David Ben–Gurion, the State of Israel and the Arab World, 1949–1956

No other Middle Eastern leader has written as much or been written about more extensively than David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the State of Israel and its first prime minister. Yet he remains a deeply controversial figure. Traditional Israeli historians have written about the man and his achievements in the most glowing terms. His Israeli biographers, Michael Bar-Zohar and Shabtai Teveth, have produced multi-volume hagiographies. In recent years, however, revisionist Israeli historians have subjected Ben-Gurion, and especially his policy towards the Arab world, to a critical re-examination. The author's aim in writing this book is not so much to defend or criticize Ben-Gurion as to give a detailed and accurate account of his attitude towards the Arab world in the period between the 1948 War and the Suez War. Shalom recognizes at the outset the distinction between policy and statements, between the operational and declaratory levels of policy. He is concerned not with Ben Gurion's practical policy toward the Arabs but with his views, his attitudes, and his statements. - From a pre-publication review of the book by Avi Shlaim, St. Antony's College, Oxford