Download or read book Yaacov Herzog written by Michael Bar-Zohar and published by Halban Publishers. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 24 September 1963, Yaacov Herzog arrived for an appointment at a London clinic. He was not there to see the doctor, but "Charles" – the pseudonym of King Hussein of Jordan. These secret meetings continued for nine years, during which time Herzog also covertly negotiated a agreement with the Imam of Yemen during that country's civil war, wove a web of contacts with Lebanon's Christian community, and met other world leaders. A rabbi, erudite scholar, and gifted diplomat, Herzog was one of the shining stars in Israel's leadership. He served as a close advisor to four Israeli prime ministers, and was ambassador to Canada. Herzog became best known for his public debate with renowned British historian Professor Arnold Toynbee, who had described the Jews as a "fossilized" nation and compared Israel's military actions against Palestinians to Nazi atrocities. Herzog immediately invited Toynbee to a public debate, reminiscent of medieval debates between Jewish and Christian scholars. Herzog's performance bested Toynbee and won international accolades.
Download or read book Israel in the Middle East written by Itamar Rabinovich and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2008 with total page 654 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of the most important documents on the domestic and foreign policy of the modern state of Israel, in relation to the rest of the Middle East
Download or read book Lion of Jordan written by Avi Shlaim and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-09-09 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major account of the life of an extraordinary soldier and statesman, King Hussein of Jordan. Throughout his long reign (1953—1999), Hussein remained a dominant figure in Middle Eastern politics and a consistent proponent of peace with Israel. For over forty years he walked a tightrope between Palestinians and Arab radicals on the one hand and Israel on the other. Avi Shlaim reveals that Hussein initiated a secret dialogue with Israel in 1963 and spent hundreds of hours in talks with countless Israeli officials. Shlaim expertly reconstructs this dialogue from previously untapped records and first-hand accounts, significantly rewriting the history of the Middle East over the past fifty years and shedding light on the far-reaching impact of Hussein’s leadership.
Download or read book 1967 written by Tom Segev and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2007-05-29 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A marvelous achievement . . . Anyone curious about the extraordinary six days of Arab-Israeli war will learn much from it."—The Economist Tom Segev's acclaimed works One Palestine, Complete and The Seventh Million overturned accepted views of the history of Israel. Now, in 1967—a number-one bestseller in Hebrew—he brings his masterful skills to the watershed year when six days of war reshaped the country and the entire region. Going far beyond a military account, Segev re-creates the crisis in Israel before 1967, showing how economic recession, a full grasp of the Holocaust's horrors, and the dire threats made by neighbor states combined to produce a climate of apocalypse. He depicts the country's bravado after its victory, the mood revealed in a popular joke in which one soldier says to his friend, "Let's take over Cairo"; the friend replies, "Then what shall we do in the afternoon?" Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries, as well as government memos and military records, Segev reconstructs an era of new possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces the legendary figures—Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Gamal Abdul Nasser, and Lyndon Johnson—and an epic cast of soldiers, lobbyists, refugees, and settlers. He reveals as never before Israel's intimacy with the White House as well as the political rivalries that sabotaged any chance of peace. Above all, he challenges the view that the war was inevitable, showing that a series of disastrous miscalculations lie behind the bloodshed. A vibrant and original history, 1967 is sure to stand as the definitive account of that pivotal year.
Download or read book The Limits of the Land written by Avshalom Rubin and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An outstanding historical analysis of a core component to the current Middle East dilemma between Israel and the Palestinians.”—Choice Reviews Was Israel’s occupation of the West Bank inevitable? From 1949-1967, the West Bank was the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many Israelis hoped to conquer it and widen their narrow borders, while many Arabs hoped that it would serve as the core of a future Palestinian state. In The Limits of the Land, Avshalom Rubin presents a sophisticated new portrait of the Arab-Israeli struggle that goes beyond partisan narratives of the past. Drawing on new evidence from a wide variety of sources, many of them only recently declassified, Rubin argues that Israel’s leaders indeed wanted to conquer the West Bank, but not at any cost. By 1967, they had abandoned hope of widening their borders and adopted an alternative strategy based on nuclear deterrence. In 1967, however, Israel’s new strategy failed to prevent war, convincing its leaders that they needed to keep the territory they conquered. The result was a diplomatic stalemate that endures today. “Based on a meticulous examination of numerous Israeli, US, and British archives, as well as relevant Arabic and Russian literature, Avshalom Rubin covers the role of the West Bank in the Arab-Israeli conflict in a comprehensive way. His book stands alone at the top of work on Israeli-Jordanian relations of the period.”—Robert O. Freedman, author of Israel and the United States: Six Decades of US-Israeli Relations
Download or read book My Struggle for Peace Volume 3 1956 written by Moshe Sharett and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 827 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third volume of the former Israeli prime minister’s journals from the nation’s early years. My Struggle for Peace is a remarkable political document offering insights into the complex workings of the young Israeli political system, set against the backdrop of the disintegration of the country’s fragile armistice with the Arab states. Replete with Moshe Sharett’s candid comments on Israel’s first-generation leaders and world statesmen of the day, the diary also tells the dramatic human story of a political career cut short—the removal of an unusually sensitive, dedicated, and talented public servant. My Struggle for Peace is, above all, an intimate record of the decline of Sharett’s moderate approach and the rise of more “activist-militant” trends in Israeli society, culminating in the Suez/Sinai war of 1956. The diary challenges the popular narrative that Israel’s confrontation with its neighbors was unavoidable by offering daily evidence of Sharett’s statesmanship, moderation, diplomacy, and concern for Israel’s place in international affairs. This is the third volume in the 3-volume English abridgement of Sharett’s Yoman Ishi [Personal diary] (Ma’ariv, 1978) maintains the integrity, flavor, and impact of the 8-volume Hebrew original and includes additional documentary material that was not accessible at the time. The volumes are also available to purchase as a set or individually. “The editors . . . vastly improved on the Hebrew version by adding Sharett’s speeches, reports, cabinet minutes, and other sources to the text. . . . These additions makes this work so important and welcome by all who aspire to understand the foreign and defense policies of Israel in its first decade.” —Israel Studies Review
Download or read book Futile Diplomacy Volume 4 written by Neil Caplan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, first published in 1997, focuses on the Anglo-American cooperation which began during the relatively uneventful years 1953 and 1954, and which led to a covert operation, code-named 'Alpha', which aimed – unsuccessfully – at convincing Egyptian and Israeli leaders to consider a settlement through secret negotiations. As with the other three volumes that make up Futile Diplomacy, this volume comprises Dr Caplan's expert in-depth analysis with a wealth of primary source documents, making this a key reference source in the study of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Download or read book Futile Diplomacy A History of Arab Israeli Negotiations 1913 56 written by Neil Caplan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 1562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These four volumes provide a careful and balanced behind-the-scenes account of the intricate diplomatic activity of the period between 1913 and 1956. Exploiting a range of available archive sources as well as extensive secondary sources, they provide an authoritative analysis of the positions and strategies which the principal parties and the would-be mediators adopted in the elusive search for a stable peace. The text of each volume comprises both analytical-historical chapters and a selection of primary documents from archival sources, providing an essential reference source for the student of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its long history.
Download or read book Golda Meir written by Meron Medzini and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-04-26 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For five decades Golda Meir was at the center of the political arena in Israel and left her mark on the development of the Yishuv and the state. She was a unique woman, great leader, with a magnetic personality, a highly complex individual. She held some of the most important positions that her party and the State could bestow. She fulfilled most of them with talent and dignity. She failed in the top job – that of Prime Minister. This biography traces her origins, her American roots, her immediate family, her failed marriage, her rise in the party, the trade union movement, her massive and enduring achievements as Secretary of Labor and Housing, her ten year stint as foreign minister and finally the reasons that led to her failure as prime minister. She was a very good tactician, far less a strategist. She was a major builder of modern Israel whose influence on that country, on Israel-American relations and on Jewish history was evident primarily from 1969 to 1974. The author who served as spokesman for Golda Meir in 1973-1974 weaves a gripping story of one of the builders and leaders of the State of Israel.
Download or read book King Hussein of Jordan written by Nigel Ashton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A towering figure in the history of Jordan, King Hussein reigned for nearly half a century, from his grandfather's assassination in 1953 to his own death in 1999. In this fascinating biography, Nigel Ashton recounts the eventful life of the king who not only survived but flourished amidst crisis after crisis as ruler of a poor desert nation surrounded by powerful and hostile neighbors. Hussein skillfully navigated complicated relationships with the British, his fellow Arab leaders, the new bordering state of Israel, masses of dispossessed Palestinians within his kingdom, every U.S. president from Eisenhower to Clinton, and every British prime minister from Churchill to Blair. This book illuminates the private man, his key relationships, and his achievements and disappointments as a central player in the tough world of Middle Eastern politics.Ashton has had unique access to King Hussein's private papers, including his secret correspondence with U.S., British, and Israeli leaders, and he has also conducted numerous interviews with members of Hussein's circle and immediate family. The resulting book brings new depth to our understanding of the popular and canny king while also providing new information about the wars of 1967 and 1973, President Reagan's role in the Iran-Contra affair, the evolution of the Middle East peace process, and much more.
Download or read book My Struggle for Peace Volume 2 1955 written by Moshe Sharett and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of the former Israeli prime minister’s journals from the nation’s early years, centering on his time in office. My Struggle for Peace is a remarkable political document offering insights into the complex workings of the young Israeli political system, set against the backdrop of the disintegration of the country’s fragile armistice with the Arab states. Replete with Moshe Sharett’s candid comments on Israel’s first-generation leaders and world statesmen of the day, the diary also tells the dramatic human story of a political career cut short—the removal of an unusually sensitive, dedicated, and talented public servant. My Struggle for Peace is, above all, an intimate record of the decline of Sharett’s moderate approach and the rise of more “activist-militant” trends in Israeli society, culminating in the Suez/Sinai war of 1956. The diary challenges the popular narrative that Israel’s confrontation with its neighbors was unavoidable by offering daily evidence of Sharett’s statesmanship, moderation, diplomacy, and concern for Israel’s place in international affairs. This is the second volume in the 3-volume English abridgement of Sharett’s Yoman Ishi [Personal diary] (Ma’ariv, 1978) maintains the integrity, flavor, and impact of the 8-volume Hebrew original and includes additional documentary material that was not accessible at the time. The volumes are also available to purchase as a set or individually. “The editors . . . vastly improved on the Hebrew version by adding Sharett’s speeches, reports, cabinet minutes, and other sources to the text. . . . These additions makes this work so important and welcome by all who aspire to understand the foreign and defense policies of Israel in its first decade.” —Israel Studies Review
Download or read book A World of Trouble written by Patrick Tyler and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spellbinding narrative account of America in the Middle East that "reads almost like a thriller" (The Economist) The Middle East is the beginning and the end of U.S. foreign policy: events there influence our alliances, make or break presidencies, govern the price of oil, and draw us into war. But it was not always so—and as Patrick Tyler shows in A World of Trouble, a thrilling chronicle of American misadventures in the region. The story of American presidents' dealings there is one of mixed motives, skulduggery, deceit, and outright foolishness, as well as of policymaking and diplomacy. Tyler draws on newly opened presidential archives to dramatize the approach to the Middle East across U.S. presidencies from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. He takes us into the Oval Office and shows how our leaders made momentous decisions; at the same time, the sweep of this narrative—from the Suez crisis to the Iran hostage crisis to George W. Bush's catastrophe in Iraq—lets us see the big picture as never before. Tyler tells a story of presidents being drawn into the affairs of the region against their will, being kept in the dark by local potentates, being led astray by grasping subordinates, and making decisions about the internal affairs of countries they hardly understand. Above all, he shows how each president has managed to undo the policies of his predecessor, often fomenting both anger against America on the streets of the region and confusion at home. A World of Trouble is the Middle East book we need now: compulsively readable, free of cant and ideology, and rich in insight about the very human challenges a new president will face as he or she tries to restore America's standing in the region.
Download or read book Global Politics written by Abraham Ben-Zvi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-20 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume discuss and assess the philosophies and writings of Professor David Vital. They aim to develop his work within modern diplomacy, issues relating to modern Jewish history, and within the State of Israel and its conduct of foreign relations.
Download or read book Wilfrid Israel written by Naomi Shepherd and published by Halban Publishers. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilfrid Israel was a most unlikely hero. Heir to a Jewish business dynasty in Berlin, he was a contemporary of Einstein and Spender in the cosmopolitan circles of Weimar Berlin, and emerged from his world of privilege to become German Jewry's chief (and often anonymous) emissary to the outside world and one of the great unsung heroes of the Holocaust. In the dark days of the 1930s, the ever tightening persecution of German Jews made the diffident Wilfrid Israel assume a major role in their escape. Using his British passport and high connections, he lobbied British diplomats and politicians with plans for Jewish support and rescue. At home he faced down stormtroopers and the Gestapo, enabled the emigration of the Jewish employees of his firm, and ransomed thousands of Jewish and anti-Nazi prisoners from the concentration camps. When the Nazis finally requisitioned the Israel firm, and the Jewish leadership disintegrated, he ran the Jewish emigration office which enabled thousands to find refuge abroad, partly by his connection with the head of British intelligence in Berlin. After the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, through the Council for German Jewry in London, and with the help of his Quaker friends and German Jewish women's organisations, he set in motion the famous Kindertransport. This was the admission to Britain without formalities of nearly ten thousand unaccompanied Jewish children. Leaving Germany days before the outbreak of the war, he lobbied on behalf of German Jews interned as enemy aliens. In 1942 he was recruited by the British Foreign Office to put his extensive knowledge of German politics and economics at the disposal of the government – also his expertise in rescue to its Refugee Department. Wilfrid Israel was one of the first to warn of the Nazis' plans to exterminate the Jews of Europe and the dimensions of the Holocaust. His final mission, to distribute certificates of admission to Palestine among the Jews of Spain and Portugal, ended when the plane in which he was returning to England was shot down by the Luftwaffe. This biography, first published in 1984 and now revised with a new foreword, restores Wilfrid Israel to his rightful place in the history of the Holocaust. It also brings into new focus the disturbing indifference of Allied leaders to the plight of the Jews, early arguments over the emerging Palestinian homeland, and questions still unresolved today about the politics of rescue and the practicality of humanist ideals.
Download or read book Ahad Ha am Elusive Prophet written by Steven J Zipperstein and published by Halban Publishers. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive biography of the guiding intellectual presence - and chief internal critic - of Zionism, during the movement's formative years between the 1880s and the 1920s. Ahad Ha'am ('One of the People') was the pen name of Asher Ginzberg (1856-1927), a Russian Jew whose life intersected nearly every important trend and current in contemporary Jewry. His influence extended to figures as varied as the scholar of mysticism Gershom Scholem, the Hebrew poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik, and the historian Simon Dubnow. Theodor Herzl may have been the political leader of the Zionist movement, but Ahad Ha'am exerted a rare, perhaps unequalled, authority within Jewish culture through his writings. Ahad Ha'am was a Hebrew essayist of extraordinary knowledge and skill, a public intellectual who spoke with refreshing (and also, according to many, exasperating) candour on every controversial issue of the day. He was the first Zionist to call attention to the issue of Palestinian Arabs. He was a critic of the use of aggression as a tool in advancing Jewish nationalism and a foe of clericalism in Jewish public life. His analysis of the prehistory of Israeli political culture was incisive and prescient. Steven J. Zipperstein offers all those interested in contemporary Jewry, in Zionism, and in the ambiguities of modern nationalism a wide-ranging, perceptive reassessment of Ahad Ha'am's life against the back-drop of his contentious political world. This influential figure comes to life in a penetrating and engaging examination of his relations with his father, with Herzl, and with his devotees and opponents alike. Zipperstein explores the tensions of a man continually torn between sublimation and self-revelation, between detachment and deep commitment to his people, between irony and lyricism, between the inspiration of his study and the excitement of the streets. As a Zionist intellectual, Ahad Ha'am rejected both xenophobia and assimilation, seeking for the Jews a usable past and a plausible future.
Download or read book Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment written by David Sorkin and published by Halban Publishers. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was the premier Jewish thinker of his day and one of the best-known figures of the German Enlightenment, earning the sobriquet 'the Socrates of Berlin'. He was thoroughly involved in the central issue of Enlightenment religious thinking: the inevitable conflict between reason and revelation in an age contending with individual rights and religious toleration. He did not aspire to a comprehensive philosophy of Judaism, since he thought human reason was limited, but he did see Judaism as compatible with toleration and rights. David Sorkin offers a close study of Mendelssohn's complete writings, treating the German, and the often-neglected Hebrew writings, as a single corpus and arguing that Mendelssohn's two spheres of endeavour were entirely consistent.
Download or read book Abba Eban written by Asaf Siniver and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Based on interviews with dozens of people and research in more than twenty archival collections, [this] cleareyed biography deserves to be called definitive.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Born in South Africa, educated in England, and ultimately a major figure in Israeli history, Abba Eban was a skilled debater, a master of multiple languages, and a passionate defender of the Jewish state. But his diplomatic presence was in many ways a contradiction unlike any the world has seen since. While he was celebrated internationally for his exceptional wit and his moderate, reasoned worldview, these same qualities painted him as elitist and foreign in his home country. The disparity in perception of Eban at home and abroad was such that both his critics and his friends agreed that he would have been a wonderful prime minister—in any country but Israel. In Abba Eban, Asaf Siniver paints a nuanced and complete portrait of one of the most complex figures in twentieth-century foreign affairs. We see Eban growing up and coming into his own as part of the Cambridge Union, and watch him steadily become known as “The Voice of Israel.” Siniver draws on a vast amount of interviews, writings, and other newly available material to show that, in his unceasing quest for stability and peace for Israel, Eban’s primary opposition often came from the homeland he was fighting for; no matter how many allies he gained abroad, the man never understood his own domestic politics well enough to be as effective in his pursuits as he hoped. The first examination of Eban in nearly forty years, this is a fascinating look at a life that still offers a valuable perspective on Israel today. “Siniver’s principal achievement is his artful documentation of the tension between Eban the intellectual and Eban the politician. Such lofty thoughts do not distract Mr. Siniver from listing the indiscretions and dishonesty to which Eban, in his politician’s guise, occasionally succumbed.” —The Wall Street Journal “Siniver’s levelheaded account looks at the history of Israel through the life of the country’s eloquent defender.” —TheNew York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)
