In this essay, researcher Paul Gaston Aaron reviews Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations , by Israeli military and intelligence affairs journalist Ronen Bergman. Drawing on his deep knowledge of the subject, Aaron lauds the book for its fine-grained and chilling accounts of the mechanisms of clandestine warfare. Aaron also points out that Bergman offers no critique of the moral dilemma entrenched in policies that violate international law even when it becomes clear that the mantra to kill or be killed has little to do with state security and much more to do with raising the Israeli public's morale, destabilizing Palestinian society, and thwarting Palestinians' attempts at self-determination by disrupting their ruling structures. While Bergman does not question the underlying premise of the targeted killing policy, which assumes a threat, to which what Israel does is a response, he tries to redeem a few individuals by making a distinction between what he sees as an ethically responsible warrior class and an opportunistic political elite.

Not until the Second Intifada did assassination emerge as an explicit, legally codified, and publicly announced doctrine of so-called targeted killing in Israel. This study, the first of a two-part series, explores the doctrine's historical roots and ideological lineage and tracks its rise under the premiership of Ariel Sharon. Targeted killing became institutionalized not just to reduce direct and imminent threats against Israelis but also to mobilize electoral support, field-test weapons and tactics, and eliminate key figures in order to sow chaos and stunt the development of an effective Palestinian national movement. The study frames the analysis within a wider meditation on Israel's idolatry of force. As much symbolic performance as military technique, targeted killing reenacts and ritualizes Palestinian humiliation and helplessness in the face of the Zionist state's irresistible power, making this dynamic appear a fact of life, ordained and immutable.