Book Review: Mossad by Michael Bar-Zohar & Nissim Mishal

Mossad is a novel by Michael Bar-Zohar & Nissim Mishal, the book gains limelight because it largely talks about Middle East and Arab countries with reference to Israel’s political context.

Mossad lists the missions of the legendary Israeli secret service in a perfect order. Its twenty-one chapters describe around the number of operations’ successes and failures of Israel's conflict with Palestine and other Arab nations. Most of the stories are familiar ones, but a few popular ones like the hijack-rescue at Entebbe have been not covered. The stories are gripping given the audacious methods of Mossad agents; thus, the book serves well as a spy thriller.

Mossad is largely one sided glorification of Israeli actions. True, some of the adventures pulled off by Mossad agents are amazing: the retrieval of Adolf Eichmann and the extraordinary subterfuge of the valiant Israeli spy Elle Cohen fall into the realm of Ripley's. Even then, many missions, especially the pre-emptive ones the Israelis undertake seem to be mindless. The authors provide insufficient geopolitical context for some operations including some gruesome assassinations. The political or ethical fallouts of these actions are simply ignored. The enemy is bad and there seems to be no hesitation by the authors in justifying all Israeli action.

Comprehensibly, the writing is biased towards the Israeli cause, but at places the favoritism is a tad bit overboard. The book is entirely carried by the extraordinary actions of the Mossad agents. The journal itself serves no purpose other than to thrill and awe which is done so much better by fiction authors who have used many of these real stories in their work. A great opportunity to look into the thought processes of the agents as well as their targets was mostly lost due to lack of analysis.

On a plus point, the subject is in context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The book is written with historical perspective even as the subsequent conflict continues till date. The book is written by journalists, thus it is a well-researched book.