THE BIRTH OF ISRAEL

by Jorge Garcia-Granados ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

This- with Crum's Behind the Silhen Curtain and Sumner Welles' We Need Not Fail (see report P. 272) gives the case for Israel convincingly, persuasively. Garcia-Granados, ambassador to this country from Guatemala, served on the Palestine commission which presented the U. N. with the report on which the partition decision was reached. The unwieldy name of the commission was shortened to UNSCOP -- and this is the unprettified story of the difficulties under which they labored, -- differences within the commission, boycotted by the Arabs, hampered by the British, doublecrossed- and yet painfully arriving at a majority decision in favor of an independent Jewish state under a partition plan. Comparisons are made continually with the steps by which his own country emerged from police state and dictatorship to democracy, as he sees evidence of the terrorist procedure in the British Mandate, and recounts the horrors of the Exile incident, the execution of the three Irgun youths, and so on. He feels that the British must go- and the last hours, as the clock ticked towards the deadline at Lake Success, are a confession of how narrow the margin was in his apparent compromise. This is an exciting picture of Jewish achievement, convincingly documented, and told in human terms:- city, village, Kibbutz (the cooperative agricultural set-up), etc. The difficulty of securing the Arab side- the marshalling of the points made in Labanon- the British position, all serve to strengthen, for the reader, the case for Israel.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1948

Categories: NONFICTION