Ronen Bergman Has Watched Israeli Intelligence Abuse Its License to Kill

A Q&A with the author of Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations about working in the line of fire and whether the Mossad is justified in doing its best James Bond impression.
Image may contain Human Person Symbol and Star Symbol
Photo Illustration/Getty Images

The CIA, the MI6, the KGB—these are the most notorious spy agencies in the history of the world. And rightfully so: their work shaped our post World War II order and their tales of intrigue and death are told in pop culture over and over again. But right alongside them in international infamy is tiny Israel's the Mossad—Hebrew for "The Institute." The story of how and why the Mossad gained its notoriety is told in the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman's new Rise And Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. It's an exhaustive work that aims to relay the saga of the Israeli intelligence community, from its brazen successes to its war crimes.

In Bergman's telling, Israeli intelligence is obsessed with killing anyone, anywhere, who's deemed a threat to the state of Israel, and it's wholly unconcerned with due process. The intelligence community "implemented a strict policy of telling the truth inside the organization and institutionalized lying to the outside world," he writes at one point. "Prisoners complained in court that they'd confessed only after being tortured, but it didn't matter." At another point, he notes, "killing a man no longer required the prime minister's approval." Bergman recently spoke to GQ about the complicated, dangerous, and nearly-decade long process of reporting Rise And Kill First.

Reporting wise, what was the hardest thing to pull off? Was there something you just didn't want to let go of?

I took me four years to get Mike Harari, chief of special operations [for the Mossad]. The first time I came, I just wanted to establish contact, and so I pretended to be interested in a house he was selling. He knew who I am and, afterwards, he said to a common friend, "I don't think he was there to buy the house. I don't think he has the money!" This is a north-Tel-Aviv, very very nice house, and he was absolutely right—I wish I had the money to buy that house. So that took a while and I used every possibility, every hook, every path, to get him to talk, and only in 2014 I was able to do it. And the book benefited very much from Harari.

Ronen Bergman

How did the Mossad get so famous internationally? Do you think the organization has actively tended to its public perception in any way?

I don't think the Mossad invests in PR. But basically what you have here is an organization that is in charge of everything outside of Israel of course and does not hesitate to take extreme measures to protect Israel. While other [countries' spy] agencies are extremely hesitant to, for example, use targeted killings—well, Israel is under existential threat and, consequently, the Mossad is not afraid to act daringly and take extreme measures that in many, many cases have thunderous and very overt consequences. And that created the legend.

You've said that some of the interviews you conducted for the book made your "blood curdle." I imagine one of those was with Robert Hatem, the Lebanese Maronite militant who claims he oversaw the killing of roughly 3,000 people.

Hatem is a psycho killer, a mass killer. He's a war criminal and he should have been prosecuted for what he did. But that remark is referring to someone more like [Israeli explosives expert] Natan Rotberg. He said to me, you know, "I opened an office for arranging meetings with God." This is not the most politically correct joke to make about killing people. But it's black humor. Rotberg is not a murderer. I have respect for these people. I think the book has some very strong criticisms. But it's still my feeling that these people did what they did out of conviction that they were protecting Israel.

It's interesting to note the black humor. Obviously these are guarded state secrets. But reading the book, you get the sense that some people, like former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, were waiting and eager to joke with you about the things they did. [When discussing the brazen 1988 killing of the PLO's Abu Jihad, the former IDF chief of staff Ya'alon says, "I don't understand why they say why we, Israel, are losing the war for minds. If I put a bullet between Abu Jihad's eyes, right in the middle of his mind, doesn't that mean I've won?"]

Yeah, Moshe Ya'alon, he has that same black humor. But he's an honest person, a brave soldier, and a brilliant man. He thought that killing Abu Jihad changed something. And there's no question that it was a perfect hit. But others believed they could have used Abu Jihad to restrain [Yasser] Arafat. That if Abu Jihad had stayed alive, there would have been a less corrupt leadership and a different regime for the Palestinian authorities.

Reading your book, I kept thinking back to Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes, which is a massive takedown of the CIA. Do you see Rise And Kill First as a critical history of Israel's intelligence organizations?

I know that I reflect what I believe is true. But everyone has his own take on the book. [Some reviews] claim that this is just Israeli propaganda justifying the use of targeted killings. I don't think the book is a propaganda! But everyone has the right to express their own views. Legacy of Ashes has a very clear view about the CIA, which is reflected in its title and which is that the CIA is a failing organization. Now, this is not my conclusion about the Israeli intelligence. On the contrary. What I think is complex, and it's dependent on the organization and the broad perspectives at the time. If you are looking for a one-liner which would reflect my book it's "getting the facts right on Israeli intelligence." It's not a saleable title, "getting the facts right." But this was my purpose. It took me eight years.

Many of those facts are very hard to stomach. A lot of innocent people have been killed and continue to be killed by Israeli spy agencies.

Well, you know, this is the historian's job, to write as close as possible to the full picture. I understand that many people [in Israel] say, "Why do you need it? Why is it important to write about these things?" They don't understand that this is our whole duty—to be critical when needed and especially when the country's supervising organs are weak. The institutional mechanisms of supervision and scrutiny over the intelligence community are very, very weak, This is our path, to write, to criticize. It's needed.

Do you think that after your book comes out in Israel, some sector of the public may begin to reevaluate their support of the Mossad?

Well, it might even be contrary to what you say. Again, this is a matter of a point of view. I think the book basically says that Israeli intelligence is the best in the world. And that it can come to any challenge posed to it by the political arena. There are questions as to the legality and the morality of targeted killings. But the one lesson, and it took me a while to come this realization, is that the massive successes of Israeli intelligence led to mistakes. The political leaders thought that, at the tip of their fingers, they had the ability to hold history. And it's true that you cannot read the history of Israel, and therefore the history of the Middle East, and therefore really the history of the world, without understanding how profound is the role of Israeli intelligence.

But to think that targeted operations can replace diplomacy, statesmanship, discourse—correspondence with the adversary—that is a strategic political failure

There is a general consensus that Israel is heading towards a war with Lebanon. Just the other day, an IDF officer told reporters, "If we succeed in killing Nasrallah in the next war, that will be a decisive victory."

I knew they were talking about that. The fact that they said it [publicly]. Wow. This is heavy. This is heavy.

In the acknowledgements for the book, you hint at a few hairy incidents. One was an "exchange of fire in southern Lebanon"?

Yes, this was the late nineties and I was being escorted by the IDF as a journalist. I was with the IDF spokesperson and and we were attacked. And Aql al-Hashem—he was a senior officer for the Southern Lebanese Army, a militia supported by Israel— he was driving the Mercedes that we were in. He was able to get us out. Very courageously, very bravely. And so, in a way, he saved our lives. By the way, not long after, he was killed [by a Hezbollah IED]. That was horrible times.

You also mention a casbah in the West Bank city of Nablus that came under fire from Hamas?

This was in 2004. I joined an IDF mission to kill wanted Palestinian Islamic Jihad people. The Hamas apparently located our position and tried to blow up the house. They used massive tear gas and smoke to get us out and we had to be rescued. The IDF sent quite a significant force. One sort of semi-funny anecdote of that incident is, I never tell my father about these things before they happen, to not make him worry. But my father always listens to the radio and sends me text messages, generally, about things happening in Israel. So I was trapped in that house and I get a text message from him telling me, "there's a group of [IDF] paratroopers trapped in the middle of Nablus!" And I just say, "Well, I hope God is gonna be with them."

You mention in the book that, at one point, the Mossad actually held a meeting "to discuss ways of disrupting [your] research." Were there ever any, uh, strongly-worded messages from anyone that gave you pause?

I have been, already, pursued by the administration here a few times. I was, and I am [pursued]. But it's the kind of work that you cannot do halfway. Look, it's a delicate topic, there are sensitivities. But I don't know another way to do this.

So you never thought twice …

No, no, no, no—there were many moments. But at the end of the day, after thinking twice, or three times, or four times, I still came to the same conclusion. Which is, there is no other way but to do this work.