Nic Carter posted a book on his X account—Rise Up and Kill First by Ronen Bergman (2018). I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand why Israel has no qualms about keeping the pressure on in Gaza. My morning reading of the book¹ spat out these reflections on three pillars: power, empiricism, and pragmatism.

Meet Otto Skorzeny—an SS colonel, Nazi hero, would‑be assassin of Eisenhower, and, to top it off, a direct participant in Kristallnacht. After World War II he settled in Spain and became a mercenary; in exchange for cash, an Austrian passport, and immunity, Skorzeny sabotaged Egypt’s missile program, even murdering a German (Nazi) engineer working for Cairo. Picture it: a Jewish executioner, Hitler’s favorite, laid to rest under swastikas—with Israeli agents at his funeral. At first I thought I’d chalk this up to realpolitik and move on, but the issue runs deeper. So let’s look at it through three lenses.

From Foucault’s perspective², power is a web of relationships that cuts across every individual and institution. There is no “outside” to power; it reconfigures and resists through moving nodes—people. Skorzeny had the know‑how Nasser’s missile project needed. When a butcher of Jews becomes an Israeli asset, the übermensch narrative flips to one in which intelligence becomes an inescapable force. Mossad’s move violated every ideological boundary—yet it proves that power operates in dispersion, not purity.

American thinkers nailed something brilliant with 20th‑century pragmatism and its demand to stay in the social conversation. Rorty’s “liberal ironist” nailed it: morality isn’t fixed—societies thrive when they’re willing to rewrite moral vocabularies to solve fresh problems. Skorzeny could join a sabotage op despite being tied directly to Holocaust memory, because the overriding goal was physical survival—crippling Egypt’s missiles. So: Do we hunt Nazis—or recruit them? Do we pause for a moral debate only after the threat is gone? The pragmatic answer: yes to both.

This one’s shorter. Intel said Egypt’s program was advancing—alarming data, no time for moral conjecture. If a decorated Jew‑killer could tilt the balance toward Israel, so be it. Moral character gets rewired by incentives: with us or against us. Ethics can wait until you’re safe.

Mossad chose effectiveness and survival over legal purity. Actions have consequences, and moral capital can erode long‑term—no surprise there. Think Operation Paperclip, when NASA hired Nazi scientists³. Today, governments hire cybercriminals to shore up cybersecurity. The AI talent race leaves ideology behind.

Skorzeny and Mossad show, through three lenses, that history isn’t made in moral laboratories; it rides the flow of power between nodes and stress‑tests the actor. The past can be re‑woven into power networks, the present is measured by tangible results and by a community’s capacity to review them. I’m not saying we should grab shortcuts wholesale. I’m saying the rules stretch, and the decisive criterion becomes—echoing Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds:

Translation: survival comes first. Skorzeny reminds us that even the most pragmatic strategy still has to face judgment in the end. Any free society ultimately answers to its own well‑formed historical conscience.