Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Carlton North, Vic. : Scribe Publications, 2006.
Description
1972. The Munich Olympics. Palestinian members of the Black September group murder eleven Israeli athletes. Nine hundred million people watch the crisis unfold on television, witnessing a tragedy that inaugurates the modern age of terror. Back in Israel, Prime Minister Golda Meir vows to track down those responsible and, in Menachem Begin's words, "run these criminals and murderers off the face of the earth." A secret Mossad unit is mobilized, a list of targets drawn up. Thus begins the Israeli response, a mission that unfolds not over months but over decades. The Mossad has never spoken about this operation. No one has known the real story, until now. In this riveting account, Aaron Klein peels back layers of myth and misinformation about the "shadow war" against Black September and other terrorist groups.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Meggo
The first sign that this was going to be an irritating read was the profusion of short paragraphs used by the author. Sadly, this was not a style choice to hook the reader at the outset, but rather, continued throughout the book, disrupting its flow and making it feel like a magazine article.
The
Finally, for a book purporting to reveal inside secrets of the Mossad, the author does not list a single source in a bibliography. Not one. The author thanks certain individuals, but it's impossible to know what documentary sources he consulted for his historical research, or what new information he gleaned from recently released files.
While I have found some journalists to be great writers of history, this is not one of those authors. Avoid this book if you can, and save yourself the three hours of your life that you'll never get back again if you read it.
The
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second red flag was the extremely strong language used about Germany's response to security at the Games and their aftermath. The author used words like 'negligent', without providing any reasoned argument to support such a position, and in the end came off as sounding biased. Finally, for a book purporting to reveal inside secrets of the Mossad, the author does not list a single source in a bibliography. Not one. The author thanks certain individuals, but it's impossible to know what documentary sources he consulted for his historical research, or what new information he gleaned from recently released files.
While I have found some journalists to be great writers of history, this is not one of those authors. Avoid this book if you can, and save yourself the three hours of your life that you'll never get back again if you read it.
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LibraryThing member Charliemac
This book highlights the danger of releasing a security agency to kill those responsible for an attack. Without directly addressing the subject, it calls into question the idea of a "War against Terror." Once someone may be sentenced to death without the ability of a defense counsel or being able
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to face the accusers, political and personal witch hunting becomes a standard operating procedure and innocent people are killed for without improving national security . Unasked and unanswered is the question can a society governed by the rule of law defend itself from stateless aggression (i.e. terrorist)? Show Less
LibraryThing member callmecayce
I picked this book up because I'd come across a similar title and was reading reviews and all of them pointed to this book as the one book on the Munich Olympic massacre that people should read. I'd watched the movie Munich and a few short documentaries on the massacre, but my knowledge of the
Striking Back was published in 2006, so Klein is able to look at the events from a post 9/11 point of view, which I found to be extremely important. He was given unprecedented access to materials that remained hidden from public view until he asked.
What makes this book so good is not just limited to Klein's access to documents and people. It's the way he gives us an inside look at everything. We're not just talking about the athletes -- their families, the Israel Olympic Committee, the Israeli government, Mossad, the German government, as well as the terrorists themselves. But even then, Klein takes us on another journal.
It would be all too easy to write a biased book, focused on just the events of Munich, glossing over blame and Israel's response through rose colored glasses. Klein does not fall into the trap. Not only does he leave no one untouched, he explains the failings of both countries and then goes on to talk about Israel's response. While Munich takes a fictional view of realistic events, Striking Back fills in all the holes. Klein writes of the assassinations -- of the guilty, the supposed guilty and the accidental assassination of innocents.
Klein's writing is strong, he doesn't cushion the truth nor shy away from it when it's less than flattering. I found it to be a chilly story, even moreso because in some ways this feels like the beginning of something we've become used to -- non-state sponsored terrorism ending in a war that no one can win ad that is still going on.
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events was limited to popular culture. But after reading Aaron Klein's book, I feel as though I've discovered the truth. Striking Back was published in 2006, so Klein is able to look at the events from a post 9/11 point of view, which I found to be extremely important. He was given unprecedented access to materials that remained hidden from public view until he asked.
What makes this book so good is not just limited to Klein's access to documents and people. It's the way he gives us an inside look at everything. We're not just talking about the athletes -- their families, the Israel Olympic Committee, the Israeli government, Mossad, the German government, as well as the terrorists themselves. But even then, Klein takes us on another journal.
It would be all too easy to write a biased book, focused on just the events of Munich, glossing over blame and Israel's response through rose colored glasses. Klein does not fall into the trap. Not only does he leave no one untouched, he explains the failings of both countries and then goes on to talk about Israel's response. While Munich takes a fictional view of realistic events, Striking Back fills in all the holes. Klein writes of the assassinations -- of the guilty, the supposed guilty and the accidental assassination of innocents.
Klein's writing is strong, he doesn't cushion the truth nor shy away from it when it's less than flattering. I found it to be a chilly story, even moreso because in some ways this feels like the beginning of something we've become used to -- non-state sponsored terrorism ending in a war that no one can win ad that is still going on.
Show Less
LibraryThing member EdKupfer
There is a great story buried in this book, about Israel's response to the escalation of Palestinian terrorism in the 1970s, but the narrative structure defeats it: vignettes are not only told completely out of order, but the outcome of every episode is told before the details of the plot are
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revealed. For example, one chapter describes the Mossad's plans to covertly assassinate a high-level PLO terrorist in a European country; the dramatic tension of this mission is lessened by the chapter's title, which tells you that the plan will fail. This book is well worth reading for anyone interested in modern history of terrorism and special ops because it's full of relevant information gleaned directly from insiders. I'm just not sure why the author went out of his way to confuse the narrative. Show Less
LibraryThing member marshapetry
I can't get this stupid review box to save my review! I'll just recap my long review to: great narrator, great telling of '72 Olympic kidnapping story, OK stories of the retaliation against the kidnappers (confusing and author digressed into tangents). Overall good book, recommend
Subjects
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — Non-Fiction — 2007)
Language
Physical description
256 p.; 24 cm
ISBN
1920769803 / 9781920769802
Local notes
Donated by Adele Rosalky from the Earle Hoffman Private Library, February 2019