Black Ops

Is there any doubt that Israel is the coolest, not to mention most bad-assed, nation on earth? Even their endangered species policies have a tinge of cloak-and-dagger stealth to them: How Bambi Met James Bond

On Nov. 28, 1978, as Iran was hurtling toward Islamic revolution, zoologist Mike Van Grevenbroek landed at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, coming from Tel Aviv, carrying a blow-dart gun disguised as a cane and secret orders from an Israeli general.

His mission: to capture four Persian fallow deer and deliver them to Israel before the shah's government collapsed.

It marked the daring climax of a years-long cloak-and-dagger effort to reintroduce the animals of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism to Israel.

In December 2009, Israeli wildlife officials added another chapter to the endangered ruminant's unlikely comeback when they released four descendants of those original deer into the Jerusalem hills. The animals joined the nearly 500 fallow deer that now roam freely in Israel. The deer are the crowning achievement of a program that has also returned biblical onagers, oryxes and ostriches to the wild.

Meanwhile, our CIA would be hounded by congressional Democrats and the Sierra Club for violating the Endangered Species Act...