The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism

While Mossad is known as one of the world's most successfulterrorist-fighting organizations, the state of Israel has, more than once and onmany levels, risked the lives of its agents and soldiers through unwiseintelligence-based intervention. The elimination of Palestinian leaders andmilitants has not decreased the incidence of Palestinian terrorism, for example. Infact, these incidents have become more lethal than ever, and ample evidence suggeststhat the actions of Israeli intelligence have fueled terrorist activities across theglobe.An expert on terror and political extremism, Ami Pedahzurargues that Israel's strict reliance on the elite units of the intelligencecommunity is fundamentally flawed. A unique synthesis of memoir, academic research,and information gathered from print and online sources, Pedahzur's complex studyexplores this issue through Israel's past encounters with terrorists, specificallyhostage rescue missions, the first and second wars in Lebanon, the challenges of theWest Bank and Gaza, Palestinian terrorist groups, and Hezbollah. He brings a raretransparency to Israel's counterterrorist activities, highlighting their successesand failures and the factors that have contributed to these results. From thefoundations of this analysis, Pedahzur ultimately builds a strategy for futureconfrontation that will be relevant not only to Israel but also to other countriesthat have adopted Israel's intelligence-based model.