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Spies of No Country

Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel

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Spies of No Country

By: Matti Friedman
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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About this listen

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.

©2019 Matti Friedman (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Espionage Freedom & Security Israel & Palestine Judaism Middle East Politics & Government True Crime World Africa War Royalty Iran Israel Spy
All stars
Most relevant
It took me to places and times I have never been to before and now feel so familiar and close.

A truly wonderful story

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Unstoppable courage and ingenuity in the face of persecution and betrayal is recounted from eye witnesses and the protagonists themselves, in this unembellished tale of derring-do by agents, in their quest to enable Jewish people to achieve equality in the family of nations.

From oppression to Succession

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Great writing, wonderful narration, and such thoughtful insight into hearts and lives on all sides in worlds both lost and new.

Very moving

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I went into this book expecting some Zionist sentiment but was left appalled and sickened by the level of righteous indignation the author writes in about the almost “heroic” and “pioneering” work these pre-Israel agents of war did against the palestine/muslim population for the selfish need of a self-controlled and Jewish-governed state. the author tries to garner sympathy from the listener by accounting the lived experiences of these spies feeling outcast and ostracised by the arab communities they lived in because they were treated like suspect jewish spies and criminals instead of humans - when that is exactly who they are???! i wanted to read this to try to understand perspectives of the other side of the Palestine war but all i found were delusions and fantasies of zionist grandeur with little critical understanding or appreciation for others.
free Palestine.

foul zionist delusion

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