Sasha Polakow-Suransky - The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa

A harrowing account of a Mephistophelian bargain between two rogue states, told with indisputable factsmany of them newand on-the-record interviews. No moralizing needed. Israels twenty-year collaboration with South Africa betrayed its founding principles and, more tragically, anticipated the cynicism with which it conducts its Palestinian policy today.

Seymour Hersh

A compelling history. All states engage in secret diplomacy, but Israel offers some of the most shocking examples. Although he deplores Israels ties to the apartheid regime, Polakow-Suransky has treated the handful of officials in the two countries implementing that alliance fairly, even empathetically.

Foreign Affairs

A deft, pacy and revealing account. Admirably dispassionate.

The Economist

The extent to which these two countries began to rely on each other economically and militarily in the mid-1970s through the late 1980s has never been so fully fleshed out. There are some striking revelations.

Forward

A tale of clandestine missions, surreptitious shipments, and elaborate political theater between two states perched precariously on the margins of both their continents and the Cold War.

National Review

A meticulously researched book that reads like a spy thriller.

The Nation

A careful, painful, hugely important book.

Peter Beinart, author of The Icarus Syndrome

Provocative. Richly detailed. Especially relevant today, as nuclear rivalries escalate in the Middle East, because it explainscalmly, methodically, and with full documentationhow Israel and South Africa helped each other build atomic bombs in secret.

Stephen Kinzer, The Daily Beast

Pathbreaking. Remarkably revealing. A wise, elegantly written, and strikingly fair-minded book which deserves the widest possible readership.

Avi Shlaim, author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World

Stands out because of the new material its author has dug up, which may be deemed to provide a measure of insight into ongoing and tricky proliferation issues.

The New York Review of Books

Well researched, readable and balanced.

London Review of Books

Comprehensive. A very important contribution in the study of modern and contemporary history for its wealth of material and the objectivity of its author. It is highly recommended for both academics and the general reader.

The Middle East Journal

Fascinating. A major, long-overdue study of the rise and demise of one of the most intriguing alliances of our time. Polakow-Suransky has written a masterfully researched history that reads like a thriller unraveling the secrets of an alliance between two embattled societies under siege.

Shlomo Ben-Ami, foreign minister of Israel, 20002001

SASHA POLAKOW-SURANSKY
THE UNSPOKEN ALLIANCE

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is a senior editor at Foreign Affairs and holds a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar from 2003 to 2006. His writing has appeared in The American Prospect, The Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, Haaretz, The International Herald Tribune, Jerusalem Post, The New Republic, and Newsweek. He lives in Brooklyn.

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2011

Copyright 2010 by Sasha Polakow-Suransky

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2010.

Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:
Polakow-Suransky, Sasha.
The unspoken alliance : Israels secret relationship with apartheid South Africa / Sasha Polakow-Suransky.
p. cm.
1. IsraelRelationsSouth Africa. 2. South AfricaRelationsIsrael. 3. IsraelMilitary relationsSouth Africa. 4. South AfricaMilitary relationsIsrael. I. Title.
DS119.8.S6P65 2010
327.5694068dc22
2009047156

eISBN: 978-0-307-37925-2

Author photograph Michael Lionstar
Cover Design by Jacana Media

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