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    Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel
    Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel
    Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel
    Audiobook6 hours

    Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel

    Written by Matti Friedman

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Award-winning writer Matti Friedman's tale of Israel's first spies has all the tropes of an espionage novel, including duplicity, betrayal, disguise, clandestine meetings, the bluff, and the double bluff-but it's all true.

    The four spies at the center of this story were part of a ragtag unit known as the Arab Section, conceived during World War II by British spies and Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Intended to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations, the unit consisted of Jews who were native to the Arab world and could thus easily assume Arab identities. In 1948, with Israel's existence in the balance during the War of Independence, our spies went undercover in Beirut, where they spent the next two years operating out of a kiosk, collecting intelligence, and sending messages back to Israel via a radio whose antenna was disguised as a clothesline. While performing their dangerous work these men were often unsure to whom they were reporting, and sometimes even who they'd become. Of the dozen spies in the Arab Section at the war's outbreak, five were caught and executed. But in the end the Arab Section would emerge, improbably, as the nucleus of the Mossad, Israel's vaunted intelligence agency.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateMar 5, 2019
    ISBN9781684571277
    Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel

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    Reviews for Spies of No Country

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    • 3/5
      Gated rt TD Even waste wrestling’s at get rt all good w ew CSS ruff
    • 4/5
      "Spies of No Country" is set during the twenty months between January 1948 and August 1949. No sooner was the state of Israel founded than its Jewish inhabitants faced annihilation by her neighbors. Matti Friedman focuses on a small band of Arabic-speaking Jews who risked their lives by going undercover in Haifa and Beirut in order to spy on Israel's enemies. Friedman focuses on Syrian-born Gamliel Cohen and Isaac Shoshan; Havakuk Cohen from Yemen; and Yakuba Cohen, who was born in Jerusalem when it was under British rule. These volunteers were undisciplined amateurs who communicated using a primitive radio set. They paid close attention to the chatter around them, and sent reports about Arab morale, their foes’ military strength, and other information that might prove helpful. In addition, members of the Arab Section carried out acts of sabotage and attempted to assassinate a particularly dangerous antagonist. "They improvised, saw what worked, and used it."

      Friedman pays tribute to these and other individuals who risked their lives in an effort to tilt the odds in favor of Israel's existence. The Jews of the "Arab Section" were "drawn from the lower rungs of Middle Eastern society,” and had little experience in making life-or-death decisions. They were trained to behave like Arabs, took lessons on handling weapons and explosives, and were ordered not to speak to their families (not everyone obeyed). They did not know for sure whether their actions would have a significant impact on Israel’s ultimate fate. Friedman evokes the tense atmosphere in the Middle East during a time when Jews, with their backs against the sea, used the limited resources at their disposal to wage all-out war against the local Palestinian militia and the armies of five Arab countries.

      The author, who conducted extensive research, brings this historical period to life with excellent descriptive writing and a host of colorful anecdotes. His sources include material from Israel's military archives; published histories written in Hebrew by Zvika Dror and Gamliel Cohen; and lengthy interviews that Friedman conducted over a period of years with one of the aforementioned spies. This enlightening and engrossing account, which is enhanced by evocative black and white photos, sheds light on the struggles of a courageous band of brothers whose efforts have become a footnote in the history of Israeli espionage. In these pages are fascinating stories of human interest, an overview of the politics and deep-seated hatred that led to so much death and destruction, and passages of dark humor and irony. Matti Friedman sadly points out that the Israeli government has not always treated Middle Eastern Jews as first-class citizens. Instead, he informs us, "They [Jews born in Arabic countries] were condescended to and pushed to the fringes” when they settled in Israel. To set the record straight, Friedman tells the story of Gamliel, Isaac, Havakuk, Yakuba, and others in the Arab Section, whose contributions and self-sacrifice set the stage for what would later become one of the most sophisticated intelligence networks in the world--the Mossad.
    • 3/5
      This was a good read -- at times, a page-turner -- about the birth of the Israeli intelligence service. The book examines the work of four young men -- Arab Jews -- who were recruited as spies at the birth of Israel. The chilling aspect of their work comes from the fact that they were spies of "no country" -- Israel was just becoming established and lacked the diplomatic and governance structures to support these young men. They also had severe cash shortages! Those unfamiliar with the early history of Israel may find this book lacks the necessary background or context to allow the reader to fully appreciate the story of these young spies. Nor does it situate the events in today's context of ongoing occupation of the West Bank and the tensions on having a Jewish state in an area populated by Arabian Jews, Muslims and Christians as well as Western Jews who have migrated to the region.But the book does well what it set out to do: putting human faces on historical events, and taking a complex look at a short time period.
    • 2/5
      The book is well written, both at the sentence level and in broader terms (organization, narrative choices, etc.). Friedman does a great job at establishing the setting, right at the birth of Israel. But beyond that, there is not nearly enough. The story would be better told in a magazine article than in a book. > Now we take for granted that Jews had no future at all in the Arab world, but that wasn't obvious right away. In Isaac's hometown of Aleppo, for example, the Jews had survived the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by Rome in 70 CE, the birth of Christianity, the Byzantine Empire, the birth of Islam and the Arab conquest, dynasties of Arabs, Turks, and Mongols, and at least one devastating earthquake that destroyed much of the city. Why wouldn't it survive the birth of the State of Israel?
    • 4/5
      The Arab Section was comprised on Arab Jews, who could blend into the Arab world during Israel's War of Independence. This book focuses on four spies who spent over two years deep undercover. This was a quick read and an interesting story. Overall, well worth picking up.
    • 4/5
      This book has a very good look at what spying really entails, a lot of waiting, planning, and occasional bursts of action. The one thing that would have made it better is a better delineation between the past and the present.Free review copy.