Plowshares Into Swords From Zionism to Israel

This rich, authoritative history chronicles the Zionist Israeli quest from its origins
in pre-Great War Europe. Mayer traces the development of political Zionism's
primal resolve to implant a state for Jews in a Middle East of ever greater strategic
importance. He provides new perspectives on key turning points as well as on
such enduring issues as the young country's dire need for imperial protection, the
oil imperative, the hidden ascendance of Jabotinsky's martial and expansionist
canon, reliance on the American Jewish and Christian evangelical lobbies, the
post-colonial backlash against Western supremacy, the asymmetry of power
between Israelis and Palestinians, the Zionist Israeli leaders' studied prevarication
on borders, and the emergence of political Judaism and political Islam.
Incorporating reflections on founding violence, sovereignty, resistance, terror,
and religious politics, Ploughshares into Swords is an absorbing, challenging
narrative of Zionism and Israel in the context of world history.