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Striking Back

The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response

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Striking Back

By: Aaron J. Klein
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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About this listen

 1972. The Munich Olympics. Palestinian members of the Black September group murder 11 Israeli athletes. Nine hundred million people watch the crisis unfold on television, witnessing a tragedy that inaugurates the modern age of terror.

Back in Israel, Prime Minister Golda Meir vows to track down those responsible and, in Menachem Begin's words, "run these criminals and murderers off the face of the earth". A secret Mossad unit is mobilized, a list of targets drawn up. Thus begins the Israeli response, a mission that unfolds not over months but over decades. The Mossad has never spoken about this operation. No one has known the real story. Until now.

In this riveting account, Aaron Klein peels back the layers of myth and misinformation about the "shadow war" against Black September and other terrorist groups.

©2005 Aaron J. Klein (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks Armed Forces Europe Freedom & Security Israel & Palestine Middle East Military Olympics & Paralympics Politics & Government Social Sciences Special & Elite Forces Sports History Violence in Society War & Crisis War Israeli-Palestinian conflict Espionage

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Critic reviews

  • Audie Award Finalist, Non-Fiction, Unabridged, 2007
All stars
Most relevant  
Exceptionally interesting book outlining the efforts of the Israeli intelligence services to avenge the Munich massacre.

Excellent

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For a book called Striking Back I am surpised to say when the book focused on the Mossad assassinations it lossed its narrative cohesion. By contrast the first third of book about the Munich Massacre is superb and you can really tell that Klein is passionate about the subject.



All in all good but not great, might have been four star if Rudnicki's narration hadn't started to sound like he was bored of the book around half way through.

Something of a let down

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Solid and passionate narration gives life to a thrilling historical tale regarding terrorist attacks, covert assassinations and foreign espionage. Provides an in depth view of the operations of the Israeli Defense Forces and their Palestinian counterparts.

Thrilling and Riveting

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This audiobook is a great account of the Munich Olympic massacre and the Mossads history of getting revenge on the players of the massacre. The narration was ok, didn’t hate it but didn’t love it.

A Great Account

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Klein has done his homework with this well researched account. My main reservation is that he lets his anger at the terrible events of Munich taint his journalism. There's no need to tell us that the German police were incompetent for instance, the facts speak for themselves. There's also an editing glitch as the narrator repeats a sentence.

Well researched but too emotive

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This is completely one-sided. It is a glorification of the Israeli secret services of the nineteen-seventies (referred to as "warriors" and "combatants"). The Palestinian opposition is portrayed as vainglorious and hateful. Third parties like France and Germany are depicted as cowardly. The notion that extra-judicial killings carried out in other sovereign nations might be wrong does not seem to cross the author's mind.

So, if you like the idea of a biased historical account of how teams of hitmen went around killing opponents, with all the planning, build-up, and execution of operations involved, you'll like this.

Actually, I quite enjoyed it.

not balanced at all

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