Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC. Of course the whole world wondered how Hamas could have pulled off this heinous crime in a country known world wide for their intelligence. I certainly expected that the authors, being two Israeli citizens, would not be entirely objective, in determining who may be at blame. The answers to that are as complicated as the conflict between Hamas and Israel. I suspect it will take years to have a full understanding of what occurred and how it could have been prevented. I do hope that at some point another book will provide the story from both sides. Until then I would encourage others to read this to get a better understanding of a very complicated issue.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. While I followed the events of October 7, 2023, I never truly understood them the way I do now after reading this book. It gives a very thorough account of what happened and how including things leading up to that day. Despite it being about countries I have never been to, everything was explained so well that I found it very easy to follow and even was able to easily remember important town names and commander names. I think this book was very well written from a factual standpoint as much as it could be. This book is something everyone should read so they can be educated about and better understand things like this that happen around the world.



Review will be posted on Instagram and Amazon on pub day and links added to NetGalley.

One of the things that I have to keep on telling myself as a book reviewer is that the book is what the book is and not what I thought the book was going to be. It is not THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, although I expect that eventually we're going to get something like that out of the Israeli government, although it may be classified or something like that. (If you haven't read the report you should; probably the best-written thing out of the executive branch of the United States federal government since the Gettysburg Address.) It is not 102 MINUTES, which I picked up this spring from a used-book pile and read not too long ago, which is a tick-tock of the events taking place in the Twin Towers on 9/11. It is somewhere in between those two books, with elements of both.

WHILE ISRAEL SLEPT raises the question in its subtitle: just how did Hamas manage to catch the Israeli security apparatus on its back foot? The answers are "it's complicated," and "we didn't think they would do something that foolish and self-destructive," and "hey, buddy, we also have the West Bank and Hezbollah and the Houthis and the Syrians and the Iranians to deal with, cut us some slack, y'know."

My notes as follows:

1. Organization is a problem here. The single greatest problem with WHILE ISRAEL SLEPT is that it moves effortlessly up and down the timeline. Sometimes it's a tick-tock, but then it goes backwards and forwards in time and it's not clear why it does that. It's moderately annoying.

2. I have been following the story of the Gaza conflict as best I could since it started, and I think (for a Southern Baptist who's never been east of Point Pleasant, New Jersey) that I have a pretty good handle on things. (This is largely due to listening to Dan Senor's podcast, which I recommend.) If you're not as conversant then you will almost certainly learn a lot, which is good, but I know a good bit of this stuff and it was kind of stale. (And obviously, things move kind of fast and some elements have been overtaken by events.) The part that I didn't know about (and would like to hear a podcast episode about, Dan Senor, talking to you) is the Israeli penetration of the Hamas banking system, which ended up as a wet firework. Pity.

3. Going back to the Senor point, it wasn't that long ago that Defense Minister Gallant was on Senor's podcast, claiming that he was arguing in early October that the Mossad should pull the trigger on the booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies at that time, allowing Israel to cripple Hezbollah early on in the conflict and take them out first before Hamas. No discussion about that in this book, you would have thought there would be.

4. The authors do make an excellent point about how the Israelis are congenitally bad at public relations, and that this needs to change. I don't know that there's any force on earth that could stop the American campus tentifada from saying stupid things and believing stupid things, but at least someone could try and anyway you shouldn't let Douglas Murray have all the fun.

What I think about this book is that it's more-or-less a buffet. Some of it's good, some of it's kind of warmed-over, some of it you can skip. There are a few good items on the steam table but you have to figure out what they are., and the layout is a bit confusing. A worthwhile read but not wholly recommended.

Thank you so much for this book in exchange for an honest review.
This was an interesting and insightful Book but not necessarily what I was looking for. This was a cautionary explanation what went wrong

Frustrating book! It seeks to explain the causes of the failure of the IDF on October 7th and how to prevent such an attack in the future. The first thought is, it is easy to be an October 8th armchair quarterback -- if it was a simple as they point out, it NEVER would have happened. But it also fails to take into account the human element. What Hamas did on Oct 7th was beyond heinous, but the challenge Israel has faced since and before, is how do you root out terrorist who imbed themselves among innocent people. We must be careful how we answer, because, that is how many Gazans look toward Israel today when they look back on Oct 7th.

I have been to Israel dozens of times, leading Christian pilgrim groups. This book is helpful to see the Israeli side of the story, but not helpful if we want the whole picture. Despite that, I am thankful to have had the opportunity to read it and offer this review. I received this book from NetGalley.

Despite the near defeat of the Yom KIppur War of 1973, Israel did not learn to heed the warnings of the most well-developed intelligence agency in the region. From the skies, land and, sea six thousand Hamas terrorists led multi-pronged attacks. With the purpose of attacking both military and civilian targets. This is the story of the complex tragedy of war in the Middle East.

While Israel Slept is an important read that brings to life the planning and execution of the horrific Hamas attack on Israel. Written by journalists with typical journalistic flair made it a quick and easy read.

If one word were used to describe this book it would be hubris. The book's authors detail, how that though there were repeated indicators that Hamas was preparing for some sort of attack, Israeli leadership (politicians and military) denied it.... the common theme it seemed to be that they believed Hamas wanted peace and wouldn't risk starting a war with some sort of huge attack.

Overall, a book well worth reading.

It's been over a year now since the events of October 7, 2023, and books are finally starting to come out about the events that happened that day, the lead up to the terrorist actions that resulted in over a thousand lives lost and hundreds taken hostage, as well as the followup operations, both military and intelligence, that have been in the news since Israeli politicians and military leaders decided to initiate an invasion of Gaza, parts of Lebanon, and hunted the individuals behind the planning and execution of October 7th.

The author are two journalists and this volume definitely resembles a journalist effort in its readability. With these events still fresh on our minds and consistently being reported on in the media, the amount of background information will always be richer than studies of current events both on October 7th and since then. Consequently, many of the pages of this text offer a rich array of background information on the foundation of Hamas, the backgrounds of some of its most important leaders (spiritual/religious and military) as well as their roles in perpetrating October 7th and when they were killed/assassinated by Israeli forces. Similarly, there is background offered about Israeli intelligence operations, and failures, including the numerous issues that plagued Israeli intelligence agencies and resulted in a complete failure to predict the actions of October 7th, even though numerous warnings were given from a variety of intelligence sources and agencies. Lastly, there is a deep-dive into the history behind the various Israeli administrations' relationship with Hamas, including how they deluded themselves into thinking by supplying Hamas and Gaza with Qatari money and Israeli goodwill (with work permits in the tens of thousands) they were changing hearts and minds and preventing war and discussions about a larger Palestinian state. The reality is that they were delaying the inevitable and allowing Hamas to amass a significant war chest that allowed them to purchase military equipment and construction equipment, which they put to effective use on October 7th. Netanyahu's government, and Netanyahu himself, have much to answer for as their plans went up in flames along with countless Israeli civilians as the largest pogrom since the Holocaust took place on Israeli territory with the IDF scrambling to do all it could to limit a massacre that should have never happened in the first place.

An important and necessary book that anyone who is seeking to learn more so they can better understand the current war should be reading.