Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn

The first wave of Jewish immigration, known as the First Aliyah, began in 1882 and continued, with breaks, until 1903.* This

Thirty years had passed since General Edmund Allenby had entered Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate in 1917, signaling the beginning of Britain’s control over Palestine. Now, on May 14, 1948, the last Union Jack slid down the flagpole at Haifa’s port, symbolically bringing the Mandate to an end. The empire was crumbling, and in Palestine, the British had been

Two millennia of exile had ended, and for the first time since the Romans, the Jews were sovereign in their ancestral

To the north, there was Hezbollah, and to the southwest, Israel faced Hamas. Both were unabashedly committed to Israel’s destruction and to terrorizing Israel’s population; both launched intermittent rocket attacks on Israeli

The Zionist community was now embroiled in deep and vituperative debate, and it would remain so—forever. The Uganda idea itself would fade and become irrelevant. But other issues would arise. Zionism, it was already becoming clear, would never be a simple political movement. Zionism was centered around the Jewish future and the subject of a Jewish

religion was reentering Israeli life, in both politics and culture.

GIVEN THE CENTRALITY OF the sacrificial cult and priestly leadership to Israelite religion, the destruction of the Temple, and with it the sacrificial rite and the power of the priests, might well have meant the end of Israelite life. With sociological and religious genius, however, the Israelites’ leaders begged their followers…

Some highlights hav

Begin’s identification with the settler movement had begun years earlier. In 1974, Gush Emunim members had sought permission to build one of the first settlements, Elon Moreh. As was the case in the beginnings of many settlements (including that in Hebron), when permission was refused, settlers went anyway. Eventually, after numerous requests, the

WHILE THE SIX-DAY WAR divided Israelis, it united the vanquished Arab Palestinian community. Israel’s victory had dealt a fatal blow to Nasser’s pan-Arabist movement. It was now clear how little Nasser or any of the other Arab leaders had done for the Palestinians (those who had fled the war in 1948 and their descendants) about whom they ostensibly