Target Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination - and Secret Diplomacy - to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East

by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Ilan Evyatar

Overview

A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year/Politics

The remarkable story of how Israel used sabotage, assassination, cyberwar—and diplomacy—to thwart Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and, in the process, reshaped the Middle East.

Yonah Bob and Ilan Evyatar describe how Israel has used cyberwarfare, targeted assassinations, and sabotage of Iranian facilities to great effect, sometimes in cooperation with the United States. Even as it takes lethal action Israel has managed to alter the politics of the Middle East, culminating in the Abraham Accords of 2020. Arab states, such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, normalized relations with Israel while giving a faint nod to the Palestinian issue, and the holy grail of normalization with Saudi Arabia may be achieved in a way which will inject at least some new energy into improving Israeli-Palestinian relations. Now, they share Israel’s concern with Iran—even as they negotiate with Tehran—remaining silent while Israel undermines Iran’s nuclear program.

Bob and Evyatar reveal how Israel has used documents stolen from Tehran in a daring, secret Mossad raid to show the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency how Iran has repeatedly violated the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement and lied about its active nuclear weapons program. Drawing from interviews with top confidential Israeli and US sources, including from the Mossad and the CIA, the authors tell the inside story of the tumultuous, and often bloody, history of how Israel has managed to outmaneuver Iran—so far.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781668014561
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	09/26/2023
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	53,036
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Yonah Jeremy Bob is the senior military and intelligence analyst as well as the book review editor for The Jerusalem Post. Hailing originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Yonah has close connections with many Israeli intelligence figures and previously worked in the Israeli military international law division, at the Israeli Embassy to the UN, and in the Israeli Justice Ministry. He is the author of Justice in the West Bank? and the editor and translator of A Raid on the Red Sea, an intelligence thriller whose principal author is Amos Gilboa, a former IDF deputy chief of intelligence.

Ilan Evyatar is a former editor-in-chief of the award-winning magazine The Jerusalem Report, and a former news director, columnist, and senior contributor at The Jerusalem Post. He has edited and translated several books and has worked as a speechwriter and ghostwriter. Born in Israel and raised in London, England, he has interviewed a wide variety of top intelligence officials, as well as leading political, business, and cultural personalities.

Editorial Reviews

06/26/2023

Jerusalem Post journalists Bob and Evyatar survey in their vigorous debut outing Israel’s 20-year clandestine war against Iran’s nuclear program. Among other episodes, the authors detail several bombings of the Natanz uranium-enrichment plant (in 2021, the Israelis managed to embed explosives in the plant’s foreign-supplied equipment before it was shipped to Iran); the Stuxnet computer-worm attack that wrecked hundreds of enrichment centrifuges at Natanz, first detected by the Iranians in 2010; numerous assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists; and the 2018 theft of an archive detailing secret Iranian nuclear activities, which helped President Trump justify abrogating the Iranian nuclear treaty negotiated by the Obama administration. As a complement to the cloak-and-dagger, Israel also waged a patient campaign to forge closer ties with Sunni Arab countries that feared Iran’s nuclear ambitions, culminating in the 2020 Abraham Accords normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Drawing on interviews with Mossad officials, the authors’ well-paced narrative steeps readers in intricate spy craft and high-wire diplomacy, making these events feel like a true-life James Bond mission that’s carefully calibrated to shape American foreign policy and Middle East geopolitics. The result is an engrossing look at one of the most effective covert-ops projects of recent times. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"The book contains some fascinating descriptions of Israeli intelligence activities. . . . A valuable contribution to our understanding of Israel’s extraordinary intelligence and diplomatic efforts."

Washington Independent Review of Books - Todd Kushner

A remarkable story about the war against Iran’s attempts to achieve military nuclear capability. While I cannot confirm the details presented in the book, it is no secret that Israel and its allies are engaged in a relentless fight to stop Iran, and the authors relate this struggle in a thrilling fashion, as well as discussing the important moves to develop relations with Muslim countries afraid of an Iranian bomb.

Danny Yatom

Israel’s covert campaign against Iran’s nuclear program has gone on for nearly three decades. Drawing from a wealth of reliable sources, including esteemed intelligence officers, this compelling narrative offers a meticulously updated chronicle of Mossad’s audacious undertakings aimed at impeding Iran's pursuit of nuclear weaponry.

Uri Bar-Joseph

A must-read for fans of international affairs, espionage, and drama. Based on hard facts and intelligent commentary, the writers expose clandestine details about the most dangerous threat to humanity of our time: The relentless efforts of the clerical regime in Iran to develop and possess nuclear weapons in order to fulfill their radical Shia Islamist apocalyptic vision. A riveting page-turner that is both scary and hopeful at the same time.

Danny Ayalon

When I served as the head of Israeli military intelligence in 1995, the Israeli intelligence community estimated that if Iran moved forward with a success-oriented process toward a nuclear weapon, Iran would obtain the bomb within a decade. The campaign which has been carried out since the 1990s to prevent the Iranian regime from gaining a military nuclear capability has been mostly clandestine, chapters and individual episodes of which are described in Target Tehran.

Moshe Ya’alon

★ 2023-06-20
Two respected journalists delve into Israel’s moves to counter Iran’s nuclear gambit.

The Middle East has long been a labyrinth of age-old grudges and ever shifting allegiances. In the past two decades, Iran has emerged as a player with nuclear ambitions, prompting Israel to think of the nation as one of its major enemies. Bob and Evyatar, both contributors to the Jerusalem Post, have deep connections to Israel’s security agencies and government processes, and they begin their book with Mossad’s theft of a truckload—literally—of documents from Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018. The material provided proof that the country had been systematically violating a range of treaties and agreements but also indicated how far Iran was prepared to go to attain nuclear capability. Israel’s response was a multitiered campaign, combining cyberwarfare, sabotage, airstrikes, drones, and assassinations. The authors fill out the details through interviews with numerous Mossad officers, but the most important change, they suggest, might turn out to be the willingness of several Arab states to reconsider their attitudes toward Israel. Growing Iranian belligerence toward everyone in the region made some level of acceptance start to look desirable, and a series of secret meetings took place. The outcome of these moves was the U.S.–sponsored Abraham Accords, which have evolved into a broad framework for cooperation. The problem is that Iran shows no sign of shelving its nuclear plans. It has become better at hiding and protecting assets and is building cyberwarfare and drone weapons of its own. “The Mossad’s secret war is not over,” write the authors. “Indeed, it may never end.” It is a sobering conclusion, but it is hard to see any alternatives. Throughout this remarkable narrative, the authors provide valuable context to the new Middle East picture.

Built on meticulous, diligent research, this book is key reading for those interested in geopolitical issues.

Kirkus Reviews

Target Tehran is more than a thrilling tale that combines intelligence operations, diplomacy, and espionage. It is a story that sheds fresh light and understanding on the threat from Iran and why is vitally important to ensure that the theocratic dictatorship in Tehran does not gain access to the most destructive weapons on earth.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (USA-Ret.)

Target Tehran is replete with anti-Iran cyber-warfare and sabotage successes. . . . Bob and Evyatar reveal, basically for the first time, how Mossad’s work helped create the environment culminating in the Abraham Accords.

The Wall Street Journal - John Bolton

One of the most accurate and fascinating books so far about the secret war waged by Israel and her allies against the Iranian nuclear project. In a fast, riveting style, Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar describe this secret war that will have a tremendous impact on world history. But it leaves open one cardinal question: will Iran become a nuclear power? Or will Israel, the US and their allies be ready to use all possible means, including the military option, in order to prevent the ayatollahs from achieving their dark goals?

Michael Bar Zohar