The Israelis: Founders and Sons

(Paperback, Main)

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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.

Author Bio

Amos Elon (1926-2009) was an essayist, journalist and historian. He was born in Vienna, immigrating to Palestine when a child in 1933. He was for long considered one of Israel's leading journalists. Never a mere votary of Zionism, he finally moved to Tuscany when his disillusionment became closer to despair. Inevitably branded 'a self-hating jew' he once on television snapped at a reactionary accuser, 'I don't hate myself, I just hate Jews like you.' The author of nine books, Faber Finds is reissuing four of them: Founder; The Israelis; Jerusalem and Herzl.