“The Dawn of Mossad” (Wall Street Journal review, March 4, 2019)

By Edward Kosner

No intelligence agency in the world has quite the crafty mystique of Mossad, Israel’s spy service. Shrewd, patient and ruthless, Mossad’s spooks are celebrated for their triumphs, and even the rare known failures are legendary in their way. …

In Spies of No Country, Matti Friedman, a Canadian-Israeli journalist, resurrects early operations of the intelligence service of the Palmach, the nascent military that ultimately grew into the mighty Israel Defense Forces. The book is a slim but intriguing string of anecdotes in which members of the unit risk their lives under cover in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq as Jewish settlers and refugees fought to preserve their foothold in Palestine.

Read the whole thing here.