THE FIFTY YEARS' WAR

A lively account of the diplomatic and military battles during the Arab-Israeli conflict’s first half-century; it’s the companion to a public-TV documentary entitled Israel and the Arabs. A major plus of this sound-bite history’s television origins is its access to some titillating exclusives. In transcripts of a taped conversation between Jordan’s King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, he warns her ten days before the 1973 war that Syria and Egypt are preparing to attack. An earlier scoop involves secret talks between Egypt and Israel in which Egypt’s leader Gamal Abdel Nasser requests Israeli help in dealing with the Americans. Perhaps the best ratings grabber involves the dangerous, bloody days of Black September, 1970. Hussein is crushing the PLO state that Arafat has built in Amman. The authors put us in the Syrian backrooms, where Hafiz Assad (then merely minister of defense and air force commander) opposes an attack on Jordan, but hundreds of tanks are launched to save the PLO. The Soviets refuse to help the beleaguered Hussein. President Nixon, found in a bowling alley, agrees to allow the Israeli air force to turn the Syrians back. Meanwhile, President Numeiry of Sudan leaves an Arab summit in the Nile Hilton to fly to war-torn Amman and miraculously smuggle Arafat back to the conference. Upset about the survival and “abduction” of his enemy, Hussein bravely defends his interests at the Hilton. Libya’s Qaddafi “had suggested that the king should be shot,” but now only says Hussein should “go and have his head examined.” Such dialogue and detail (you can practically see the camera angles) enliven the book. It achieves an adequate political balance in the backgrounds of its two authors: Bregman is an Israeli with a doctorate in War Studies from King’s College, London; El-Tahri is a Lebanese-born, Egyptian-educated journalist. An enjoyable read, fired by dramatic and emotive prose, but too much a TV documentary to be confused with history. (photos, maps, not seen)