Name: John Manoogian III's review of Spies of No Country by Matti Friedman
Item: Spies of No Country
Rating: 2
Author: John Manoogian III

Matti Friedman

“Wondrous . . . Compelling . . . Piercing.” —The New York Times Book Review 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. Journalist and award-winning author Matti Friedman’s tale of Israel’s first spies reads like an espionage novel--but it’s all true. The four agents 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 operations, 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 hanging in the balance, these men went undercover in Beirut, where they spent the next two years operating out of a newsstand, collecting intelligence and sending messages back to Israel via a radio whose antenna was disguised as a clothesline. 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 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 the complicated identity of Israel, a country that presents itself as Western but in fact has more citizens with Middle Eastern roots and traditions, like the spies of this narrative. Meticulously researched and masterfully told, Spies of No Country is an eye-opening look at the paradoxes of the Middle East.

Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel

Spies of No Country

John Manoogian III

A human and curious series of small tales, histories, and sparse recollections woven from the memories of a few former spies and espionage agents of “the Arab Section,” an early pre-Israel 1948 unit of Mizrahi Jews of the Levant who spoke Arabic and passed as Arabs while acting as deep cover agents. Contained a few insights and provided a sense of what the end of British rule in Mandatory Palestine after the fall of “the sick old man of Europe,” the Ottoman Empire, and the dual, unequal populations of Israel’s Jews: the Ashkenazi (Europeans) vaunted as Israel’s founders and leaders, and the over 50% of Jews of the Islamic world, often pushed to the back of history, but explored here in miniature.

John Manoogian III &
Spies of No Country by Matti Friedman

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John Manoogian III &Spies of No Country by Matti Friedman

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John Manoogian III &
Spies of No Country by Matti Friedman