   combatants in enemy territory. He was in Paris on a borrowed identity:   a different name was on the passport in the pocket of his blazer. None   of his peers in the French secret service, or any other branch of the   French intelligence services, knew he was in the country. His gut told   him the mission would go well. He had complete confidence in the   professionalism of Caesarea's combatants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ilan C, Caesarea's intelligence collection officer, placed the   thirty-by-forty-centimeter pictures of the facade of the Méridien   Montparnasse Hotel on a table in another room in the Mossad safe house.   The new pictures had been shot from a variety of angles and included   the streets surrounding the hotel. The surveillance team had taken them   as soon as Bseiso checked in. The operational plans, drawn up in   advance by Caesarea officers, took a number of hotels into   consideration, primarily the Méridien Etoile, an elegant hotel situated   a few steps from the Champs-Elysées-but not the Méridien Montparnasse.   Bseiso's unexpected choice forced them to revise their plans   accordingly. The work was done quickly and efficiently. In less than an   hour a new plan was brought before Shavit. Time was tight, and Shavit,   never garrulous under even the most relaxed circumstances, kept it   brief. He asked Caesarea's commander and the head of the assassination   squad a few questions about the operation. He honed a few key points,   and then, satisfied, approved the mission.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The surveillance team had followed Bseiso for three days. They tracked   him from the moment he arrived in Berlin; his meetings with German   intelligence officers of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV); the   purchase of the Jeep; his sprint to Paris. A half-dozen combatants, two   cars, and two motorcycles comprised the surveillance team. Throughout,   none of the operation's planners at Caesarea had any idea where Bseiso   would stay. Would he choose the apartment of a friend, a flat set up by   the DST, or a plush hotel room, courtesy of the kingly budget of Fatah,   the largest faction of the PLO? Now they knew where they had to act.   The operation needed to go into full swing immediately, as Bseiso, a   notoriously reluctant traveler, might well spend only one night in   Paris. Perhaps the following day, after meeting a colleague from the   DST, he would return home, and the opportunity that had presented   itself would be gone, possibly forever. Intelligence reports showed   that Bseiso, whose job demanded frequent travel, tried to stay in Tunis   as much as possible. When he did leave, he flew, a mode of travel not   so susceptible to Israeli attack. Planes go directly from point A to   point B. The traveler is never alone. People in cars meander, stop for   gas, and spend the night at hotels. Bseiso, it turned out, was in fact   planning to leave the following evening. He would drive to Marseilles,   put the Jeep on a ferry to Tunis, and surprise his wife, Dima, and   their three children with the new car.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Israelis waited in ambush outside the hotel. They assumed Bseiso   would go out for dinner. When he returned, tired and contented, they   would act. The late hours of the night, when the streets are quiet and   empty, were always best for covert operations. The final decision would   be in the hands of the two assassins, \"Tom\" and \"Frank.\" The point man,   Tom, would pull the trigger. Up until the last instant, he would have   the authority to call off the operation: he would raise his weapon only   when certain that his team would emerge unscathed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Atef Bseiso was a target because of the role he played in the slaughter   of eleven Israeli Olympians in Munich, in 1972, almost twenty years   prior. Shabtai Shavit wanted him to pay the price for participating in   the killings. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir authorized the mission and   gave it his blessing. The state of Israel was on the verge of closing   its case against another one of the \"bastards,\" as they were known in   the Mossad, who took part in the Munich Massacre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Bseiso did go out to dinner. The Caesarea surveillance team shadowed   him, undetected, the whole time. They checked that he wasn't being   guarded by his DST hosts. Bseiso, his bodyguard, and an unidentified   Lebanese woman spent a pleasant night at a Hippopotamus Grill chain   restaurant. It was after midnight when Bseiso picked up the tab and   went back to the Jeep. He sat in the back, his bodyguard drove, and his   friend sat in the front seat. They had a very loud, animated   conversation in Arabic. A short drive brought them to the entrance of   the Méridien Montparnasse. The Rue du Commandant Mouchotte was quiet;   few cars passed by.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Bseiso got out and said goodbye to his friends. He took one step back,   preparing to move in the direction of the hotel. A few seconds later,   two young men approached him. Their walk was loose, casual. Tom, the   point man, raised his hand and pulled the trigger. The Beretta 0.22   issued its shots in silence, the retorts muzzled by a silencer. The   three bullets hit Bseiso in the head. He fell on the spot, next to his   friend's car, his final inhalation a gurgle. The hot cartridges were   caught, along with the clues they held, in a sturdy cloth bag attached   to the pistol. Within seconds, the assassin and his backup were rapidly   retreating down the street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Abie,\" the commander of the squad, waited for them near the corner,   150 yards away. He watched them cross to the other side of Avenue du   Maine and, from the other side of the street, at a more casual pace,   watched their backs. This standard procedure was meant to thwart a   mishap during the escape phase of a mission-a highly unlikely scenario,   since it takes bystanders many long seconds, if not minutes, to realize   that an assassination has just taken place. Nonetheless, the   possibility couldn't be ignored. Within twenty seconds the point man   and his number two were at the corner of a one-way street. According to   Mossad procedure, the getaway car always waits two 90-degree turns from   the scene of an operation. The pair made a left onto Rue Vandamme,   where the waiting car had kept its motor running.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Abie suddenly noticed two figures coming after his men. They were   breathing heavily and speaking animatedly. This was a fast-approaching   threat; they needed to be stopped. They could not be allowed to turn   the corner and see the escape vehicle, or, even worse, commit the   license plate to memory. Abie started toward them, his quick pace   authoritative and threatening. When he was within fifteen feet of the   pair he pulled out his Beretta. Holding it in front of their faces, he   shouted: \"Stop!\" The weapon froze them in their tracks. They put their   hands in the air, stumbled backward, turned around, and broke into a   run in the direction of the hotel. Abie pocketed his gun and walked   down Avenue du Maine. He watched his men turn left onto the narrow   street and got into a second car waiting for him on his side of the   avenue. He checked his watch: fifty-five seconds had elapsed since the   first shot was fired. He smiled to himself. The account was squared;   the mission, a success. He pushed a button, sending confirmation to the   commander of Caesarea. In less than two hours, the point man, his   number two, the squad leader, the commander of Caesarea, his staff   officers, and Shabtai Shavit, had all left French soil.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    •••\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Brigadier General Azriel Nevo, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's military   aide, lay awake in bed waiting for the red, top secret telephone to   ring. He picked it up quickly and heard a familiar voice say, \"Azriel,   it went according to plan.\" He recognized \"Amir,\" Shabtai Shavit's   chief of staff, on the other end of the line.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Thanks, I'll pass it on.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Nevo sat up in bed and dialed Shamir's number. The prime minister   picked up on the first ring. \"Mr. Prime Minister, I just got word from   Shavit's office, the Paris affair went smoothly.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Thank you,\" Shamir said, and hung up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Nevo put down the phone. Shamir, he thought, had nerves of steel. He   and Shavit were two of a kind. Nevo went back to sleep thinking about   how Le Figaro's headline might read the next morning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    News of the assassination traveled fast. Some Western media outlets   automatically attributed the hit to the Mossad, even pointing to the   possibility of revenge for the Munich murders of 1972. The Bseiso   family, one of the largest and most respected clans in Gaza City, set   up a traditional mourning tent, where they received hundreds of   visitors. Bseiso was hailed as a \"victim of the Intifada.\" Yasser   Arafat, the founder of Fatah, was in Amman, Jordan, recovering from   head injuries sustained when his plane was forced to crash-land in the   Libyan desert during a sandstorm earlier that year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arafat told dozens of reporters that the Israeli Mossad was responsible   for the assassination. \"I warned them,\" he said, \"dir balkum, be   careful, the Mossad will hunt us down one by one, officer by officer. .   . . Unfortunately, we have lost a national hero.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Israeli authorities never issued an official response. One of Prime   Minister Shamir's spokespersons told The New York Times that the   accusation was \"totally and completely ridiculous.\" The head of   Military Intelligence, Major General Uri Saguy, responded to Arafat's   claims with an unperturbed: \"Nu, so Arafat says we did it, hat ehr   gezukt\" (Yiddish for: He says so, so what?).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Officers at the Mossad's Brussels station were shocked. \"Eyal,\" a   high-ranking officer in Caesarea, hurried up the stairs to see   \"Haggai,\" his superior.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"Didn't we take this guy off the list?\" Eyal asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"We took him off. I don't know what's going on.\" Haggai shrugged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Both of them knew the deceased. Back in 1988, the two of them, in   previous posts as officers at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, had   erased his name from the Mossad hit list. The removal had gone through   all the proper channels. Nahum Admoni, the head of the Mossad at the   time, had approved the move. Yet someone had put Bseiso back on the   list and then led a covert operation to kill him on French soil. That   someone was none other than Shabtai Shavit-a brilliant tactician and   professional, who had excelled at every post he held along the chain of   command, and who had the ear and the confidence of every prime minister   he worked under.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Early in 1992, Shavit called a former protégé, the current head of   Caesarea, to a short meeting. He asked him to check which of the   terrorists involved in the Munich attack were still alive. Shavit was   old-school, one of those who refused to close the book on Munich. As   far as he was concerned, the state of Israel had painted a   well-deserved target on the faces of everyone involved in the planning   or the execution of the massacre. They would all pay with their lives;   when and where was of no consequence. Mossad combatants were charged   with carrying out the assassination orders, which had been passed down   from Golda Meir to each successive prime minister.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shavit believed in Israel's responsibility to its citizens, at home and   abroad-he believed in the necessity of fulfilling this executive order   not just because he saw it as moral and just, but because he knew that   no one else would carry it out in his place. He would do all in his   power to see the mission through.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A few months after the assassination, Shavit was officially invited to   meet the newly appointed head of the DST. Forgoing pleasantries, the   French intelligence officer fired his opening volley: \"We know you   killed Bseiso. We're still working on the proof. When it comes through,   you'll get what's coming to you. In no way am I willing to allow you to   turn Paris into your stage for acts of war and assassinations. We're   not going back to the early seventies, when you did whatever the hell   you wanted here. I will not allow it to happen,\" he said, pounding his   fist on the table.National bestseller; [quote]--David K. Shipler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Arab and Jew","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305084571877,"sku":"NP9780812974638","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812974638.jpg?v=1767737439","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/striking-back-isbn-9780812974638","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}