for drop quote:
"This book is not a history of Zionism and of Israel ... It is
  the story of a siege."


Connor Cruise O'Brien

  In the fall of 1956, newly independent Ireland began to take part in
the UN General Assembly.  The delegates were seated in alphabetic
order, and the new Irish delegate to the Special Political Committee
soon found that he had relieved his neighbor on the left, the Iraqi,
and his neighbor on the right, the Israeli, of an "extremely
uncongenial" seating arrangement.
  Thus began Connor Cruise O'Brien's interest in the Arab-Israeli
conflict.  The Special Political Committee was the place where the
"Palestine Question" was routinely debated, consisting, according to
O'Brien, mainly of "heated attacks on Israel by every Arab delegation
... and by cool, unyielding Israeli replies."  The Middle East, at the
time, did not seem to be of much concern to Ireland, so O'Brien stayed
mostly on the sidelines in the official debate.
  O'Brien did, however, talk privately with both the Iraqi and Israeli
delegations, and began to learn something about the Middle East.  His
social relationship with the Iraqis came to a sudden end when the
delegation was replaced after the Iraqi revolution of 1958.  He
reports his first encounter with the new Iraqi representative:

  "Rather naively ... I asked ... the head of the new Iraqi delegation
  ... whether he had any news of his predecessor.  Without moving a
  muscle, and with his gaze firmly directed into space, my new neighbor
  pronounced the single word: 'Hanged!'  It was the only word he ever
  addressed to me."

  His relation with the Israeli delegation, however, remained warm
throughout the five years he served as Deputy Chief of the Irish
delegation to the UN.

  "... they understood how the United Nations worked, far better than
  anyone else did.  They were a first rate professional team ... and I
  liked to pick their brains ... [their] company as neighbors was
  particularly enjoyable because of their quick wit, and pungent pithy
  asides."

  In 1961, Connor Cruise O'Brien left the Irish foreign service and
the UN.  He concerned himself with African affairs (as told in his
book, "To Katanga and Back"), taught in New York, and served in the
Irish government.  Then, in 1978, he became editor in chief of The
Observer, in London.  The Observer concerned itself with international
politics, and published articles about the Middle East regularly.  And
so, in 1981, O'Brien decided to go to the region to learn about it.
Between 1981 and 1984 he visited several times, and began the research
that was the basis of his book, "The Siege", published in 1986.

The Siege

  The book is divided into two parts, Book One and Book Two.  Book One
tells the story of the Jews, and of Zionism, until the founding of the
State of Israel in 1948.  Book Two examines Israel, both internally
and externally, and tells the story of its survival and evolution from
1948 through 1985.  An Epilogue speculates about the future.
  Book One is comprised of four chapters.  The first, titled "The
Stranger", is an introduction to Jewish history before the 20th
century.  It introduces readers to the plight of world Jewry, the
basis of Zionist aspirations, the basis of assimilation and the
liberal Emancipation in Europe, and the foundations of future
problems.  "The Stranger" sets the stage for the book, by defining the
condition of the Jews, already under siege before the story begins.
  The second chapter, "A Home?", tells of the Zionist search for a
home for the Jewish people as a solution to their problems.  It
culminates in Britain's Balfour Declaration, stating support for a
Jewish National Home in Palestine.  The attempts to realize this goal,
the Arab opposition, and the actual British administration of the
national home policy, are the subjects of the next two chapters.
  Chapter 3, "A Home Contested", tells of failed attempts to reach
agreement with the Arabs, and the building of the Jewish settlement in
the early years of the British Mandate.  Chapter 4, "Death and Birth",
covers the period of Nazism and the extermination of European Jewry,
culminating in the resulting birth of the new state in 1948.

  Book Two begins with the same chronological organization followed so
far.  Chapter 5, "The Year One", tells the story of Israel's founding,
its war against the Arabs, and the transition to sovereignty.  O'Brien
then takes some time out from the chronological framework, for a look
at some important ideas in the early development of Israel.
  Chapter 6, "Holocaust in Mind", tells of the effect of the Nazi
Holocaust on the Zionist, and Israeli, collective psyche, and how it
affected Israeli popular consensus in many ways.  Chapter 7, "The
Second Israel", talk about the influx of Jewish refugees from the Arab
world to Israel, how these people were different from the
predominantly European Jews who founded Israel, and in what ways these
differences eventually affected Israel.
  Then follows another installment in the chronology, chapter 8,
"Diplomacy and War".  This chapter covers the period 1948 - 1967,
ending with the Six Day War.  A result of that war was the bringing of
numerous Palestinian Arabs into Israeli control, and they are the
subject of chapter 9, "The Shirt of Uthman".  Israeli history from
1967 until 1982 is covered in chapters 10 - 12:
  Doing Without Diplomacy (1967-1973)
  Step by Step (1973-1977)
  Peace and War (1977-1982)

  Finally, the Epilogue, "Territory for Peace?", explores the future
of Israel and the possibilities for peace.

The Story of the Siege

  During his early visits to Israel in 1981-1982, and his research at
the time, Connor Cruise O'Brien was captivated by the story of the
Jews, from the 19th century to the present, the colorful personalities
and amazing events.  He also felt some kinship with the plight of the
Jews in Europe, comparing it to his Irish past.  It is from this
background that the book was written, and O'Brien's fascination leads
to a fascinating and compelling book.
  The Siege is "The Saga of Israel and Zionism", told from a unique
perspective.  While it is a true story, thoroughly researched,
proofread by many experts in the field, it is told in the form of a
story.  It is not framed in the usual terms of historical analysis,
and "is not at all intended for scholars or specialists in its field."
In under 800 pages, including footnotes and index, it attempts to tell
a story that begins with the emancipation of European Jews in the
early 19th century, and continues up to the national unity government
in Israel in 1985.
  Many authors have written about this story, or more often, parts of
it, before.  Some have tried to present the case of Israel, or of "The
Arabs", or the British, or the Palestinians, or other groups involved
in the issue.  Other authors have tried to be coolly objective,
treating the story to a historical analysis intended to be free of
bias.  Still others have attempted a "balanced" account, hopping from
one point of view to the next, and perhaps giving the reader a insight
into the schizophrenia of Middle East politics.
  The Siege is none of these.  O'Brien, in telling a story which he
finds "inherently astounding," makes no attempt to be dryly objective.
Nor is this a balanced account; The Siege is clearly focused on the
saga of the Jews, and all other players are treated in their relation
to this central focus.  Nor is The Siege a propogandistic work,
presenting the case of Israel to the world, nor is it an introspective
book attempting to interpret minute details of Zionist philosophy and
history.  In the words of the author:

  "I have not tried either to indict or to flatter modern Israel, or to
  exhort or admonish it; there are plenty of others to do all these things."

  "This is the work of an outsider.  An Israeli scholar to whom I showed
  one of the earlier chapters told me that it lacked a 'true sense of
  the inwardness' of the Zionist experience.  It certainly does lack
  that, and of necessity. ...  The Siege is not about the inwardness, it
  is about the outwardness.  In the foreground always is the play of
  forces *around* the Jews, around the Zionists, and then around the
  Israelis: the siege, in fact."

  For that is how O'Brien himself was first exposed to the issue - as
an outsider, first in the UN and then at The Observer, observing other
outsiders as they discussed, and dealt with, Israel.  He states in the
Prologue that "this is a highly personal book."

  "Above all, I have tried to tell a story, or rather to disengage from
  clutter what is inherently perhaps the greatest story of modern times,
  and to allow it to reach the reader."

  And in trying to tell the story, from that perspective, O'Brien
succeeds commendably.  His book is compelling, interesting, and
captivating.  Very few 800 page books have held my attention throghout
as well as this one did.
  O'Brien achieves his goal by his ability to find, and follow, the
interesting threads of history from among the countless names and
facts.  Rather than starting from the essential history and attempting
to force it into a suitable form, he appears to have used his
extensive research primarily to figure out what story he was going to
tell.  Then, once he had the story in mind, he picked from history the
facts, events, people, and quotations needed to tell this story.

  "I put in the things and people that seemed to me interesting and
  significant ... This meant leaving out a lot of other things and
  people.  For example, there were many people who played important
  parts in the history of the Zionist movement whose names do not figure
  in The Siege.  But I thought I could best tell the story of Zionism
  through the great archetypal figures: Herzl, Weizmann, Jabotinsky,
  Ben Gurion."

  Interesting and significant to Zionism's story, for example, were
the leaders of British governments who shaped Palestine policy.  The
Arabs outside of Palestine, who felt no less strongly about Palestine
than the British, but who had much less impact on it, were not as
significant, and consequently people such as Arthur Balfour, Winston
Churchill, and Ernest Bevin receive significantly more attention than
Pasha or ibn Saud.  On the other hand, the leader of the Arabs *in*
Palestine, the Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini, is a central character.
  A similar treatment of the Jews is evident, as well.  In choosing to
tell the story of Zionism through "Herzl, Weizmann, Jabotinsky, and
Ben Gurion," for example, O'Brien neglects other prominent leaders, a
fact which he clearly states.  Ahad Ha`am, the spiritual leader of
Eastern European Zionism through most of its history, and a primary
force behind the resurrection of the Hebrew language, is referenced
only 8 times in the index.  Justice Louis Brandeis, the American
Zionist leader, is in there only twice, and in neither of those
sections are his views discussed much.
  That is not to say that in relegating important figures and events
to the sidelines, The Siege sidesteps the issues they represent.  Ahad
Ha`am's "practical Zionism", and the idea that the Jews faced a
problem of spiritual revival as well as the problem of survival, for
example, is not ignored.  O'Brien has chosen to tell this story
differently from others, but it is not distorted, and it is a
comprehensive introduction to the subject.

  "I was trained as a historian, and have not altogether run amok.  The
  story I tell is a true story ... without invention, or propogandist
  intent, or added color: there is color enough there ... without need
  of addition."

  Connor Cruise O'Brien's stated goal is to tell the reader "how
Israel came to be what and where it is, and why it cannot be other
than what it is."  The Siege achieves this goal so well that, despite
the author's own warnings, it may in fact be useful to "scholars and
specialists in its field", even if they may already be quite familiar
with the facts.


Territory for Peace?

  O'Brien's story, in essence, completes at the end of chapter 12, in
1982.  It makes clear the fact that Israel is still under siege, its
existence still threated and its role still not fully defined.  The
Epilogue, written in the summer of 1985, considers the possibilities
of the future.
  Here, he leads the reader through a step by step examination of what
is necessary for peace, and why the various proposals made by
outsiders are impractical.  He explores various possibilities,
speculating with surprising accuracy about the responses of various
leaders and factions to hypothetical situations.  In 1985, when it was
still assumed that Gaza belonged to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan,
for example, O'Brien's argues that "returning" these territories
cannot work.  He also discusses the possibility of a Palestinian
state, and a Palestinian uprising.
  While many of his theses, such as the uprising, have been proven
accurate, on one point O'Brien was perhaps overly pessimistic.  He
predicted that Israel would "remain in control of the West Bank" for a
long time, something which many Israelis view "with deep misgivings,
and they are quite right".  Much has changed since 1985.  The
Intifada, which began in 1987, eventually led King Hussein of Jordan
to renounce his claim to the West Bank.  Growing extremism among
Palestinians, partly as a result of Israeli right wing governments,
led to the rise of Hamas [which did not exist when O'Brien did his
research] and the deterioration of the PLO's authority.
  Today, with Israel negotiating to give the PLO control of large
territories, with Arafat and Syria's Hafez Assad in a bitter rivalry,
with the Soviet Union and its vast arms supply operation mostly out of
the scene, there is much new material to cover.  And while this
material has in fact been covered by many people, nobody to my
knowledge has yet managed to tie it all together with the past in the
captivating storytelling style of Connor Cruise O'Brien.