Join us for our virtual FL JCC Author Series with Ilan Evyatar, Target Tehran; How Israel is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East

Tar­get Tehran pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive account of how Israel’s decades-old intel­li­gence agency, Mossad, has con­duct­ed oper­a­tions with the pur­pose of pre­vent­ing Iran from becom­ing a nuclear pow­er. Those oper­a­tions came to a head when, in 2018, Mossad agents stole two truck­loads of files that dis­closed the coun­try’s clear vio­la­tions of the 2015 nuclear deal it had signed.

Although some details are still clas­si­fied or not yet released for attri­bu­tion, the authors, who are inves­tiga­tive reporters, tell this remark­able sto­ry as ful­ly as pos­si­ble. Their nar­ra­tive reads like a spy nov­el: it is dra­mat­ic and riv­et­ing from the start.

The authors fin­ished writ­ing Tar­get Tehran in April 2023, and they end their account with praise for the achieve­ments of Israel’s “elite spy agency.” One can­not help read­ing these words with Hamas’s Octo­ber 7 attack in mind. Notwith­stand­ing Mossad’s suc­cess­es, the authors may now find them­selves inves­ti­gat­ing what at this stage appears to be a mon­u­men­tal intel­li­gence failure.

llan Evy­atar is a for­mer edi­tor-in-chief of the award-win­ning mag­a­zine The Jerusalem Report, and a for­mer News Direc­tor, colum­nist, and senior con­trib­u­tor at The Jerusalem Post.