• Title: Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team
• Author: George Jonas
• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (November 29, 2005)
• ISBN-10: 0743291646
• ASIN: B001GVJCC4

This was an interesting book to read – I found it on the discount table at our local Borders and, since I’ve seen the movie Munich, I thought I’d like this book.

And I did – the book and the movie share common important moments, but I think the book emphasizes that the original intention was to take the head off of terrorism for a couple years, not just to extract some justice for the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes.  Jonas also spends a good deal of time writing about the way Israelis feel that they owe their country everything in an attempt to ensure survival; this has consequences on average people asked to do extraordinary things, for example Jonas’s main character Avner.

Its also interesting that Mossad (which means Institute in Hebrew) would select normal people, not highly experienced agents, to go after terrorists.  But then, perhaps that makes sense, since the people they are hunting are also normal people that have put themselves into a very abnormal position.