Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs

The book Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs offers insight into the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict by examining the role of one of its major protagonists, David Ben Gurion. In the forty-two years between 1921 and 1963 - during which he served as Labor leader, Zionist statesman, and Prime Minister - Ben Gurion's influence came to have a decisive impact upon Jewish policy. Shabtai Teveth delves below the surface of Ben Gurion's public and diplomatic stance, examining his diaries and letters and the minutes of closed meetings. On the basis of this new evidence, Teveth gives us a fresh understanding of the man who has long been regarded as harsh and uncompromising, showing that Ben Gurion was in face the ultimate pragmatist, who played the roles of peacemaker and militant alternately and at times even simultaneously.

234 pages, hardcover with dust jacket, good condition. ISBN 0-19-503562-3.

David Ben Gurion, born in Plonsk, Poland, in 1886, described himself as a Zionist from birth. At the age of three, he learned Hebrew on his grandfather`s lap and began to read the Old Testament before he attended the traditional heder. It was then that he first heard from his father about Eretz Israel - the Land of Israel, Palestine.

(Shabtai Teveth: Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, page 3)