More in ‘Abba Eban’

The new anthology Einstein on Israel and Zionism is a book at war with itself. On one level, it is a straightforward historical document, collecting and translating some of the many speeches, public statements, and private letters that Einstein devoted to the subject of Zionism. Strangely, however, the volume’s editor clearly intends it to be a powerful anti-Zionist statement.

The 1948 war began after the UNO declaration in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state alongside an Arab state and after the Arabs rejected the proposal. By the time the state was declared in 1948, most of the hard battles in the War of Independence had already been fought and some three thousand ...