A Realistic Look at Israel

...One wishes that Mr...

...Reviewed by Myron Kolatch In 1949, after an armistice reduced the Arab-Jewish war to a continuous series of nagging border actions, Israeli bookstore windows were crowded with a spate of American books on the new state...

...Almost all were a source of amusement, if not annoyance, to the exhausted people who had just established their independence...

...the equally dedicated and uncompromising Government official who employs diplomacy and understanding to achieve his objectives...

...They made a sport, too, of comparing conflicting facts on identical subjects in books published only a few weeks apart...

...Others were written by eager authors who had gathered their material from the fingerpoint of an Israeli Bureau of Public Information guide while on a quick auto tour of the country...

...The first is an exchange between two ATC pilots, one of whom has just had a brawl with some Palmachniks (Israeli commandos) : " 'They told me they didn't give a good crap whether we brought our airplanes over here...

...Like the inexperienced actor who performs his "business" to the point of distraction, he lacks polish...

...But the biggest fault of this book is that more than half of it is wasted on weak, sometimes trite, philosophizing which does not add dimension to the story or its characters...

...They said they'd win the bloody war if they had to throw stones at the Gyp-pos.' " 'Of course you were careful to point out that without the Americans there wouldn't be any State of Israel?' " 'You're goddam well right.' " 'Oh, Christ, you are a fool.' " The second is a complaint made by an Israeli girl while on a brief leave-in Paris...

...The reader is made all too conscious of his presence, and he leaves little to the imagination...

...This organization, by smuggling planes and arms from Europe into Israel, was largely responsible for the Arabs' defeat...

...Without cliche, the men who ran Israel's war are also contrasted: the cold, calculating Army officer who feels no sacrifice is too great if it will improve the chances of victory and consequently appears almost heartless at times...

...Proud as they are, the Israelis could not refrain from smiling at descriptions that pictured them as virtually infallible...

...But, eventually, the sobering qualities of time began to put things in their proper perspective and more accurate, realistic books on Israel started to make their appearance...

...Harold Livingston's novel The Coasts of the Earth, which won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award, is a fairly good example of the latter...

...As if resigned to their fate, they would remark: "It takes only a few weeks to become an expert on our country because it is so small...

...Waiting for the barbaric Arab hordes with our heads held high.' She lowered her voice and added bitterly: 'A life devoted to toil and: sweat that future generations may have a home!' " '. . . I want my own life...

...Jews who sought the anonymity of battle because they did not want to be marked as members of a weak minority, but who secretly were proud that they were in a Jewish fight...

...This is particularly true for American Zionists, who worked tirelessly to aid Israel in her struggle and shared many of her anxieties...

...But the author's keen perception can best be illustrated by the following quotes, which point up a few of the misunderstandings that exist between Americans and Israelis...

...The ancient crates they flew, the long, hazardous trips they took, their annoyance with "protectzia" (Israel's brand of "pull") and their refusal to join the military are accurately described...

...They played a vital role-in bringing about the creation of this Middle Eastern democracy, but too-many of them still fail to understand the temper and problems of the Israelis...

...And the book deals mainly with the civilian volunteers who made up the ATC: restless airmen who could not adjust to peacetime life and craved the constant excitement they had known during the Big War...

...men who came to Israel expecting to find a Garden of Eden, only to find that it was inhabited by mortals...

...A member of the Israeli Army whose fighting days had really begun long before the Arab-Jewish war, she is experiencing her first encounter with the calmness of peace: " '. . . I'm tired of being a brave Israeli woman...

...While Harold Livingston proves himself an alert observer and a good reporter, he is somewhat less satisfying as a novelist...

...I'm sick to death of grim women in khaki uniforms and rationing and austerity and displaced persons.' " Americans who like to flaunt their country's power and generosity will find much food for thought in The Coasts of the Earth...

...Some were superficial accounts written by journalists, and they read like hastily prepared news dispatches...

...A World War II and Korea veteran, the author was one of the first American fliers to join Israel's Air Transport Command...

...A Sten gun in our hands, a garden tool at our feet...

...Livingston had decided to relate his experiences without seeking the refuge of fiction...