Israel Today: Yaakov Katz, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post and author of Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power
Monday, December 9, 7:30 pm
Sandler Family Campus, Free
“On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighters advanced on Deir ez-Zour in Syria. Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad. But this time, there was no warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation, with one goal: to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy in the Syrian desert.”
—Shadow Strike
“Reading like a spy-thriller novel, Yaakov Katz’s Shadow Strike takes you behind the scenes in the Oval Office, at Mossad headquarters, and in the Syrian desert on a mission too complex and daring to be believed,” says Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador to Israel and senior director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Security Council during the Obama Administration.
The Tidewater community will have the opportunity to decide if they agree with Shapiro after hearing from the author when he is in town next month.
Editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, Katz is the second guest expert in the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC and community partners’ 9th annual Israel Today series. As part of the Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival, Katz will share details from his latest book.
Shadow Strike tells the story of the espionage, political courage, military might, and psychological warfare behind Israel’s daring operation to stop one of the greatest known acts of nuclear proliferation. It also brings Israel’s powerful military and diplomatic alliance with the United States to life, revealing the debates President George W. Bush had with Vice President Dick Cheney and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as well as the diplomatic and military planning that took place in the Oval Office, the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, and inside the IDF’s underground war room beneath Tel Aviv.
These two countries remain united in a battle to prevent nuclear proliferation, to defeat Islamic terror, and to curtail Iran’s attempts to spread its hegemony throughout the Middle East. Shadow Strike explores how this operation continues to impact today’s world and if what happened in 2007 is a sign of what Israel will need to do one day to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
Katz served for close to a decade as the Jerusalem Post’s military reporter and defense analyst and is the co-author of the books, The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower and Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War. He also served for two years as a senior policy adviser to Israel’s Minister of Economy and Minister of Diaspora Affairs. Originally from Chicago, Katz also has a law degree from Bar Ilan University.
Reserve seats for this event or learn more at JewishVA.org/IsraelToday.