My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

He believes that what he is promoting is not a Masada complex but a Masada paradox: Only the young Hebrews willing to die will be able to ensure for themselves a secure and sovereign life.

On December 17, 1942, the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, declares in Westminster that Nazi Germany is exterminating European Jewry.

They are unaware of the huge forces coursing through them—imperialism, capitalism, science, technology—that will transform the land. And when imperialism, capitalism, science, and technology breed with their determination, nothing can stand in the way. These forces will flatten mountains and bury villages.

On the night before the anticipated attack, the 960 men, women, and children of Masada took their own lives rather than submit to Roman rule.

Wherever he goes, my great-grandfather will be adamant. “Palestine has never yet adopted another population,” he will claim. Arguing with the critics of Zion, he will insist that Palestine is absolutely suitable for “the teeming millions who are in distress in the East of Europe for whom a home might have to be found with a minimum of difficulty an

Herzl is especially interested in the inhabitants of Palestine and the prospects for colonizing it.

Those agronomists introduced the efficient Californian method of cultivation. Rehovot was where Western know-how, Arab labor, and laissez-faire economics merged to make the Jaffa orange a world-renowned brand.

In November, the UN General Assembly endorses the partition plan and calls for the establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state. As the Arab League and the Arabs of Palestine reject Resolution 181, violence flares throughout the country.

At this point in time the injustice caused to native Arabs by the Zionist project is still limited. It is true that tenant Palestinian farmers had already been uprooted from their land in the Harod Valley and in Rehovot and in dozens of other locations in Palestine. But the lives of those farmers under their Arab masters had in many cases been wors