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WASHINGTON - Israel could have prevented the bombing that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon in 1983 but it chose not to give the Americans details of the plot, according to an explosive book about Israel's fabled Mossad agency.
By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer was written by Victor Ostrovsky, a Canadian-born graphic artist who grew up in Israel and said he served the spy agency for four years starting in 1983.
At the request of the Israeli government, a New York state judge issued an order Wednesday temporarily barring St. Martin's Press from distributing the book.
The Israeli government sought the ban, saying the book contained information that could "endanger the lives of various people in the employ of the state of Israel, and would be detrimental to the government of the state of Israel." The 300-page manuscript, written with Canadian journalist Claire Hoy, purports to name many Mossad agents as it describes Mossad's training and alleged operations.
It also describes what Ostrovsky calls a highly secret unit that collects information in the United States about the Arab world. The unit is called "Al," Hebrew for "above," and employs 24 to 27 people.
In the summer of 1983, the book says, a Mossad informant told his contact in Beirut that a large Mercedes truck was being outfitted by Shiite Moslem radicals with compartments that could hold bombs.
According to the book, the informant said the hidden spaces in the truck were large. "Now the Mossad knew that, for size, there were only a few logical targets, one of which must be the U.S. compound," Ostrovsky writes.
Mossad decided to give its CIA allies only a general warning. Mossad chief Nahum Admoni is quoted as saying: "No, we're not there to protect Americans. They're a big country."
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield refused to comment.
On October 23, 1983, a suicide driver rammed a Mercedes truck into the Marine compound, killing 241 men, many in their beds.
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