Spies of No Country

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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 Spies of No Country is about the slippery identities of these young spies, but it s also about Israel s own complicated and fascinating identity Israel sees itself and presents itself as a Western nation, when in factthan half the country has Middle Eastern roots and traditions, like the spies of this story And, according to Friedman, that goes a long way toward explaining the life and politics of the country, and why it often baffles the West For anyone interested in real life spies and the paradoxes of the Middle East, Spies of No Country is an intimate story with global significance. Download Spies of No Country – kino-fada.fr I won this book in a goodreads drawing.A history about Israel s first spies, who infiltrated the Arabs before the war that started the day Israel was founded, and then formed the legendary Mossad.Gripping reading.If you re spying for the CIA, you have Langley and the United States of America You might not see them from your street corner or hotel room, but you know they exist, and their power is a comfort These men had no such thing They had no country in early 1948, Israel was a wish, not a fact If they disappeared, they d be gone No one might find them No one might even look The future was blank And still they set out into those treacherous times, alone In 2011, journalist and author MattiIf you re spying for the CIA, you have Langley and the United States of America You might not see them from your street corner or hotel room, but you know they exist, and their power is a comfort These men had no such thing They had no country in early 1948, Israel was a wish, not a fact If they disappeared, they d be gone No one might find them No one might even look The future was blank And still they set out into those treacherous times, alone In 2011, journalist and author Matti Friedman began a years long interview with Isaac Shosan a now elderly Israeli man with a unique story to tell about the early cloak and dagger days of Israeli Intelligence Adding in information fr...An engaging history of four young Mizrahi Jews and their undercover work for the pre Israeli intelligence unit, the Arab Section Using recently declassified documents, interviews with the few survivors, and numerous happy snapshots the men took they were not the most professional of spies , Friedman paints a compelling picture of young, brave men, outcasts and idealists, and their struggles with their assignments, their identities, and each other, all building to the massive changes to the Mid An engaging history of four young Mizrahi Jews and their undercover work for the pre Israeli intelligence unit, the Arab Section Using recently declassified documents, interviews with the few survivors, and numerous happy snapshots the men took they were not the most professional of spies , Friedman paints a compelling picture of young, brave men, outcasts and idealists, and their struggles with their assignments, their identities, and each other, all building to the massive changes to the Middle East as the idea of Israel becomes the state of Israel He keeps a very narrow focus, staying on the street level with his spies and only going into the complicated history of the region when it directly impacts them and even then very briefly, assuming the reader is familiar with the British partitioning o...The story told by Matti Friedman of the young Jewish State is one that is not often told I was riveted by the untold tales of the young Jews of Arabic origin and their relationship to the emerging country of Israel Friedman ties together the lives of these young men as they went deeply undercover utilizing their unique cultural and language skills, inherent to people who were born and raised in Syria and other Arabic countries Most importantly for the reader, Friedman shows us how their contr The story told by Matti Friedman of the young Jewish State is one that is not often told I was riveted by the untold tales of the young Jews of Arabic origin and their relationship to the emerging country of Israel Friedman ties together the lives of these young men as they went deeply undercover utilizing their unique cultural and language skills, inherent to people who were born and raised in Syria and other Arabic countries Most importantly for the reader, Friedman shows us how their contributions and those of similar Mediterranean upbringing, were quickly cast aside by the prevailing stories of a young country whose narrative was one of European refugees, the holocaust, Hebrew instead of Arabic, and a cultural, not religious, form of Judaism.Truly, this is a h...It was an interesting book The book was written about the lives of 4 Israeli spies Bur I would say that half orthan half of the book concerned the birth of the nation of Israeli 1948 49 And this was one of the problems of the book A story would start about the exploits of one orof the spies then it would discuss the political situation, then revert back to the story of the spies I wish that the full story would be told continuously and either before or after cover the background It was an interesting book The book was written about the lives of 4 Israeli spies Bur I would say that half orthan half of the book concerned the birth of the nation of Israeli 1948 49 And this was one of the problems of the book A story would start about the exploits of one orof the spies then it would discuss the political situation, then revert back to the story of the spies I wish that the full story would be told continuously and either before or after cover the background The story of Hilter s Yacht was like this should have been one chapter, yet it was covered in 2 chapters I did learn some interesting things Chapter 10 on Kim where the Arab Section was originally ...Full disclosure I received this book for free from GoodreadsSo, here s the thing I don t do spy stories, thrillers, or most political tales, nor do I gave a crap about Zionism When this arrived I was somewhat trepidatious about what I had let myself in for by signing up for this book I am happy to report that it all turned out well.quite well, in fact This book is reallyabout a handful of characters who happened to occupy a certain spot on the planet, at a very unique t Full disclosure I received this book for free from GoodreadsSo, here s the thing I don t do spy stories, thrillers, or most political tales, nor do I gave a crap about Zionism When this arrived I was somewhat trepidatious about what I had let myself in for by signing up for this book I am happy to report that it all turned out well.quite well, in fact This book is reallyabout a handful of characters who happened to occupy a certain spot on the planet, at a very unique time in the history of the area They come from a land culture, a way of living, that has quickly unexpectedly completely morphed into something no one could have foreseen They were not spies as we understand spies to exist They are better described as free range players for a movement, reallyof an idea of a movement, that had no set boundaries, definitions, or hierarchy It barely even existed.What was most fascinating about this story was 2 fold for me F...Title Spies of No Country By Matti FriedmanGenre NonfictionPages 245Algonquin Books March 5th 2019This was sent to me unsolicited by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion, which this will be ,Book synopsisFour Arab Jews emigrate to Israel in 1948, at the birth of the new nation Recruited almost immediately to spy for Israel, they are sent back to Lebanon and elsewhere to pose as Arabs which they actually are and collect intelligence They operate out of a kiosk in Beirut It Title Spies of No Country By Matti FriedmanGenre NonfictionPages 245Algonquin Books March 5th 2019This was sent to me unsolicited by the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion, which this will be ,Book synopsisFour Arab Jews emigrate to Israel in 1948, at the birth of the new nation Recruited almost immediately to spy for Israel, they are sent back to Lebanon and elsewhere to pose as Arabs which they actually are and collect intelligence They operate out of a kiosk in Beirut It is dangerous work and they don t know to whom they are reporting they don t know whether their information is useful and by the end, they don t know ...Spies of No Country is the story of four Jewish men who could pass as Arab and were able to move through the world assuming Arab identities This book covers two different chapters one when these men were spying back before Israel existed as a state and then after Israel became a state and they continued their spying in Beirut This was a fascinating book that gives you just a taste of everything that these men went through Spies are always interesting to me, especially when they are able to Spies of No Country is the story of four Jewish men who could pass as Arab and were able to move through the world assuming Arab identities This book covers two different chapters one when these men were spying back before Israel existed as a state and then after Israel became a state and they continued their spying in Beirut This was a fascinating book that gives you just a taste of everything that these men went through Spies are always interesting to me, especially when they are able to pass seamlessly into the environments that they find themselves spying in I had never given much thought to w...When Americans think of Israeli history, we fasten on a handful of names Chaim Weizmann David ben Gurion Golda Meir We think of kibbutzim, the Israeli Defense Force, the country s great universities, and its legal system All these people, and many others whose names are prominent in the country s history, are of European origin And every institution they created was a product of European thought and tradition That simply reflects the fact that in the 1940s, nine of every ten Jews in Pale When Americans think of Israeli history, we fasten on a handful of names Chaim Weizmann David ben Gurion Golda Meir We think of kibbutzim, the Israeli Defense Force, the country s great universities, and its legal system All these people, and many others whose names are prominent in the country s history, are of European origin And every institution they created was a product of European thought and tradition That simply reflects the fact that in the 1940s, nine of every ten Jews in Palestine came from Europe Yet the persistent image of Israel today as a Western outpost in the Eastern Mediterranean is highly misleading To understand how that changed and so deeply influences the nation s politics today, you can do no better than to read Israeli Canadian journalist Matti Friedman s revealing new book, Spies of No Country.Four young Arab speaking Jewish men wer...

Spies of No Country
  • 14 July 2018
  • Hardcover
  • 272 pages
  • 1616207221
  • Matti Friedman
  • Spies of No Country