By Way of Deception: A Devastating Insider's Portrait of the Mossad

When By Way of Deception was published in 1990, the Israeli government sought a court injunction to prevent its release, a response that confirmed, more powerfully than any review could, the explosive nature of what Victor Ostrovsky had written. A former Mossad case officer, Ostrovsky broke with the tradition of institutional silence to deliver the most detailed and damning insider account of Israeli intelligence operations ever made public. Written with journalist Claire Hoy, the book draws on Ostrovsky's direct experience as a katsa, a field officer in the Mossad's operations division, to expose the inner workings of one of the world's most secretive and effective intelligence agencies. He describes recruitment and training methods, the organizational structure and culture of Mossad operations, specific intelligence actions carried out across the Middle East and beyond, and a series of decisions he regarded as morally indefensible, including the deliberate use of misinformation that he argues led to preventable deaths. Controversial, meticulously detailed, and driven by a moral urgency that sets it apart from conventional intelligence memoir, By Way of Deception remains one of the most important and widely read insider accounts of intelligence operations ever published, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how the Mossad actually works.