This book was unbelievable. A friend told me it was good enough to read out of school so i decided to try it. Wow. It was written really well, and it was also really interesting. One part was hysterical! I was laughing so hard, I had tears streaming out of my eyes. It's written above in amazons review. This book is a must read. Thanks Chav for the recc!

I've met Mr. Malkin, he is a very bright-almost James Bond like- couragious fellow. He is, from what I have come to understand-I collect his art workd-to the larger part of the Hebew world not acknowledbed as the man he is because he, came out and wrote about what he did. Taboo. But who could know? Malkin brought public things which-at least throughout the years of fiction were fact-aggravating people who've fictionalized these things and brought down a renewed "vendetta" against those-poor nazis-who've brought accountability to, what can I say? A bad time for the Germany" A couple thou years pass and will probably endure...After all, the Jews owned the banks, control the world and do all the secret things.

Yeah, right.

Malkin, an informed, knowledgable sort of fellow, not only gave light to a grim era, but took it further-he got backlisted by a mojor publisher. Malkin is a great man, not just for doing HIS duty, but for taking the time to create great works of art-I have a few-this is some weird and timeless- Cheese if Andy Warhol painted soup cans, this guy painted Nazis. But then again, who cares about Nazis anymore.

The book details his experiences as a yonug man and his own losses in war. This (book)tells it the way it was-to Malkin and will, and can only be appreciated as a piece of history.

A sort of Albert Speer from the other side.

Respectfully.

This is a true account of the hunting down and capture of the infamous Nazi. More thrilling and readable than any fictional work, Malkin does a wonderful job recalling this adventure in South America which occured over 40 years ago.

Filled with humor, pathos, history, and adventure, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Nazi-hunting, the Holocaust, Israel, espionage, or undercover operations in general.

This book was the basis for a TNT movie, starring Robert Duvall as Eichmann. I had the pleasure of seeing this movie, reading the book, and hearing Malkin speak in person within a short period of time. It is only a shame that, due to the Mossad gag order, we had to wait 30 years to hear this tale.

"Heroes - Tales From the Israeli Wars" tells the stories of some very different Israelis, both civilian and soldier, during Israel's short but turbulent history. Perhaps one of the most unique features of this book is its' attempt to take as little stand as possible on the questions of Israel and the Palestinian-Arabs. At points, the author seems to take a passive stance towards supporting Israel's radical left such as political organizations like Peace Now (Gush Shalom) that advocate the Israelis taking the same disastrous path as the Oslo War and the current and deadly 2003 Road Map proposed by President Bush's administration. In parts, the book come perilously close to the fallacies of moral equivalence, which is to say holding the fireman to the same level of guilt as the arsonist. This was probably the weakest aspect of the book.

"Heroes - Tales From the Israeli Wars" tells the story of seven different Israelis:

1.The Animal: Aryeh "Biro" Dayan: "Biro" is one of Israel's most colorful characters and has been extensively written about in most histories of the 1967 Six Day War as well as a few books about the 1948 War for Israeli Dependence. He is a death camp survivor complete with a Nazi-tattooed number on his forearm. His fame, however, comes from being a consummate, aggressive, and utterly uncompromising soldier.

2.Uzi Yairi: "He Hated the Army and Loved the IDF": An Unlikely Paratrooper: Uzi Yairi has become one of Israel's most famed commandoes while harboring a sensitive personality unexpected of soldiers. He fought courageously in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and was later slain while stopping terrorists who landed by boat and took over an Israeli hotel complete with hostages. His story is the colorful one of a man forced to defend his country while desperately hoping to see peace.

3.Chariot of Fire: Israel Tal: Major General Israel Tal is well known as "the father of Israeli armor" since he not only organized Israel's armor into an effective professional fighting force that achieved overwhelming victory in the 1967 Six Day War, but later headed the design program that created Israel's homegrown tank, the Merkhava (Chariot). The story of the use, development, and later manufacture of armor is a fascinating one. Another often overlooked detail is that while Tal is often credited as the creator of the Merkhava, another engineer is also given credit who well deserves it, Brigadier General Israel Tilan.

4.His Brother's Keeper: Eliazer, Moshe, and Amos Joffe: While the first three stories are typical stories with military heroes albeit from unconventional viewpoints, this story begins the divergence from usual hero stories. It tells the stories of a family and their experiences in defending Israel, but also of the pain and suffering of one family and particularly of three brothers. Among the most poignant aspects of the story are the brothers' dedication to one another, even going so far as to check up on one another in the middle of combat. Tragically, one of the brothers is slain during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and one of the brothers goes above and beyond the call of duty to find his body and return it to his family for proper burial. "His Brother's Keeper" is very much a human-interest story.

5.The Strangest Tale: Ilan Eschel: Ilan Eschel's story is one that shows Israel's determination to survive no matter the odds. Much like Avigdor Kahalani, the famed Israeli tank commander, Eschel suffered crippling wounds several times and returned to service after each dehabilitating wound thought unrecoverable. The story culminates in his returning to his home kibbutz to his own funeral after being mistakenly reported dead.

6.Guni and Raya: Guni and Raya Harnick: Raya Harnick is an Israeli English teacher, a well known Hebrew language poet, one of Israel's most vociferous peace protestors, as well as the mother of the late Guni Harnick. This story is one of the longest in the book and tells the story of Raya's life from raising Guni Harnick to be an Israeli patriot to his death at the Battle for Beaufort during the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee. The story also details her protests against the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee and the members of the Israeli government she holds responsible for her son's death. The story reflects Raya Harnick's politics as a member of Peace Now (Gush Shalom), a radical Israeli peace organization, and holds much less human interest than the other stories because of it's obvious political stance. This story was the weakest in the book.

7.A Will to Live: Smadar Haran Kaiser: Smadar Kaiser is a woman who has lived with unimaginable tragedy, the loss of her entire family (a husband and two young daughters) in a terrorist attack. Rather than send her life in constant sorrow, she dedicated the rest of her life to not living in fear and vowed that within a year's anniversary of the tragedy, she would remarry and raise another family, a vow, which she faithfully kept. Her story is probably the most emotionally laden of the book and it's hard to even conceive of the terror she has endured. Despite being the victim of Arab terror, Smadar hold no hate for her oppressors and hold that unless both Arab and Jew can overcome the tremendous pain that they have endured that no peace is possible. I disagree with some of Smadar's politics, but her story nevertheless is a very inspirational one.

I recommend this book, but not highly do to the author's attempt to minimize taking a stand on issues that desperately need people to take decisive and moral action. I gave this book four stars for this sad shortcoming.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

Peter Allen is a British writer and has told his version of the events of the 1973 Yom Kippur War (also called the Ramadan War by the Egyptians, the Tishreen War by the Syrians, and sometimes the October War elsewhere) using a point of view very similar to the UK's stance in 1973. What I mean by this is that the UK had made many investments politically, miltarily, and economically in many of the Arab states and so often took a pro-Arab stance during the Yom Kippur War while at the same time being a strong ally of the USA and a member of NATO, which led to occasional support for Israel. Allen mirrors this British government stance in that some parts of his book advocate Arab forces and others seem to support the Israelis at the expense of the Soviets. Although Allen is partisan (he relates his opinions with no concern about being impartial to either side), this book, nevertheless, is a great and entertaining read.

What Peter Allen did do was interview hundreds of the fighters (both Arab and Israeli) of the Yom Kippur War which culminated in this entertaining 1982 book. If you are looking for a book to support academic arguments then this isn't the book for you, Allen didn't use footnotes although he did list a bibliography of selected materials. His interviews also weren't documented as Israeli security doesn't often allow interviewee's give their names and most Arab interviewee's (primarily Egyptians) were also not allowed to give out their names except in a few cases where approved by the Egyptian government. While Syria won't help most researchers of this war (in which Syria was militarily defeated), at the time of publishing, the author initimated he was able to interview some Syrians incognito abroad.

Why buy the book?

The story is told very well and having been a WWII historian before this book, Allen makes a number of interesting comparisons between WWII generals such as Patton and Montgomery and Arab and Israeli generals. He also did some very good research and his telling of the conflict includes the political aspects of the war (What vexed Golda Meir, how Sadat was dealing with the Soviets, etc.), the tactical miltary aspects of the war (how the Israelis continued to practice tactics developed in the 1967 War, how the Egyptians failed to venture out from under their missile shield, etc.), strategic elements (the Israelis always plan to carry war to the enemy's soil, the Arabs plannned very limited victory conditions, etc.), as well as some great individual stories gained from his research and interviews.

The maps included with the book are excellent and much easier to read than those of many other books chronicling the Yom Kippur War. The maps include important ridges and hills that are often left out. The two photographic inserts have some rare photographs such as those of the Israeli Gilowa bridging craft, the Israeli home-made steel roller bridge, and some great pictures of the Arab Egyptian forces. Some of the Egyptian army photos are exclusives that I haven't seen in any other books chronicling the period and I have most books about the Yom Kippur War published between 1973 and 2002. Allen's exclusive Egyptian photos are a result of his friendship with H. el Komayessi, an Egyptian photographer during the war. I will however point out that at least two of the photographs are incorrectly labelled:

1. One photograph is labeled "Egyptain crossing equipment," but actually has a photo of cheering Egyptian soldiers around a Sherman tank with observation equipment and Israeli ID markings.

2. Another photograph is labelled "Wreckage of Israeli Phantom, downed by a missile" but actually is the wreckage of a liason plane.

I'm not sure if the incorrectly-labelled photographs are a result of Peter Allen's or el Komayessi's error.

My favorite part of the book, however, were the many individual vignettes that the author included interspersed throughout the book. The many stories of individual soldiers, journalists, civilians, and observers make the story come alive with a nice human touch. Some of the things that Allan wrote that Sadat said to Kosygin were full of humor (mostly taken from Sadat's memoirs).

This book makes a nice addition to any of Chaim Herzog's or Egyptian general Shazli's accounts of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. However, it is a much more general accounting of the war and is, as previously mentioned, not vigorously documented.

What makes the Merkava unique in modern MBTs is the engine in front approach to crew protection. This means that there is access via a hatch in the rear of the vehicle, yet there one interior drawing (cut away) is not detailed enough to gain a real appreciation of what the designers accomplished.

Overall, this book is ok for a modeler, but I would want to see more of the interior of this tank.

Because the IDF tank corps modifies the Merkava Chariot tank once each decade, then Mr. Katz should have known that the version for the entire next decade of 2000 to 2010 was only months away. Sure enough the announcement in November that the new Merkava Mk4 with the 1500 hspw pack with unique kinetic energy amunition was in production and under going field test that have exceeded 10,000 hours by November 5th, 1999. So much has been up graded electronically as well as performance that it rates as much fanfaren as the introduction of the first Merkava! I hope the author will consider an up dated or revised edition and yes, more color photo's and interior detail would not hurt either... Thanks

Many reviewers forget that this book originally came out in 1997 although the lastest New Vanguard reprint occurred this year (2002). What that means is although the Merkhava Mk.IV made its' debut this year, the book has material that is now dated (The book's text only alludes to the Merkhava Mk.IV).

However, the New Vanguard series isn't a sales brochure meant to be the latest and greatest, but a book of historical art plates and background information for modellers, gamers, and military history enthusiasts. If you're buying the book as I did looking for great color plates and some background information then this is a great buy. I love my copy. Peter Sarson, the illustrator, is world-renowned and well-deserving of his spectacular cut-aways and drawings. I've found the book incredibly useful for the paintjobs and extra detailing on the Merkhava models I'm working on.

Don't buy this book if you only want up-to-date statistical information about the Merkhava tank series...

BUT, do buy this book if you're looking for wonderful color plates of the Merkhava tanks, a useful history of the tank, some great photographs, and some other great information. I recommend the book for those reasons.

My only criticism is that the book gives the lion's share of credit for the Merkhava design to General Tal, but many sources are now beginning to credit another officer, Yisrael Tilan - who also designed the tank, quarreled with Tal and later left the project. Hopefully another publisher will eventually give Yisrael Tilan the credit that he deserves.

all facts are either published already or invented by the author. I really didn't read many good books about Israeli espionage, and the reason is probably that these guys are so devoted and secret, nobody can infiltrate them.
I'm waiting for Tom Clancey to write a good one about the Mosad.

Woman from Massad was written poorly, full of innuendos without facts, anti-israeli; a waste of my time.

(...) Hounam's book is a fine introduction. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about nuclear politics, and about nuclear weapons proliferation in the Mid East. Hounam's research has added some pieces of the puzzle, for example, how rogue parts of the US government supplied Israel with nuclear technology (for the control room of the Dimona reactor, in triplicate) in violation of official US policy. In other words the left hand of the US government hasn't known what the right hand has been up to. This insanity has helped produce the current crisis in the Middle East. For surely if anything has inspired Saddam Hussein and the leaders of Iran to acquire nukes and other weapons of mass destruction it is the Israeli example; which is one of deception and contempt for the international community.

Recently I received a letter from the nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu (who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 1987). In it Morde asked me to send him a copy of Hounam's book. This tells you everything you need to know. Get it. You won't be disappointed. (...)