Baltimore Native Yonah Jeremy Bob Helps Shed Light on Daring Israeli-U.S. Raid

In the middle of the night, American and Israeli commandos overtake a Palestinian ship carrying 55 tons of arms and explosives illegally stowed onboard by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

While it sounds like a spy novel plot, this storyline played out in real life.

The seizure of the Karine A ship on Jan. 3, 2002, has been deemed the most successful Israeli intelligence operation since the legendary Entebbe hostage rescue in 1976. It also transformed U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Amos Gilboa, a retired brigadier general and former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Research Department, shared a first-hand account of this harrowing escapade in a book originally published in Hebrew. For the English version, Gilboa called on Baltimore native Yonah Jeremy Bob, an author, foreign affairs lecturer and the Jerusalem Post’s intelligence, terrorism and legal analyst and literary editor.

After approximately three years of translating, editing and adding about one-third of new material produced by Bob, “A Raid on the Red Sea: The Israeli Capture of the Karine A” was released in March. (Sadly, Gilboa died in December of 2020, but he saw and approved the final text and book cover.)

“For anyone interested in special operations, this well-written, authoritative and fascinating account of a daring raid in the Red Sea is a must,” raved the Jerusalem Post.

“A Raid on the Red Sea” is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and plans are underway for a U.S. book launch.

Jmore recently spoke with Bob, a Beth Tfiloh alumnus who now lives in the central Israeli city of Modi’in.

Jmore: How did you get involved with this project?

YJB: I was the first to write two major articles about Brig. Gen. Amos Gilboa’s book on the topic in Hebrew a few years ago. He liked the articles and my understanding of the subject so much that he asked me to translate the book into English.

After translating it, his agent said that it needed to be significantly modified for an American audience. I added new material about Iran, Hezbollah, U.S.-Israel diplomacy and the Ariel Sharon versus Yasser Arafat rivalry.

Why did it interest you?

I have always loved spy stories and movies, starting with Tom Clancy’s ‘The Hunt for Red October.’ I also worked with classified information during my army service and found it fascinating.

Gilboa’s Hebrew book gave the most detailed internal picture of how intelligence works that I had ever read. I think it is the clearest account ever given of the day-to-day and week-to-week struggles of cat and mouse between Israeli and U.S. intelligence struggling against smart and deceptive moves by Iran, Hezbollah and a group of Palestinian terrorists.

What did you find most intriguing?

That the Karine A ship was lost by Israeli intelligence twice, and even once they caught it, they could not find the weapons. There were at least three points where complete failure and disaster were a real possibility. None of this was reported at the time, only the great success.

Also, a major breakthrough was made by intelligence artistry. It took a human to make the connection between two seemingly unrelated date cables sent months apart, determining that old information that had seemed unimportant was now crucial to the investigation. With that key discovery, the CIA and U.S. Naval Intelligence helped find the ship.

What do you want readers to take away from this book?

As amazing as Israeli intelligence is, even with help from the CIA and U.S. Naval Intelligence, everything is precarious and it is only through constant hard work and plugging away with an untold number of ups and downs that our countries are protected.

Is there a movie in the works?

There was an Israeli TV documentary in Hebrew. For TV or a movie in English, I’m happy to hear pitches!

Caryn R. Sagal is a Baltimore-based public relations consultant and freelance writer.