Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against International Terrorism's Money Masters

by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Samuel M. Katz (Contributor)

A revelatory account of the cloak-and-dagger Israeli campaign to target the finances fueling terror organizations--an effort that became the blueprint for U.S. efforts to combat threats like ISIS and drug cartels.

ISIS boasted $2.4 billion of revenue in 2015, yet for too long the global war on terror overlooked financial warfare as an offensive strategy. Harpoon, the creation of Mossad legend Meir Dagan, directed spies, soldiers, and attorneys to disrupt and destroy money pipelines and financial institutions that paid for the bloodshed perpetrated by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups. Written by an attorney who worked with Harpoon and a bestselling journalist, Harpoon offers a gripping story of the Israeli-led effort, now joined by the Americans, to choke off the terrorists' oxygen supply, money, via unconventional warfare.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Israel, War, Audiobook, Terrorism

336 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2017

Reviews

[Lance Charnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harpoon is an interesting take on a little-known aspect of the endless Middle Eastern terrorist wars, one in which the battle cry is “follow the money” and banks are the battleground. You’ll learn a lot about the financial underpinnings of terrorism and see how killing an accountant can have more impact than taking out a whole battalion of gunmen. Take the dust-jacket copy with a few grains of Dead Sea salt and you’ll get a pretty good read. Three and a half shekels.

Because I wrote this review for Criminal Element, I can't post it all here. Read the entire review -- and a lot of other good stuff -- here.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

You think you know someone when you sleep with them, and sometimes you learn you don't. Books can be similar, and different.
Harpoon might be better read from the back first, starting with the acknowledgments. There were two authors involved with Israeli lawyer and first-time author Nitsana Darshan-Leitner in the lead, and Samuel Katz as co-author. There were tons of others involved, including censors over there, as noted in suspicion earlier here on Goodreads. Plenty of eyes, which paid off in one of the best-edited books I've read in years. Possibly ever, and there were 308 pages.
It's all about fighting your battles in the banks and financial institutions. A few might lose their jobs, but bloodletting is drastically curtailed that way. No money, no bombs. Harpoon, named for a special financial warfare wing of Israel's Mossad under Meir Dagan worked to reduce the suicide bombings of the 1980s and '90s.
I saw an immediate relationship between old England's privateer Sir Francis Drake, and the other Seadogs robbing treasure and gold from Spain to Harpoon.
I personally favor global peace, regardless of who wins or loses whichever conflict. I've been to the Middle East once, but I wish I could be around for such a day when it's a bit more like Europe in that respect. I spent a few days in Lebanon, but I dream of being able to tour Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Syria, and Iran like I might France, Germany, or Austria. I know, I'm dreaming. Not in this lifetime, but, if I live a few hundred more years, maybe.
The content moved nicely, there was only a small handful of anything that could be called an error. It was a pleasure to read, and nice to wake up next to.
It was a bargain, too. Listed on the cover at $27, I got it for $1 at a dollar store. I need to go back there.

[Ben Rothke · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those that want to know about the cloak and dagger exploits of the Mossad, books such as Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad and Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service are fascinating reads. These books detail the spellbinding story of the Mossad, and how they’ve ensured Israel’s security, in addition to that of other countries around the world.

But one of the Mossad’s greatest successes occurred not with guns, spies or international intrigue. Rather via politicians, lawyers, bankers, CPA’s, and a few spies too.

In Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters (Hachette Books 978-0316399050) authors Nitsana Darshan-Leitner and Samuel M. Katz tell the fascinating story of how the Mossad was able to stop the banking networks that were used to finance terrorism. The Mossad (in addition to the US Government), saw that it could be more effective to hit the terrorists in their wallets, rather than with bullets.

The father of Operation Harpoon was Meir Dagan, former Israel Defense Forces Major General and Mossad Director. Dagan had the revelation that it would be easier and safer for Israel to try to disarm its enemies not by engaging them in battle, but by cutting off their funds so they could not launch terror attacks in the first place.

The post 9/11 global war on terror focused on firepower, dropping soldiers and bombs into enemy territory and more. But the cost in that approach was not only massive financially, many lives were lost in the process.

The Harpoon task force was established in 2001, as Dagan knew quite well that large terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas had money as their lifeblood. Dagan saw that if the cash did not flow, there would be a halt in their terror efforts. Dagan knew if he could stop the money pipelines by via pressure on the financial institutions from serving them; it would be a potent method in the war on terror.

In The New Terrorism: Myths and Reality, author Thomas Mockaitis notes that suicide bombers were thought to be a poor man’s cruise missile. But Dagan understood how fallacious that notion was. Every suicide bomber or terrorist needed a large network of suppliers, handlers, scouts, smugglers, bomb makers, safe houses, and more for them to achieve their end-goals. The suicide bombing network campaigns were quite expensive and required a constant flow of cash. That network was also highly dependent on money to keep its supply line going. If Israel and the United States could stop those supply chains, they could stop the suicide bombers and other terrorist attacks.

Harpoon revolutionized the concept of lawfare, a form of asymmetric warfare that consists of using the legal system against an enemy. In this case, it was a concerted effort of the Mossad and various attorneys. As founder of the Shurat HaDin Israeli Law Center, co-author Nitsana Darshan-Leitner brings a first-hand account of her legal fight against terror financing to every chapter in this compelling book.

Before Operation Harpoon, the banks were delighted to profit off terror. Once the lawsuits started, the banks realized that the legal fees, extended and expensive litigation, in addition to the negative PR made it no longer profitable to be the terrorist’s bank of choice.

Since the terrorists killed Americans also, many of these lawsuits were filed in the United States. This in addition to the fact that the US legal system has much more at its power to ensure the financial institutions actually stop.

While the book is about how the Mossad stopped the finance networks, the authors don’t deal that in depth and it is quite light in that area. Forensic accountants, CPA, investigators and others looking to use those techniques won’t find the answers here.

The book also goes into details in an area I had no idea about; that many of these terrorist’s groups, both in the Mideast, North Korea and more; are heavily involved in the drug trade. It’s not just the Columbians that are involved in worldwide cocaine trade. T

The novel idea of Harpoon was that it was a non-lethal way to stop the terrorist network. Choke off the money, and the bloodshed will end.

Harpoon has had many successes and has undoubtable saved countless lives. Terrorist networks are often changing their methods of attack. In In Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters, Darshan-Leitner and Katz have written a fascinating account that shows that when governments are motivated and created; they can beat the terrorist in their tracks. No matter how often they change them.

[Naama · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first third of this book focused a bit too much on the well-known details of the major terrorist attacks in Israel during the Nineties and during Second Intifada. As the book progressed there was more emphasis on Meir Dagan's quest to 'follow the money' and deplete global terrorism funds. That was the worthwhile part of the book, for me. Some of Dagan's methods (e.g. ponzi schemes, targeted hits) seem straight out of Hollywood, but I was particularly fascinated by the legal methods he used (at times in collaboration with with Nitsana Darshan-Leitner) to dry up the funds. It's nice to read about how lawyers and accountants can make a difference.
The book shed light on the strong ties between terrorism and other illegal activities, such as drugs, and on how the DEA's war on drugs is actually also a war on terrorism.
Considering how much of the success of the CIA & Mossad seems to be directly connected to bankrupting terrorist organizations and/or cutting them off from conventional financial systems, the advent of crypto-currency is worrisome.

[Laila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read and well-written book; you don't have to be a political science scholar to appreciate the nuances.
Harpoon central premise is to follow the money and eliminate the sources/conduits as much as possible. Meir Dagan was the genius behind it (I admired the legend & without Harpoon, Israel would lose a lot more unnecessary lives as victims of terrorism & economic fallout).
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is a genius in taking the battle of terrorism to the courts.
Overall, Harpoon main achievement is changing the banking practices--safeguards to avoid facilitating any known terrorist entities or known individuals with their terrorist activities.
Agree on the new battlefield of terrorism: social media.
However, I would argue that propaganda machinery also gives oxygen to terrorism & this is trickier to deal with.

[Gal · Rating 2 out of 5]

אם הייתי רוצה לקרוא ביוגרפיה על מאיר דגן הייתה קוראת אותה
אני לא אוהבת שמרמים אותי ומזלזלים בי כקוראת וזה מה שהספר הזה עושה
הוא מבטיח א
ומספר על ב שונה אחר לגמרי
והוא גם כבר לא רלוונטי,מיושן ויש פרקים שחוזרים על עצמם.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars (1.5 thumbs up in my bookclub rating)

Stop the money stop the terrorists. For an idea that is so simple and makes so much sense (to me), I was surprised to learn how much resistance there was in its adoption. Israel's leadership is ex-military heavy and I guess tracing money wires and tracking bankers is pretty unsexy. *shrug*
I really enjoyed learning about the raids and about the legal battles brought to U.S. court to try and tie up terrorist money in litigations.

My biggest criticism of the book:
Harpoon was written like an all over the place jumpy spy thriller with too many info dumps sandwiching the operations. I wish the book had followed a chronological order of storytelling. It was at points unclear when and why things were happening when they were. Though I did learn a lot about Hezbollah, I wonder if someone with a little less familiarity with the region "politics" would enjoy this as much.

I loved that the DEA worked (works?) with Harpoon to try and stop drug trafficking from Venezuela to Syria. I didn't know that drug (and prostitution) money funded terrorism.
I thought the Ponzi scheme that "took down" Hezbollah was very smart, but I felt for the poor people that then became destitute because of it. If anything, this showed that trying to take down just the terrorists and those that fund them is really difficult... Just like the bank raid in Ramallah. Regular citizens were there and affected too.

Also, the book should be called "We love Meir Dagan", imo.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book on Israel’s fight against terror. The preface opens up with the story of the US war on terror of going after key ISIS figures but then Segway to the fact that the US adopted some of the method of the war on Terror from Israel’s own covert war against international terrorism. But this book isn’t primarily focused on military operations (though it has that in the book) but the side of the war that focuses on defeating terrorist networks by going after its funding. This work is a fascinating read!
The title of the book “Harpoon” comes from the name of the organization in Israel’s intelligence community that’s specific mission is to go after terrorist finance. This work doesn’t just talk about Israel’s effort on terrorism but also the means of finance for terrorist organizations. It also paints a sad picture of the corruption of Palestinian authorities which I have read from newspaper before but didn’t understand its extent. For instance the book mentioned that at one point forty three percent of the budge for the Palestine Authority was unaccounted for. Some of these went on to fund terrorist networks and operations. It go so bad that eventually US President Bush severed ties to the PA.
The general readers will be surprised to learn that the author debunked the myth that suicide bombing is a cheap way to fight against Israel; this is a myth you hear from Western media that often paints a narrative of it being a simple way of Palestinians being the David fighting the Goliath of Israel. But it does not stand up to scrutiny. The author explain the logistics for suicide bombing and the vast networks of people behind one attack from those trained in explosives fitting the bomber, the ones housing the bomber and making sure he doesn’t quit the last moment, the trainers for the bombers, the media saavy individuals who produce slick videos interviewing the bombers for propaganda purposes to the financial handlers who reward large compensations to the families of the suicide bombers. The people involved in these network receive salaries. All told there’s a lot of expense for even one terrorist attack; sadly the author pointed out that the cheapest part of a suicide bombing operation is the bomber’s own life. To fund these elaborate suicide bombing missions groups such as Hamas used international charities as a front to smuggle cash and even merchandise that are then sold to finance these terrorist activities. These groups often use the same means of finance as other organized crime such as drug cartels, money launderers, sex trafficking networks, etc. In fact as the book goes on to show these terrorists organizations who at times have an Islamic religious dimension hypocritically engage in these sinful activities of trafficking drugs, people and other vices themselves. Israel’s ingenuity is to go after the terrorists’ means of finance since money is the oxygen that allows terrorism to happen. The book gives various accounts of what Israel’s financial war to choke out the financial resources of terrorist entities such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. At times Harpoon is not only a financial intelligence operation; sometimes it involves others such as military commandoes as in Operation Green Lantern. This book probably gave the most detailed public account of that operation. Other times Israel’s war on finances involves other partnership with other countries such as the United States and even Arab states who secretly cooperates. Fascinating as well is the book’s description of nongovernment relationship of Harpoon such as families of terrorists victims and creative lawyers targeting terrorist group in the legal arena with litigations against terrorist organizations, their financial supporters, governments and even the banks that serve terrorist organizations but willingly choose to look the other way.
A big part of the book is also about the people who fought the financial war against terrorism. Among them is the book’s extensive discussion about Meir Dagan who created Harpoon and who eventually became the director of Israel intelligence agency known as Mossad. Dagan’s creativity and thoughtfulness is described in the book but readers see that it is not just about him but the various government officials and agencies cooperating and sometimes the coalition consists of unlikely agencies. Of course there’s discussion of the political turf battles between organizations and agencies but it is also incredible to see the eventual cooperation between the agencies.
Is Israel’s financial war on terrorism successful? While terrorists will always invent new ways to be devious nevertheless I think the author persuasively made the case that it is. Towards the end of the book you read more and more of Israel’s operation against terrorists and countries supporting terrorism. I thought the story of how during various military conflict in which the IDF was forced to respond militarily Harpoon was also working to cripple the enemy financially; in fact the call for truce by their enemies is often a response to Israel’s disruption of their enemies’ finance and where the Palestinian themselves including terrorist rank and file members complain that the terrorist organization is unable to pay up and causes other financial hardship to the country. I love the story of Israel’s intelligence and military operation against Hamas trying to get money to come in to their territory to pay their terrorists that ended up with an Israeli cobra blowing a Hamas money man. Right after that Hamas called for a ceasefire.
I appreciated the book’s look at the international dimension of the war on terrorists’ financing. The book discusses Operation Pegasus in which Israel worked with the Canadian government legally against the questionable Lebanese Canadian Bank. There’s also a discussion of the US’ “Johnny Come Lately” own effort after 9/11 such as the Terrorist finance tracking program.
The book also talks about recent Israeli’s bold covert action operation such as the Dubai operation that assassinated a Hamas leader heading to liaison with Iran and also some anonymous shadowy targeting of Iranian nuclear project.
This is a fun read, it reads like a real life Tom Clancy novel.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read. Not balanced (unabashedly pro Israeli), but gives insight into the Israeli war on terrorist financing. Also a bit of a spy thriller!

[Steve Gross · Rating 2 out of 5]

I may have missed it, but this seems to be largely a recounting of Palestinian atrocities with not much description of what Harpoon did. Meir Dagan is someone I would like to know more about, though.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

***.5

The first part of the book spends way too much time detailing various terrorist attacks, including unnecessary details such as the names and ages of some of the victims. It's not a stretch to assume that anyone reading this book is opposed to terrorism and doesn't need to be convinced further that it is bad. Rather, the reader is interested in learning about the alternative methods of combatting it, aside from the obvious military combat.

But rather than dive in to the subject directly, we get a lengthy biography of Israeli general and Mossad director Meir Dagan, who created and ran the Harpoon operation. In addition to the relevant parts of his career, there are also detailed accounts of various overseas assassinations of Israel's perceived enemies, many of which had nothing at all to do with Harpoon or terrorist financing (such as Iranian nuclear scientists). While thrilling, these daring exploits have been documented extensively elsewhere, and distract from the purported topic of the book.

Worst of all, the book is poorly edited, with abrupt jumps from topic to topic, choppy chronology, and multiple instances of describing the same event twice. The latter is annoying but sometimes necessary if the event is referenced in a later chapter in a different context, but made even worse by inexcusable inconsistencies in the details, such as the number of dead and wounded in a terrorist attack (which as mentioned above was irrelevant to the topic of the book to begin with.) By getting these publicly available facts wrong, it casts doubt on the accuracy of the "secret" information being revealed.

Finally, a minor quibble: the author refers to herself in the third person, which is disconcerting and comes across as pretentious.

Despite these issues, the book reinforces a critical idea that sadly has been ignored since it was published, with disastrous results that make the horrific attacks described in the book seem like child's play by comparison. For reasons that still aren't completely clear, the Israeli government and entire military and security apparatus blatantly disregarded both the essential premise that starving terrorist organization of their funding is the best way to weaken them, as well as Meir Dagan's fundamental operating principle: "Intelligence that isn't used is simply being wasted."

[Alec · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd heard a lot about Harpoon before ever turning the first pages in the book, almost everything I'd heard being positive. Now, having turned the final pages of the book, I can say the advanced praise was well deserved. Written by one of the primary supporting characters in the "cover ward against international terrorism's money masters" the book features a number of incidents which sound more fictional than non-fiction. These include political assassinations, ponzi schemes, strategic missile strikes, and other cover operations. The book, however, also includes a fair amount about the backroom legwork and research which culminated in the more fantastic incidents described above.

This book was a real eye opener for me. Like many (most, even) people, I had no idea the scale and scope of the support operations required to keep things like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and other terror organization running. Under the inspired leadership of Meir Dagan, the Israeli government spun up the book's titular task force Harpoon to dry up the cash required to make their terror machines run. As the book progresses, readers are walked through how this goal is accomplished through the efforts of his task force and other Israeli organizations. It was fascinating to read.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

​Harpoon author Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is director of Tel Aviv based organization Shurat HaDin, which works with lawyers, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies to fight Israel's enemies. A key tool used by Shurat HaDin is to "follow the money", using a variety of means to identify and dry up sources of funding for terrorist groups and activities. And it's those activities, direct and indirect, which is the subject of this book.
It was interesting to read about how focusing on the financial side of terrorism activities gained in prominence over the retribution and punishing individuals or terrorist leaders.
This is an Israeli book written from an Israeli perspective, and the author spends a lot of time detailing a number of Palestinian attacks against the Jewish State, which to me got repetitive, overly detailed, and a distraction from the main point of the book. However, the wide-ranging techniques identified in the book can be and are being used by other nations against terrorist organizations of all stripes. And the effectiveness of those techniques are being shown to be important and effective in that regard.

[Bob Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an Accountant I was very interested in the financial war the Israelis waged against Hamas and Hezbollah. The details of how Harpoon was able to find and trace electronic transfers of money would have been a fascinating story. Instead we get a few stories about Israeli scams ans swindles and lots of stories about terrorist attacks.
I did learn about the connection between the terrorists and the South American drug cartels and the creation of the American operation that ultimately replace Harpoon as the agency that tracked terror money around the world. The agency was created by George Bush (the second) after the attack on Sept 11 and subsequently expanded and maintained by Obama during his administrations. The fact that we were tracking money moving around the world explains why Obama gave Iran millions in untraceable cash. The book doesn't mention the payment, I suspect not enough time has passed for that story to be told.
It is an interesting book, it just doesn't live up to the promise on the outside cover.

[Michael Jolls · Rating 5 out of 5]

My problem with this book is that it’s too good. There isn’t a dull passage, which can get really cumbersome to comprehend when taking in a history that’s fascinatingly intricate. For the most part, the mental image of “terrorism” is a fireball explosion, or the crater of destruction – yet we don’t often take into consideration the financial elements required to pull off such devastation. “Harpoon” sticks exclusively to the last fifty years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in how a brilliant cast of characters learned to effectively wage war against jihad from a practical standpoint. “Harpoon” is a long read, but it’s also an easy read — as well as one of the few that you may need to pause, go re-read a paragraph or two, but never in frustration. Rather, because the elaborate orchestration of the history is so interesting.

[Marcus Ionis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few years ago I was watching "60 Minutes " and they had a piece on Meir Dagan. My impression of the man seemed to be an independent thinker compared to his peers. Later on, my research into Operation Orchard lead to Dagan's involvement into the success of its mission. Sometime later this book was published and I wasn't fully aware of Harpoon had him involved or how much this became a biography of his life. As terrorism has been used as a means of proxy wars and their actors as puppets for other countries. Having an understanding of the involvement of the financial aspects of organized terror is important. Important enough to understand how non-profit organizations, government aid and fundraising has an impact on the safety of all citizens. Recommend reading.

[S R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I typically never read non-fiction books, but this one was recommended to me because it is not written like a non-fiction novel which I found to be true. Harpoon is written like fascinating true-life spy story. It reveals the methods by which the Israelis disrupted terror networks throughout the world, by following the money that finances international terror of Hezbollah, Hamas, the PA, etc. It follows the biography of Meir Dagan (former head of the Mossad) and introduces Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder of the NGO, the Israeli Law Center, which becomes based on the Southern Poverty Law Center. I found myself loving Dagan and was sad when I read about his death. It followed the history of terrorism in Israel. I highly recommend this book.

[Jeffrey (Akiva) Savett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this on the heels of Rise and Kill First. So, much of this book actually detailed things I’d just read there. It’s difficult to say how I would have responded to this book had I not read the former. There’s no going back!

Because this book seeks to provide a more focused report on Mossad tactics and strategy in FINANCIAL terms, it is inherently limited; that’s why it’s strange that it repeats so much of Rise and Kill First, which seeks to be comprehensive.

Nonetheless, this is a VERY interesting look into Meir Sagan’s revolutionary leadership of Mossad and his directives to target terrorist groups financially.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on the Inside workings of terrorism and Israel’s innovative approach through following the money trail and cutting it off in an effort to stem the tide of radical religious terrorism. If you hate terrorism and/or love Israel’s tenacity in self preservation this book is a great read. It really opens your eyes to the evil that exists in the world and the fanaticism of Islamic terrorist nations who are pushing their hate to destroy Israel and the west. Absolutely frightening is the agenda of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Lebanon.

[Kenneth Timmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nitsana and her co-author unwrap a previously-secret Israeli intelligence program to hit the terrorist-masters where it hurts: their bank accounts. Fascinating portrait of former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who I had the opportunity of meeting many years ago in Jerusalem. I would have liked to learn more about Nitsana's own success in the Arab Bank case, where she won a ground-breaking judgment on behalf of terror victims; but hey, I guess that remains proprietary information! Great work, Nitsana.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first of three parts focused almost exclusively on a quasi biography of the main subject, Meir Dagan. Although he acted as an almost unbelievable example of best practices and critical thinking to solve major intelligence questions, his role could have been a chapter. More focus on the techniques rather than war stories would have made this a 4 or 5 star read.

[Ben Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harpoon fits in the long line of books that attempt to tell the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, save for that it's a touch more exhilarating than most works of that ilk, and homes in on the efforts of I e man to bring down a terrorist network via financial channels. There are times however, when it risks veering into hagiography, and needs to be more critical.

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read and following the news and Shurat hadin's work, it was fascinating to read about the Mossad's initiative that got it all started it, as well as the Mossad's behind the scene financial counter-terrorism operations.

[David Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bottom line

The bottom line in fighting terrorism is 'Follow the Money'. Comprehensive yet the final chapter is missing. Not one word about Obama gifting Irans with billions of dollars.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

As reviews by Naama and Kay suggest, I would have been content reading only the Preface and Afterward. However, for all the spy novel style & details, it was easy to read.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very detailed account of how the Israelis got involved in setting up the vehicles through which to go after the terrorists by cutting off their illegally gotten funds that were transferred from all over the globe, including the US.

[Joyce Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a rare instead look into the war against terror through the stories of the Mossad. There are a lot of details that are hard to keep track of but the essence of the story is how the war on terrorism is fought on so many fronts. Theis realky was a fascinating book.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not finish.

It was very interesting, but I was listening to it in preparation for a discussion group, and I'm not in the mood to read it now, and the discussion has been postponed. So for now, it's off my shelf.

[Ariel Burbaickij · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timing of the book was close to perfect, in the sense that it was published before seminal cases against Arab Bank and PLO were lost on appeal but this is about the only thing somehow close to being perfect in the book.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I didn’t know Harpoon would specifically focus on terrorist money networks between Israel and Palestine, it overlays the history of the two with the means and challenges found within chasing the money to show how this dehabilitates terror networks.