It was a beautiful morning graced by crystal blue skies as Kamal passed through the gate at Sapir Academic College, Israel’s largest public university. Unnoticed, he merged seamlessly into the flow of bodies traversing the campus. At precisely 9:05 a.m. he began to recite his prayers. Two minutes later, he stopped, stared at the heavens, then shouted, “Allah Akbar!” before depressing a detonator. In a millisecond, scorching hot metal ripped through the flesh of anyone within Kamal’s line of sight. Students dropped mid-stride. Dismembered bodies lined the sidewalks, and blood soaked the grass. Kamal’s headless torso lay amid the dead and dying.

It was merely the first shot in a methodically planned, multi-pronged attack designed to “wipe Israel from the face of the earth.” Its perpetrators included a combined army, 40,000 men strong, of Iranian, Syrian, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Russian forces—men who would stop at nothing to achieve their objective.

As the attack escalated from an act of terrorism to an existential threat, the words, Never Again echoed in the mind of Israeli prime minister Abraham Rabinovich. It was a promise by Jewish Holocaust survivors to never again be passive in the face of systematic annihilation.

With a single order, Rabinovich was poised to launch weapons capable of incinerating entire cities. Only two things stood in his way: his conscience and Commander John Hart.

List of Major Characters xv

Introduction: A Prodrome to War xvii

Chapters

East of Tehran  1

Hallah, Haifa Oranges, and a Cup of Bitter Coffee  11

Lessons Written in the Sand  14

Cabin Conversations  24

A Pledge of Allegiance  34

Hart Prepares to Leave  46

Trouble in Gaza  53

A Brazen Attack on the Eastern Flank  63

Escalation  68

Israel Hits Back  72

Missiles from the North  78

The Other Shoe Drops  87

Decoys and Deception  93

Operation Intercept  96

The Gassing of the Jews  99

The Sunni Solution  106

A War of Words  109

Inside the Emergency Department  112

Antipathy toward the Jews  117

An Existential Threat  123

The Response  129

Hiroshima Revisited  138

Conner and Hart Speak  149

“Israel will Never Capitulate!”  152

Holding Down the Fort  155

Mutually Assured Destruction?  158

The Battle Plan is Drawn  165

Memories of Khrushchev and Kennedy  172

Reclaiming the Golan 176

An Attack on Iran  181

En Route to Qaisumah  186

The Aftermath  190

Beneath the Strait of Hormuz  194

And Then There was Silence  198

Delilah  204

The Hot-Line  209

The Angel of Death Passes Over  214

The Golden Hour  216

Notifying Next of Kin   223

A Voice from the Grave   228

Later that Day   236

Psy-Ops   238

Putting Humpty Dumpty Together Again  243

A Ghost  249

Waiting for a Miracle  257

The Long Road to Recovery  263

Rabinovich’s Revelation  268

Crafting a Lasting Peace   272

A Change of Hart  275

Washington  286

The Oval Office  292

Epilogue  297