Book Review: While Israel Slept by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot

While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot is part history (from an Israeli perspective) and part biting analysis of how Israel screwed up. Both Mr. Katz and Bohbot are journalists with knowledge and insight into Israel’s intelligence community, Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and government.

• 336 pages
• Publisher ‏ : St. Martin’s Press ‎
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250345685

My rating for While Israel Slept – 4
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This book is part history, part PR, but mostly a biting criticism of Israel‘s intelligence apparatus, political leadership and Bibi Netanyahu. The narrative shows, in detail, how warnings were missed and how Israel simply ignored Hamas’ growing power and threat ability.
All of it done in the open.

I’ve listened to many books and lectures about the intelligence community in general, and it seems to be conscious among connected people who are from the outside looking in that the community weighs intelligence they’ve gotten from expensive means, satellites for example, more than other means, newspaper headlines seem to be the classic example.

This was obvious after the October 7 attack when it was revealed that IDF commanders had been given, time after time, intelligence that something was going to happen and simply ignored it. The same is true for intelligent analysts and politicians.

The strength of While Israel Slept by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot is the few pages at the end. A hard look at where Israel screwed up and did not realize that an attack was imminent. Especially the point about how bad Israel is on the PR diplomatic front and is as painfully obvious has been getting its butt kicked by the Palestinians on that front (and seriously, kudos to them).

I just wish the book spent a bit more time how Israel treated the Gazans, and that the timeline of events would be for better contexts. That’s just how my brain works, and I believe it would make it more clear to those who are not familiar with the intricacies of the area.