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 Re-cap of NBC nightly news on Israel for the last 50 years January 27, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Review of 3rd Edtion of Howard Sachar's 'History of Israel'
Given that this book calls itself a History of Israel; I am somewhat puzzled by the contents of the first three chapters which deal with events outside of Israel. Only when we get to the 4th chapter do we begin to see the history of modern Israel.
A History of Israel should be about the history of Israel and not about European Jewish communities. This is fundamental and goes a long way in explaining what went wrong with this book. A far more honest title would be "Israel as seen in the imagination of Jews living outside Israel from the rise of Zionism to our time"
As a history I think it should rise to a higher level rather than sound like a summary of NBC newscasts over the past 50 years. Sadly, this is exactly what it reads like to me. Well written, interesting, and yet doesn't really reach the level of being a history.
In the last edition (2nd) the author hadn't yet discovered the Russian immigrants and their contribution to Israeli High-Tech. This time he gives the Russians and Israeli High-Tech a meager 3 pages in the new Chapter XXXIX.
As a coup de grace for this NBC nightly news summary I go to Chapter XLI and pages 1130-1131 where I read a polemical description of the Israelis living over the 1949 armistice line which was marked on the armistice map in green ink and later called the "green line". They are referred to as "an agreesive minority of fundamentalist zealots" , "colonialist militants", "inciters of mob intimidation" , "transgressors of public morality", and "migratory adventurers". I actually live here and the description doesn't ring true to me.
Also, Prof. Sachar claims that there are "at least 800,000" Israelis living over the 1949 armistice line in the remainder of what was Mandatory Palestine. I know lots of people who will agree with "about 500,000" but not a single person living here in Israel who will agree with a figure of 800,000 which is a difference of a mere 300,000 people. A rounding error in Mexico City perhaps, but here that is still considered a lot of people.
It's relatively easy to read, and it's interesting, but as a history of Israel which is what it calls inself I give it 2 points. I recommend spending your money on some of the other wonderful books offered for sale from [...] and leaving this one for people who like reading historical fiction.
 The best of the best in Israel's history books October 10, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Anybody who wants to know about the history of the State of Israel,you should read this book.
A Comprehensive Work June 27, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
It is very difficult to accurately and comprehensively analyse this work.
The fact is that Sachar go's out of his way to be even-handed, which leads to a dilemma in itself.
The truth is that one cannot be objective in a conflict where it is clear to any fair-minded and honest observer who the agressors are and always have been: The Jews peacefully returned to their ancient land, and for nearly a century the Arabs have been trying to drive them into the sea.
There are times when I am uncomfortable with the author's particularly unfair treatment of the Jewish freedom fighters- the Irgun and Lechi- whom he labels as 'terrorists'.
At the same time, he honestly appraises the history of the situation as he see's it, and does not like the malevolent 'new historians' and revisionists, like Chomsky, Finkelstein, Said, Lenni Brenner and Israel Shahak, go back and rewrite history to suit their own destructive and malicious agenda against Israel.
This is an honest appraisal, in which the author strives to be fair.
Though his commentary is not always to my liking, he sticks to the facts, except in cases like the so-called massacre of Deir Yassin, where he has accepted the 'official' version' of events, despite clear evidence that there had been no deliberate killing of Arab civillians by the Jews.
The author begins by outlining the beginnings of the Zionist movement, the work of pioneers such as Moshe Hess, Leo Pinsker, Moses Montefiore, Achad Ha'am, Theodore Herzl, Chaim Weizmann and Vladimir Jabotinsky. He describes their strugles to adapt to harsh terrain, in the land which had flourished two thousand years before, when their ancestors lived there.
He describes how sucessive waves of Jews returning to the Land of Israel, struggled to adapt, often, to the homeland that was being restored.
He writes of the purchase by the Jews from Arab absentee landlords. The book describes the revival of the Hebrew language, thanks to the efforts of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, and of the the long tradition of discrimination and dhimmni status of the Jews, in the Holy Land, and Arab countries under Islamic domination.
We learn of the origins of Communist hostility to Zionism and the Israeli people, of the originally warm attitude to Zionism by forward thinking Arab leaders such as King Feisal of Syria, and the bloody pogroms by Arabs on Jewish communities in the Land of Israel in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936-1939.
The truth is that a very large part of the Arab hostility to Zionism, and the returning Jews originated in the fear among the Arab aristocracy in the Holy Land, and elsewhere in neighbouring lands, that the egalitarian spirit of the Jews, the democracy and emphasis, on social justice and democracy would influence the Arab masses, and therefore threaten the powerbases of the Arab elites.
We read of Hitler's ally and Jew-hater Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini, one of the original founders of Islamic jihad against the Jewish people, and his impassioned preaching of venom and genocide against the Jews.
Much of the Arab hostility and agression towards the Jews of the then named 'Palestine' was encouraged by intense propaganda directed at the Arabs by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, this at a time when hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees where fleeing from Nazi Germany to the Holy Land.
The book also highlights the Balfour Declaration and how the British later reneged, under Arab pressure, on the promises to the Jewish people of restoration to their ancient land.
Many of the British actively assited the Arabs against the Jews, and the British blocked the netry of hundreds of thousands of Jews, attempting to enter 'Palestine' as an escape from Hitler's infernos.
The book discusses the persecution of Jews in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt, and their mass expulsion from these countries after they fled from the Arab states, with nothing more than the clothes on their backs from the countries they had lived in for centuries.
The book describes the miraculous survival of the Jews of Israel, during the Second World War, and their victories against overwhelming odds in the War of Independence, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.
The book describes how before the Six Day War, the Arabs had surrounded Israel ,and openly issued hideous threats of genocide against all the Jews of Israel, forcing Israel to fire the first shots in order to survive(after Nasser had closed the Straights of Tiran) , and of the decades of infiltrations into Israel of marauding Arab terror bands killing Israeli men, women and children, including the massacres of Jewish children at Kiryat Shmona and Ma'alot, by the terrorists of the 'Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine'. And we also read of the cowardly attack by Arab states on Israel, that started the Yom Kippur War, and the unpreparedness of Israel's leadership that was scared to strike first for fear of upsetting world opinion.
This was a tragic mistake that imperilled the Israeli nation, and led to many unnecesary deaths of Israelis.
The book also describes the other triumphs of Israel: the absorbtion of millions of Jews, the struggles of the Oriental Jews (Jews from North Africa and the Middle East)for equality, the admirable building up of Israel's welfare state, and the capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann in the early 1960's.
He also reflect on the conflicts within Israeli society and, contrary to the allegations by an earlier reviewer, focuses much on the issues of Israeli Arabs.
The trial of Eichmann brought home the horrors of the holocaust, and the lessons derived by the holocaust, by emphasizing the dangers inherent towards a Jewish minority living among a non-Jewish majority, and the need for an ingathering of Jews from all parts of the world in a homeland of their own.
During a break in the court sessions of Israel's thirteenth Independence day, David Ben-Gurion referred to the Eichmnn trial in a speech:
"Here for the first time in Jewish history, historical justice is being done by the sovereign Jewish people. For many generations it was we who suffered, who were tortured, who were killed-and were judged...for the first time, Israel is judging the killers of the Jewish people...and let us bear in mind that only the independence of Israel could create the necesary conditions for the historic act of justice".
Never again can catastrophy allowed to overtake the Jewish people, and the Jewish people subjected to genocide, especially not in their own homeland.
In a hostile world, much of which wants Israel destroyed, Israel must and will survive...with the help of the Allmighty.
Long live the State of Israel!
An excellent reference February 14, 2005
25 out of 28 found this review helpful
This book does a fine job of supplying a detailed history of Israel. It is over 1000 pages, not even counting the index or the huge bibliography.
Sachar's idea is to tell us what happened and why. That does not mean taking sides. It does not mean saying if the people involved were reasonable or moral in choosing the sides they did.
I can understand this approach. We all wish that we could always view relatively current events from the perspective of those who could see which side was being greedy, which side was simply immoral, or which side was being impractical. But we can't, so Sachar simply reports what happened as best he can. And I don't see how I can ask for more than this.
In addition, the simple retelling of what happened and why tells us plenty about how wise or moral decision-makers were. Let me give one example. Sachar has a hefty section on the response to the UN Partition Resolution of November, 1947. Britain refused to gradually transfer authority to a United Nations commission, explaining that this would result in "confusion and disorder." Britain did everything possible to avoid cooperating with those in the UN or the Jewish Agency. The six UN commission members were made unwelcome. They "were soon reduced to foraging for food and drink. They accomplished nothing."
Meanwhile, the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, simply regarded the Jews as enemies. As Sachar writes, Bevin claimed "that the whole Jewish 'pressure' was a gigantic racket run from America," that the Jews had stolen "half the place" (that is, half of the Mandate territory), and that "he would not be surprised if the Germans had learned their worst atrocities from the Jews." I think this ought to tell any perceptive reader plenty about Bevin.
On top of this, Sachar explains that Bevin and some important British officers were predicting an Arab military victory, and that the Arabs would have no difficulty taking over the whole country. Nowadays, some people appear to have forgotten all this and are pretending that everyone knew that the Arabs would be no match for the Jews, which is yet one more reason why we ought to read this book!
Sachar also tells us about the British swiping the entire contents of the Mandate treasury, to make sure the Jews got none of the money. At the same time, the British gave 300,000 pounds to the Supreme Moslem Council, an indirect subsidy of the Arab war effort. The British strictly enforced an embargo on Jewish immigration and Jewish weapons acquisition. Meanwhile, the British happily sold weapons to Iraq and Transjordan.
It is true that on April 1, 1948, the Jews decided to stop responding to Arab attacks in a purely defensive manner. With Jerusalem threatened, they did decide to take action to relieve the siege. But Sachar has already shown us that one reason the Jews were unable to try such a plan before then was that the British would have stopped them by force.
There is an enormous amount of information in this book. I recommend it to everyone who is interested in the topic, no matter what political views they may have.
Thorough and thought provoking September 3, 2004
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
Very well-written, very informative, balanced view of the evolution and struggles that Israel has undergone.
I only wish it had an extra chapter to give similar perspective to the tumult of the past few years.
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