Jerusalem, April 24, 2024 – With the Middle East teetering on the brink of apocalyptic conflict after Iran’s audacious missile and drone barrage against Israel, a former Mossad operative turned novelist has issued a dire warning that will shake the region to its core.
Mishka Ben-David, 72, is no ordinary author. The son of a Holocaust survivor, he spent over a decade embedded deep within Israel’s legendary intelligence service, the Mossad. His thrillers have demonstrated an unsettling tendency to foreshadow real-world horrors years before they unfold.
And now, as tensions between Israel and its adversaries reach a combustible crescendo, Ben-David’s most controversial prediction yet has left authorities in Jerusalem squirming: In his chilling estimation, the State of Israel itself is living on borrowed time.
“The people of Israel have endured for 3,000 years, perhaps more,” Ben-David declared somberly from his home in the hills surrounding Jerusalem. “But even the mightiest empires eventually crumble into the dust of history. The Roman legions, the hordes of Genghis Khan – all were invincible, until abruptly, they were gone without a trace.”
“My perspective tells me that Israel will not be here forever.”
The statement seems all the more ominous considering Ben-David’s track record of incredibly accurate prognostications through his novels. His 2017 thriller “The Shark” opened with a meticulously-detailed Hamas raid on Israeli kibbutzim near Gaza – a scenario that played out with horrifying verisimilitude just last October 7.
“As I researched that book, I toured those very kibbutzim,” Ben-David revealed. “Even then, I could see they were disturbingly vulnerable, completely unprotected against an attack like the one I had envisioned. Where would Hamas strike first? The answer seemed obvious.”
Tragically, his literary premonition materialized into a brutal reality mere months ago, as Hamas militants slipped across the border and laid waste to multiple kibbutzim, leaving dozens dead.
But the kibbutz massacre was merely the beginning of the nightmare foretold in “The Shark.” According to the novel’s plot, the Hamas attack escalates into a regional conflagration, with Israel ultimately striking back against Iran itself with overwhelming force.
As the crisis deepens following Iran’s unprecedented strike last weekend, many observers now fear the region is perilously close to following the very trajectory Ben-David articulated years ago in haunting prose.
The grim-faced author made it clear he holds no delusions about the futility of the coming Israeli retaliation, however. “No matter how devastating the retaliation, there is always another deputy waiting to take the fallen leader’s place,” he stated dismissively.
Ben-David knows better than most the dangers of underestimating one’s enemies and the fragility of even the most powerful nations. In 1997, he played a direct role in one of Mossad’s most humiliating intelligence failures – the botched assassination attempt of Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal in Jordan.
The operation, personally greenlit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called for the “silent killing” of Meshaal by exotic poison after a Hamas bombing in Jerusalem. But the plot quickly unraveled, and an embattled Ben-David found himself forced to provide the antidote to save Meshaal’s life in order to negotiate the release of the captured Mossad agents.
“Netanyahu insisted on killing Meshaal silently, leaving no trace, to avoid harming ties with Jordan,” Ben-David recounted with remorse. “If only we had listened to the voices calling for a more… direct approach.”
Surveying the existential perils closing in on Israel from every side, it seems Ben-David’s words augur a period of unprecedented upheaval and anguish for the Israeli people in the days and years ahead.
If his grim literary premonitions continue to hit their mark, the very existence of the Jewish State could soon be hanging by a thread.
