Yaakov Katz on "Shadow Strike"
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.8 • 658 Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2019
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
In his latest book, Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power, Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz tells the inside story of how Israel stopped Syria from becoming a global nuclear nightmare. In this week's podcast, Katz sits down with Tikvah Fund Chairman Roger Hertog to discuss his book. Katz sheds light on the decision-making processes of both the United States and Israel in the run-up to the bombing, explores the sometimes clashing personalities of the players involved in the deliberations over the strike, and reflects on how Israel's bold decision to bomb the Syrian reactor protected not only the Jewish state, but also the entire world.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble as well as "Shining Through the Rain" by Big Score Audio.
This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at the Tikvah Center in New York City.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighter pilots crossed into Syrian airspace. |
| 0:16.0 | Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to its president, Bashar al-Assad, but this time there was no |
| 0:22.7 | warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation with one goal to destroy a nuclear |
| 0:29.3 | reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of security in the Syrian desert. |
| 0:35.4 | Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. |
| 0:39.0 | This week, Roger Hurtag, the chairman of the Tikva Fund, |
| 0:42.5 | discusses Shadow Strike, |
| 0:44.6 | Jerusalem Post editor Yaakov Katz's comprehensive study |
| 0:48.2 | of Israel's secret mission to eliminate Syrian nuclear power. |
| 0:53.2 | Shadow Strike details how Israeli intelligence discovered the reactor at Al-Qibar, |
| 0:58.4 | how Israeli officials flew to Washington in order to share this intelligence with the Bush |
| 1:03.1 | administration in person. |
| 1:04.8 | The highly classified interagency process of deliberation within the Bush administration, |
| 1:12.3 | Prime Minister Ehud Olmerd's decision to carry out the strike alone and the Israeli planning for possible Syrian reactions |
| 1:17.8 | after the strike. Regular listeners to the Tikva podcast will recall an earlier conversation |
| 1:23.9 | that I had with Gabriel Scheinman about Israel's bombing of the nuclear reactor. |
| 1:29.0 | Yaakov Katz's new book reconstructs the events of 2007 with the newest publicly available |
| 1:34.8 | information. Think of the horrible bloodshed of Syria's civil wars over the last years, and now imagine |
| 1:41.0 | what Bashar al-Assad could have done had he also had a nuclear weapon. |
| 1:46.0 | This is really one of the most interesting, and I think you have to say, |
| 1:49.1 | consequential, of all of Israel's modern military maneuvers. |
| 1:53.5 | If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, |
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