[5] Among the assassinations described are those of Ali Hassan Salameh, leader of Black September; Abu Jihad, Arafat's aide and co-founder of the Fatah party; Yahya Ayyash, known as the "Engineer", Hamas' chief bomb maker;[4] and Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter.

[4] Menachem Begin, Yitzak Shamir, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon,[3] the latter described by Bergman as a "pyromaniac",[1] each of whom would later lead the government of Israel, are named as assassins in Rise and Kill First.

[3] According to the book, Ariel Sharon mistakenly ordered Mossad to shoot down a plane that was carrying 30 wounded Palestinian children who were survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

[citation needed] According to Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA intelligence analyst, the book is "smart, thoughtful and balanced, and the English translation is superb", while it fails to "answer ... the problem of terrorism", and offers no end to it.

[3] According to Bergman the Israeli secret services tried to intervene in his work, held a meeting in 2010 to disrupt his research and warned former Mossad employees against giving interviews to him.