Chapters 5 and 6 focus on clusters of re-narrated episodes in Cyril’s response to Julian. Chapter 5 is organized by one of Julian’s own categories: the “gifts of the gods” which, he had argued, were given in surpassing quality and quantity to the Hellenic people. This chapter groups Julian’s various iterations of gifts and Cyril’s sprawling responses in three, interrelated categories: exemplary characters, intellectual superiority, and military and political domination. In Cyril’s responses, Minos was no legendary hero but rather imitated the fallen angels’ lust for domination; the Attic language itself (not to mention the convention of writing) derived from proto-Christian sources; and the Jewish people’s turbulent history and the present ascendance of Roman superiority equally reflect the Christian God’s management of the cosmos.

Chapter 7 focuses on the assassination of Mohamed Boudia, who died in a car explosion in a fancy Parisian neighbourhood on 28 June 1973. The chapter discusses the cables sent by French intelligence updating Club de Berne members and Mossad about the police investigation (despite widespread rumours that Mossad was likely behind these killings). Boudia, a top Black September terrorist, was in charge of various terrorist attacks and this chapter details what intelligence agencies knew about these attacks and Boudia’s involvement. At the time, he was preparing an attack against the Schönau transit camp near Vienna, where Jewish migrants stayed on their way to Israel from the Soviet Union. The chapter highlights how Mossad used Club de Berne intelligence for Operation Wrath of God. In particular, the Schönau investigation was used by Mossad as a pretext to gather information on Boudia. In particular, intelligence provided by the Swiss intelligence agency was very useful for Mossad to organise the killing mission against Boudia.

The introduction provides an overview of the book, presents the core arguments, highlights the contribution to current literature, explains the book’s methods and sources, and outlines the structure of the book. The overarching argument of the book is that intelligence cooperation was so beneficial for all parties that European authorities therefore let Mossad carry out its operation and tolerated the use of its intelligence to kill Palestinians. Hence, the book demonstrates that the extensive advantages that European agencies gained through Club de Berne intelligence-sharing led them to turn a blind eye towards, or even tacitly support, Israeli covert actions on their respective territories.

Chapter 2 looks at intelligence exchanges right after the Munich Olympics attack. This was when the Israeli government decided to go ahead with preparing the killing mission against any Palestinian involved in the planning and execution of the Munich massacre. This chapter shows how European intelligence helped Mossad identify the perpetrators of the attack, including those who planned and managed the terrorist operation as well as those who helped with the implementation or provided logistical support. European intelligence also helped Mossad to get a better sense of Black September’s operational methods in Europe, an area where Mossad lacked intelligence at the time. During this period, Black September carried out an explosive letters campaign, and this chapter shows how intelligence-sharing helped agencies detect the letters before they were opened. Lastly, through Club de Berne intelligence reports, numerous tactical details come to light about how Black September had organised the Munich Olympics attack.

Chapter 4 looks at Mossad’s assassination of Mahmoud al-Hamshari, who was killed in an explosion in his home in Paris on 8 December 1972. The chapter analyses the cables sent by French intelligence that updated Club de Berne members (including Mossad) about the ongoing police investigation. The chapter also looks at Black September attacks that happened in December 1972, one of which was a major attack in Bangkok. Palestinian terrorists planned a simultaneous attack in Scandinavia, which is revealed here for the first time. Another attack targeted Israel’s prime minister via a surface-to-air missile at Rome Fiumicino Airport. If this attack had succeeded, it would probably have counted among the most spectacular terrorist events of the decade. Club de Berne reports about Black September’s preparations for its terrorist activities show that agencies were trying to be one step ahead of the group. A few warnings issued by Mossad at the time are interesting from a contemporary perspective: the agency warned that Palestinians could hijack a plane and crash it into an Israeli city. Mossad thought that a plane could serve as a weapon, as was the case forty years later during 9/11.

The book’s first chapter provides background information about Operation Wrath of God, the Black September organisation, and the Club de Berne. This sets the scene and provides an understanding of the historical and political context in which the events described in the book take place. For instance, understanding how Operation Wrath of God was organised will later help explain ways in which European intelligence was useful to Mossad to carry out its assassinations.

On 21 July 1973, in a small, quiet Norwegian vacation town called Lillehammer, Mossad committed two unforgivable mistakes: first, it killed the wrong man and, second, it got caught doing it. On the official diplomatic level, the Lillehammer affair and public trial of the six Mossad officers caused a mass outpouring of international outrage and hostile press towards Israel. On the secret intelligence level, as this chapter demonstrates, it was as if the Lillehammer affair never happened. Chapter 8 focuses on three cases where cooperation started before the killing in Lillehammer and lasted for several months after. The chapter also discusses Club de Berne reports from early 1973 about terrorist activities in Scandinavia, which explains why Mossad readily believed claims that Salameh, a top terrorist, would be in Norway.

The concluding chapter discusses how Mossad relied heavily on foreign intelligence agencies to organise its covert actions. This invites the reader to rethink the oft-presented image of Mossad as a near omnipotent and omniscient agency. Instead, it is clear that Mossad did not act alone, and that European intelligence was vital for the successful implementation of Operation Wrath of God. The book thus offers a more nuanced and realistic view of Mossad’s strengths and weaknesses. The conclusion also discusses the major themes of the book, including questions relating to the international relations of intelligence agencies and the effectiveness of covert actions. Lastly, it discusses the core dilemma that European intelligence agencies faced when Operation Wrath of God was exposed: should they criticise Mossad and risk losing it as a vital partner in the fight against terrorism, or keep quiet and continue cooperating with Israeli security? Obviously, they chose the latter because the intelligence exchanges were deemed very valuable and because it could be kept entirely secret – at least until this book, which has revealed the secret for the first time.

Chapter 3 starts with Operation Wrath of God’s first targeted assassination: the shooting of Wael Zwaiter in Rome on 16 October 1972. After the killing, Italian intelligence asked for help from its Club de Berne partners to find Zwaiter’s assassins. The absurdity of this, of course, is that one of the partners who was supposed to help identify the murderer, was the murderer. This chapter analyses intelligence cooperation around four attempted or perpetrated Black September terrorist attacks, some of which will be revealed for the first time in this book. The chapter further highlights that several cables also served a second purpose for intelligence agencies. For example, agencies wanted to appear as powerful, relevant, well networked, and knowledgeable as possible about Palestinian conspiratorial activities as a way to cultivate their image in the eyes of their partners. The chapter outlines a few cases of such covert diplomacy where, through intelligence-sharing, agencies tried to change how they and their governments were perceived by other governments.

Chapter 6 describes a true war of the spooks. Within days, Mossad assassinated members of the Palestinian armed struggle in Paris, Beirut, and Athens. On 5 April 1973, it gunned down Basil Paoud al-Kubaisi in full daylight in the streets of the French capital. In Beirut on 9 April 1973, Mossad organised a raid and killed a top Fatah leader, Abu Yussuf, a PLO spokesperson, Dr Kamal Butros Nasser, and the Fatah operative in charge of operations in the West Bank, Kemal Adwan. In Athens on 11 April 1973, it assassinated Zaid Muchassi, the Fatah representative in Cyprus who had replaced Hussein Abu-Khair after he was killed by Mossad on 22 January 1973. In retaliation, in Rome on 27 April 1973, Black September assassinated Vittorio Olivares, an El Al employee (falsely) accused of being a Mossad agent. Lastly, chapter 6 describes Mossad’s spectacular seventh killing mission. Abdel Nakaa and Abdel Shibli were killed when their car exploded as they were on their way to perpetrate an attack against an El Al office in Rome. What sounds like a James-Bond-esque operation can indeed be confirmed with Club de Berne records, together with new and hitherto unknown elements.

This introductory chapter discusses the focus of this monograph, and places it in its theoretical, contextual and methodological context. Working from the premise that while gender shapes violence, violence also shapes gender, I introduce the central line of enquiry of this book: the gendered politics of settler colonialism, with a specific focus on masculinities across the sharply hierarchical divide of Israeli militarism and occupied Palestine.

The empirical research is placed within its historical context, serving to contextualise the settler colonial present – the application of which is explicated within this section. My own positionality, research methodology and the structure of the book is discussed after articulation of the conceptual framework of the book. The latter explores theory and literature surrounding gender, masculinities, violence, and their intersections – affirming Demetriou’s (2001, 342–48) argument that “when the conditions for the reproduction of patriarchy change”, “exemplary masculinities […] adapt accordingly.”

The concluding chapter highlights the fluidity and interconnected nature of masculinities within specific interactional settings across Israel and Palestine, indicating that what is hailed as ‘the ideal’ is ever subject to change amid complex webs of power, patriarchy, and militarised colonisation. Each telling components of much broader and complex stories, I summarise each chapter as indicative of the contingency and mutual adaptability of gendered dynamics across manufactured, militarised, and sharply hierarchical colonial divides. I argue that gendered identities in this context are connected by that which simultaneously separates them – the militarised violence of the colonial regime. In so doing, the intertwined nature of identities across and enmeshed within complex webs of power, violence and resistance are explored, revealing a plurality of scripts and codes that variously constitute the complex gendered politics of settler colonialism.

Chapter III delves into the discursive mechanisms through which former Israeli conscripts in this study understood, justified and/or distanced themselves from the violent regime in which they serve(d) – relating this to the broader context of ‘moralised militarism’ so frequently attributed to the Israeli military. Through analysis of the speech acts, moralisations and emotive articulations by former and current soldiers, I argue that traits of emotional expression, reflection and critique – far from being anomalies of militarised masculinity in this context – are central to its legitimation and idealisation, enabling the soldier, and society more broadly, to retain their sense of humanity amidst enduring violence. Rather than performances of stoicism and emotional control with which ‘traditional’ forms of militarised masculinity are normatively associated, a more philosophical, emotive, and cerebral approach to violence appears to be celebrated and encouraged within Israeli militarism – consolidating the supposed relation between militarism, masculinity, and moralism in the settler-colonial state.

Chapter I explores traditionally ‘non-hegemonic’ attributes as inherent to militarised masculinities in contemporary Israel, examining embodied compliance and submission to a higher order as a normalised means of ascending the ‘hierarchy of bodies’ that bolsters and undergirds the Zionist project from its outset. Exploring basic training, punishments, military hierarchy, friendship, camaraderie and death, I argue that the conscious performance of embodied submission (with enthusiastic consent) is as much valued within conscripted military masculinities as militarised domination in this context. Indeed, I suggest that the conscripted combat soldier – the archetypal national and masculine hero – must be both visibly dominant over the indigenous Palestinian ‘Other’, while simultaneously malleable and submissive to the goals of the Israeli state. As such, I explore both polarities of domination and submission as demanded within the parameters of idealised military masculinity – illustrating the gendered tensions that punctuate normative binaries in this militarised setting.