BEN GURION: The Armed Prophet

by Michael Bar-Zohar ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 1968

Bar-Zohar is a political scientist, a French correspondent in Israel, the author of The Hunt for German Scientists and of this ingenuously celebratory biography. He spent eighteen months with Ben-Gurion, who let him use his notebooks and told him ""his closest secrets."" Predictably, nothing spectacular emerges, but Ben-Gurion's life makes for exciting reading anyway. The main focus here is very topical-Ben-Gurion's preoccupation with the Israeli army. Despite the younger generation's antagonism toward the Old Guard. Ben-Gurion embodies the spirit of June 1967. He pushed for a regular, unified, apolitical army, territorial expansion, and autarchic capability to support a war; and he advocated an offensive strategy against the Arabs in 1947 when others saw little threat. Bar-Zohar is oddly weak on politics, however. He pictures Ben-Gurion as a ""war loader who couldn't win the peace,"" who ""neglected economic and educational problems,"" without putting him in the socio-political context of the modern Israel he helped to build. Another major flaw; no footnotes, so that the reader can't weigh particular assertions in the light of their sources.

Pub Date: April 19, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1968

Categories: NONFICTION