The Israelis

Israel was built on dreams and strivings, on humanistic principles and hard labour. What was conceived as a country of peace and dignity, however, has emerged as a society of contradictions, ethnic tensions, clashes between the religious and the secular - a society buffeted by extreme changes in both national and international politics. The ideals of the founders have floundered in the reality of wars and violence. In this dramatic, fair-minded portrait of Israel, first published in 1971, Amos Elon places the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East in brilliant historic perspective. In illuminating the political and philosophical background of the State of Israel, he offers rare insight into the rise to power of Menachem Begin and the complications of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and he shows how Zionism, ironically, led to the development of its bitterest enemy, the Palestinian nationalist movement.