Book Reviewed: Target Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination – and Secret Diplomacy by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar

Mossad’s promise Iran has two major goals; to become a nuclear-weapon state and seek the destruction of Israel. These are essential requirements of ayatollahs for their belief in an Islamic ideology and national glory in the Islamic world. Israel's elite spy agency Mossad have made foiling Iran's nuclear program a top priority of their organization. It has led them to measures that includes sabotage operations on nuclear installations, assassinations of its scientists, diplomatic overtures to nations in the region, and the spectacular theft of its nuclear archive in 2018 from an Iranian site. Yossi Cohen, the head of the Mossad from 2016 to 2021, responsible for these operations is the main focus of this book. He describes the hybrid operations, infiltrations into Iranian territory, cyberattacks and drones to sabotage Iran's nuclear sites, and working with the United States in the killing of Iranian military commanders. The diplomatic success of Mossad and Israeli government led to the establishment of the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and finally Sudan, a country that was extremely hostile to Israel. The authors also describe Iran's reactions to hit back against Israel, including terrorist attacks on Israeli targets, cyber strikes, and the use of its proxies. The Iranian strategy has been to surround Israel with a ring of fire. Israel's goal has been to prevent that ring from closing around it. Iran arms Hezbollah with precision-guided missiles, and arm Hamas, it destabilized Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Iraq. The biggest highlight of this book is the fascinating account of how a team of Mossad agents pulled off one of the most spectacular exploits in the history of espionage on the eve of January 31, 2018. After months of meticulous planning, endless hours of sophisticated electronic surveillance, and the risky infiltration of Israeli agents into Iran, the agents broke into the secret warehouse where Iran's nuclear archive containing the full record of its efforts. The heist was one of the most sensational of many Israeli operations against Iran. This operation provided vital intelligence for the Mossad in planning future strikes at the heart of Tehran's nuclear program. The archive's contents revealed that Iran had been lying for years to the international community about its nuclear program. This is the biggest embarrassment for a Muslim country and a victory for the Jewish state. This book describes all challenges Israel has faced being surrounded by the Arab world that are united in its hatred of Isarel. This is a full account of the covert operations conducted by the Mossad. The account here does not shy away from anything to show Mossad's tactical successes in achieving a strategic victory. As of April 2023, when this book was completed, over twenty years had passed since experts predicted that Iran was close to making nuclear warheads, but they are still farther away according to Mossad. This long delay represents a significant success for Israel's elite spy agency. Mossad declares that Iran will never have nuclear weapons, and that is Mossad's promise to Israel.

Book Reviewed: A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through? by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith

The race to build human civilization on Mars What is the likelihood of building a lasting human civilization on Mars? The questions are limitless, and the resolutions are extremely limited. The authors have chosen a humorous way to explain the challenges to space exploration. What else they can do? Find some sort of humor in describing the ambitious plans of the entrepreneurs when risks far outweigh the benefits. Elon Musk said that humans will land on Mars in 2029, and a million-person city is possible by twenty or thirty years later. Is he for real? The science, technology, the legal and judiciary, geopolitics, and sociology issues may require long and careful research. The space settlements should be a project of centuries, and not decades. We should wait for big developments in science, technology, and international law rather than move settlers in two or three decades as Elon Musk likes to think. There is a good likelihood that science may not assure us the long-term existential risk doesn’t occur. Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking observed that going to a planet like Mars will help humanity overall, but it will create more problems which we never confronted. The move into space creates at least two forms of existential peril: the risk of nuclear conflict on Earth, and the risk of human-made heavy objects falling on Earth, and not to mention tremendous amount of human made trash in space. What rights do humans have to trash the interplanetary space? in 2015, the United States passed a law specifically codifying the idea that Americans can exploit space resources without limit which includes mining asteroids, the moon, and other planetary systems in solar system. Mining the Moon for natural resources like Helium-3 and rare metals adds significant value for many countries, but the US laws are unilateral and harm long term relationships with other nations. This book is divided into several sections; about how space travel and living outside this planet negatively impacts human bodies and minds. How do we place humans on Mars, Moon, or another solar satellite where surface conditions are too different? Plans to prevent humans do not perish all at the same time. How does the judicial and legals system change to protect the rights of everyone involved? The final section discusses sociology and population behavior. The authors did not treat the matter of space travel and space colonies responsibly.

Book Review: The Bible in India by Louis Jacolliot

The Hindu teachings and the Bible The author is a French scholar who studied Hindu scriptures in mid-19th century, translated several texts from Sanskrit into French, and became a believer of Hindu philosophy and admired the beauty and superiority of Vedic wisdom. He observes that the narratives of Old and New Testaments lacks metaphysics, and the beauty of Vedic ideals about cosmos and life. This book was first published in 1869 when strong efforts were undertaken to translate the Sanskrit scriptures into English by the British scholars. While the British research and literary work was focused on understanding Hinduism, but they were also looking for ways to undermine the theological, spiritual, and metaphysical elements in the Hindu texts; Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, the epics; Mahabharata and Ramayana, Manu Smriti, and the six schools of Hindu philosophy to a justify the English colonization of India. Some British scholars exclusively focused on the Aryan (Indo-Germanic race) invasion theory to deny credit to immense amount of early thoughts on life and cosmos in the ancient world. Many studies were designed to question the authenticity of the sacred books or assign them an origin posterior to that of Moses and early texts of Judaism. This book focuses largely on the influence of Hindu religious thoughts on the teachings of Bible, specifically, how it influenced the ministry of Jesus Christ. A number of events which surround the birth of Christ is related to Krishna's legends. Jesus did not have the wisdom, and he did not study in ancient Israel that raised himself above his compatriots as to play the founder of a new religious movement. He was probably in Egypt in his early years and later went to India to study theology and metaphysics. From the age of 12 to 30, there is no account of Jesus in the New Testament. Krishna is the Hindu Redeemer, and Christ is the Christian Redeemer, similar sounding names. The mothers of the two redeemers were conceived by divine intervention. Lord Krishna states in Bhagavad-Gita 18.61, that “The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart.” And this compares to the “One God and Father of all, who [is] above all, and through all, and in you all,” in the book of Ephesians 4:6. This verse emphasizes the unity and Oneness of the creator that spotlights the teachings of Upanishads and Bhagavadgita. Judaism has twelve castes (tribes), eight more than Hinduism, and of this twelve, the tribe of Levi were designated as the priestly class. They were the interpreters of the sacred texts of Judaism and the guardians of Jewish temples. The portrayal of Christian Holy Trinity, The God the Father, His only son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit is based on the Hindu ideas Vedic trinity. Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu, and Lord Shiva; Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver of the universe, and Shiva mediates the end of the cosmos and its reconstitution. The role of the trinity in the New Testament is similar, and possibly borrowed from Hindu belief system. Moses obtained the ideas of Genesis, patriarchal and others, from the sacred books of Egypt to which he had access to, and likely be the rescripts of the teachings of Vedas that may have found their way from India. The Greek and Roman division of time into four ages, the golden age, the silver age, the bronze age, and the iron age are similar to the four yugas (ages of the life and the world). The author briefly touches on the politics and heavy-handedness of Bishops in early Christian history who came out boldly to undermine the rightful place for early Hindu religious texts. They condemned and destroyed them that did not agree with synoptic gospels, and they also destroyed numerous gnostic gospels that included the gospel of Mary (Mary Magdalene). The gospel of Mary departs from the traditional teachings of canons and sounds similar to the teachings of the early Hindu beliefs. Louis Jacolliot’s translation of the Manu Smriti into French is known to have influenced many French scholars, and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.