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A new chapter on Israeli intelligence
By Shiri Lev-Ari

The Kinneret-Zmora-Bitan publishing house is set to release journalist Ronen Bergman's "Nekudat Ha Al-Hazor" ("Point of No Return") on Sunday. The book deals with Israeli intelligence work on Iran and Hezbollah.

Bergman writes that ever since Ayatollah Khomeini came into power in Iran in 1979, a secret war has been waged between Israel and Iran. The book includes new revelations about the Second Lebanon War and information about the Iranian nuclear project, secret arms shipments from Israel to Iran, the terror attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, the connection between Iran and Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and Israeli efforts to bring back captured navigator Ron Arad.

Bergman, a reporter for the mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth, is a lawyer by training and holds a Ph.D. in History from Cambridge University.

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Thus far, he has published two bestsellers "Vehareshut Netuna" ("Authority Granted") about terror and corruption in the Palestinian Authority, and "Zman Emet" ("The Moment of Truth") about the Yom Kippur War, which he wrote together with Gil Meltzer.

The English translation rights for the new book have already been sold to Simon and Schuster. "In fact, I'm writing two different books - one in Hebrew and one in English," says Bergman, "because what interests the American audience is different from what interests the Israeli audience. In the English edition, it is necessary to explain more, since they know little about the subject. The Second Lebanon War is much more interesting to Israelis, while Americans are more interested in secret arms sales to Iran and the involvement of the CIA in trying to sabotage the Iranian nuclear project."

In his effort to publish the book, Bergman became entrenched in six months of lengthy negotiations with the Israeli censor. The censor offered 750 corrections. "They took out entire segments," says Bergman. "We submitted 100 appeals and a large part of them were accepted. Today it's hard to find a consensus in Israel and the United States that cuts across parties and ideologies like the attitude toward Iran. For most of the public, Iran is the most tangible threat to the country's security. But what do we really know about Iran's motives, why it is prepared to pay such a heavy price in the international arena for its support of terror, who is responsible there for operating terror and how enthusiastic they are to pull the atomic trigger? This a topic that will follow Israel and the United States for many long years and it is worth learning about it."

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