Abraham to Einstein

...But the Arabs persist in adamant adherence to the agreement reached at Khartoum in August 1967—never to negotiate with or recognize Israel...

...While his messianic message has proved to be mostly wrong, it still dominates the thinking, or at least the propaganda and action, of the $20 leaders of one third of the world's inhabitants...

...As much as any country, far more than most, modern Israel represents the realization of that dream...

...Similarly, while Eban deals eloquently with most of the many controversies that have continuously marked Jewish society, his handling of the feuds that today rage in Israel is inadequate...

...Nearly one half of these are American citizens, and only two-odd million are Israelis...

...But of all religions, I find Judaism the least objectionable, the least dogmatic, the most often revised...

...They prefer to enjoy their affluence and help Israel financially rather than accept the sacrifices that becoming Israelis involves, although life in the old-new nation is relatively comfortable compared to 20 years ago when it won its sovereignty in the first of three wars against the surrounding Arab countries...

...The index is woefully inadequate...

...Reviewed by LISTON M. OAK Writer and specialist on international affairs Of all the hundreds of civilized peoples on this earth, the story of the Jews reaches farthest into ancient myths and legends—except perhaps for the Chinese...

...The Torah and the rest of the Bible, the Talmud, the voluminous literature deriving from other Judaic sources, such as the philosophical dissertations of Maimonides and Spinoza, have inspired Jews with the ideals of brotherhood, equality and social justice throughout 40 centuries...

...They insist that war is the only solution...

...who promises mankind ultimate redemption in peaceful justice...

...He adds his furrow and his seeds, he says, because for seven years he has sought the answers to the many still unanswered questions in deep study of the sources...

...Half of the fine photographs are printed in a dull, indistinct gray...

...This has always been true...

...The central fact in modern Jewish experience has been the renewal of Israel's statehood...

...The utter singularity of Jewish history, its rebellion against all historic laws," have made it impossible to understand "the current Jewish reality without a probing of ancient roots...

...Compared to any other conquering army in fact, the behavior of Israelis in the occupied areas has been a model of almost puritanical decency...

...Of the three billion people on earth, less than one half of 1 per cent are Jews...

...Abba Eban, Foreign Minister of Israel, has performed exceedingly well in many different and difficult tasks, including that of historian...

...I am convinced, in short, that every system of thought—religious, philosophical or even scientific—needs constant revision in accordance with new discoveries...

...As Eban admits, Jewish history is a field that has been well plowed...

...The Greeks and the Romans influenced history as profoundly as the Jews, but the people of Greece and Italy have changed ethnically far more than the Jews, who on the whole have preserved their identity in the Diaspora...

...Yet even after the probing, "the Jewish career remains an unpene-trated mystery...

...of the long, complicated history of the Jews...

...Eban writes, "were entirely disproportionate to the numerical strength of the early pioneers...

...Most of the world now accepts the basic concept of monotheism that originated with the Jews—of one God who is invisible, universal, unitarian, omniscient...

...That probably accounts, too, for his overly gentle treatment of some of Israel's foremost enemies not only in the Arab world and the USSR but in the United States, Britain and France as well—not to mention the errors made by statesmen in the nations which have helped the Jews most...

...Nothing in Eban's book, although it is reasonable and moderate, persuades me that another attack by the Arabs will be avoided...

...The problems can be illuminated but never solved...

...The Arabs, as usual, rejected this and the rest of the proposals...

...On May 10, 1968, Eban submitted to the un General Assembly a nine-point proposal for peace that included a reasonable program for handling this exceedingly complex matter by creating an international council to study it, make recommendations, and supervise their implementation...

...And occasionally the writing is somewhat pedantic, perhaps because Eban is not primarily a professional writer and has been preoccupied with Jewish affairs in Israel, America and Western Europe...

...from a trend toward revision of Zionism by the abolition of some of its extremes and the lessening of the power of the Orthodox religious parties...

...During my three months in Israel at the beginning of 1968, I studied this problem...

...The great nations of the Middle East which appeared about the same time the Jews did have either disappeared or deteriorated...

...This generally excellent volume also has a few additional faults...

...Most of the latter live in the prosperous areas of the Americas and Western Europe, and it is doubtful that they will ever obey the Zionist injunction to return to the land from which their forefathers were exiled so long ago...

...This review, incidentally, is written by a Gentile agnostic who believes that every religion is largely based on myth, legend and superstition, and who is skeptical of all dogmas, established principles and traditions...

...And of all who date back over 4,000 years, the history of the Jews is the most interesting because they have contributed more per capita to civilization and have endured more persecution...

...Like Judaism, the two other great Western religions—Christianity and Islam—trace their spiritual inspiration and origins to these patriarchs...

...He writes: "My vocation has been to explain the Jewish people to a confused and often complaining world...

...They owe a great debt to the Jews...

...The Babylonians, Phoenicians, Hittites, and Philistines all have vanished...

...After visiting Arab villages and talking to Arabs who have become loyal citizens of Israel, I concluded that the Israelis are doing as much, or more, than any other nation ever did to solve its minority problems...

...Yet Jews have won 12 per cent of all the Nobel prizes in science and have made a staggering contribution in every cultural field...

...There have been no such atrocities as the Arabs allege...

...Its overwhelming victories in three wars that saw the Arabs try to "drive the Jews into the sea" have left Israel with a host of additional difficulties, the most prominent being a million homeless Arab refugees...

...The impact upon civilization of the only peoples who are as old as the Jews —the Chinese, the Hindus and the Egyptians—has not been as significant or widespread, and their cultures have degenerated...

...and of the present Diaspora, containing all but two million of the 13 million who survived the Nazi Holocaust...

...This is true of the modern state of Israel...

...From Abraham to Einstein, their progress in virtually every field has been astonishing...

...By incessant propaganda, their leaders have created the impression that the Israelis are guilty of atrocities against refugees...

...The history begins in ancient Mesopotamia, with Abraham and his migration from the city of Ur in Chaldea to the land of Canaan, and continues with his son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob...

...Regrettably...

...Even Karl Marx, who was of Jewish origin, took ideas from Judaism, though his ends and means of salvation repudiated the spirituality of the Bible and Talmud...

...This includes the problems arising from an economy that is nearly half socialist...

...Eban calls for real negotiations to establish secure borders, mutual recognition of sovereignty, a non-aggression pact, open frontiers, freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, new international arrangements for the supervision of holy places in Jerusalem, and regional cooperation for the economic development of the Middle East...

...His many years as a leading Israeli spokesman in Jerusalem, the United States, Western Europe, and the United Nations also enable him to make a very great personal contribution to the record...

...A foreign minister, I suppose, cannot write with complete candor about nations and persons with whom he hopes to negotiate soon, either concerning the purchase of armaments or the terms of a treaty...

...Eban ignores Marx and the largely unhappy results of his works, although the exploitation of anti-Semitism in the USSR and Eastern Europe and the Soviet support of the Arabs both before and since the Six Day War in June 1967 are briefly discussed...

...The reverberating effects on the Jewish and non-Jewish world at large of the creation of Israel...

...and from the newly united labor party dominating the Knesset (Parliament) and Histadrut (the federat'on of trade unions) controlling the economy...

...This cannot be solved without the cooperation of the Arab countries, of course, who prefer to go on ruthlessly exploiting the situation for propaganda reasons...

...Egyptians and Indians...