The Iron Wall (1999)

A diplomatic history of Israel's first fifty years of statehood by Avi Shlaim, who held a chair at St Antony's College, Oxford. He is one of the so-called new historians who re-examined Israel's founding story, and he says openly that his aim is a revisionist reading of Israel's policy toward the Arab world. The title comes from Ze'ev Jabotinsky's 1923 essays of that name, which argued that agreement with the Arabs would come only once an iron wall of Jewish strength had convinced them it could not be removed. Shlaim traces how that idea shaped Israeli decisions on war and peace. Its limit is one reviewers note: Arab state archives were hard to reach, so the Arab side rests more on interviews, memoirs and printed sources.