Hello again. This To The Point podcast features Ronan Bergman. He is a passionate Israeli. He's also the son of Holocaust survivors. And he's a dedicated journalist

who's not afraid to report on his country's failures as well as successes. He has an

extraordinary new book, Rise and Kill First. It's the secret history of Israel's targeted

assassinations. It documents no less than 2,700 official Israeli attempts

to assassinate Palestinian leaders. That's not all this month at an international conference.

He personally challenged the Prime Minister of Poland about that nation's effort to deny its role in the Holocaust.

I talked with Bergman about all that

and about what to expect now that Russia, as he puts it, is the dominant power in the Middle East.

Here's an edited version of our conversation. Ronan Bergman, thanks for joining us.

Hi, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. You've said that even before the civil war is over in Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are already pointing their guns at Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu called President Putin to ask for help.

What's the outcome of that exchange?

So Israel has been warning that the Iranian deployment interior, one day after the civil

war is over, will not just be directed in order to save the regime of President Assad or

fight Daesh.

It would be pointing their guns and rockets and advanced weaponry against Israel itself.

And Israel claims that day has happened, has come.

Civil war is over, and the Iranians, and Hezbollah forces are dealing mainly with military

buildup in Syria in order to create another front.

Now, Israel is a feeling that it's more or less left alone.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has asked the Russians, President Putin, to pressure or use their leverage in Syria, and they are in real power there, in order to make sure that the Iranians evacuate the country when the civil war is over.

President Netanyahu was very successful in creating tactical coordination with the Russians. To the

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