1972. The Munich Olympics. Palestinian members of the Black  September group murder eleven Israeli athletes. Nine hundred million  people watch the crisis unfold on television, witnessing a tragedy that  inaugurates the modern age of terror and remains a scar on the  collective conscience of the world.

Back in Israel, Prime Minister  Golda Meir vows to track down those responsible and, in Menachem Begin’s  words, “run these criminals and murderers off the face of the earth.” A  secret Mossad unit, code named Caesarea, is mobilized, a list of  targets drawn up. Thus begins the Israeli response–a mission that  unfolds not over months but over decades. The Mossad has never spoken  about this operation. No one has known the real story. Until now.

Award-winning  journalist Aaron Klein’s incisive and riveting account tells for the  first time the full story of Munich and the Israeli counterterrorism  operation it spawned. With unprecedented access to Mossad agents and an  unparalleled knowledge of Israeli intelligence, Klein peels back the  layers of myth and misinformation that have permeated previous books,  films, and magazine articles about the “shadow war” against Black  September and other terrorist groups.

Spycraft, secret diplomacy, and  fierce detective work abound in a story with more drama than any  fictional thriller. Burning questions are at last answered, including  who was killed and who was not, how it was done, which targets were hit  and which were missed. Truths are revealed: the degree to which the  Mossad targeted nonaffiliated Black September terrorists for  assassination, the length and full scope of the operation (far greater  than previously suspected), retributive acts against Israel, and much  more.

Finally, Klein shows that the Israeli response to Munich was  not simply about revenge, as is popularly believed. By illuminating the  tactical and strategic purposes of the Israeli operation, Striking Back  allows us to draw profoundly relevant lessons from one of the most  important counterterrorism campaigns in history.