If you are searching for a balanced history of the foundation of Israel, this book is not for you. Israel Eldad was an ardent Zionist of the classical variety and it shows in his work. It is also not a history. Instead, The Jewish Revolution : Jewish Statehood is Eldad putting forward his own case for the existence of Zionism and the reasons Israel belongs to the Jews. He is not politically correct, even for the late 60s, when this book was originally published. Eldad does not believe that the Palestinians are an actual nation; he thinks that all Jews should give up everything and move to Israel permanently; and he believes that the State of Israel should stretch from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. All beliefs of Zionism that have long since passed out of popular or realistic politics. This is not to say that it is a bad book--it is in fact an excellent example of the Zionist mindset. Eldad is a master at word choice and stirring up the readers emotions. He almost makes you forget that there are very good reasons for the current status quo in Israeli/Palestinian relations. His use of anecdotes and history helps him make his points quite elegantly.

The Gefen edition is further enhanced by the editorial work (an introduction, footnotes, and an afterward) of Eldad's son, Arieh, who serves in the Knesset and appears to hold the same Zionist beliefs of his father. These serve to put his father's words into a modern context. His constant refrain that extremist Islam is the next Soviet Union is interesting, but not quite convincing. There is also a very useful map of the Middle East North Africa region with each country's population shown, printed onto the book's endpapers. Overall, The Jewish Revolution : Jewish Statehood is an interesting book, which provides an uncommon and masterful view of one of Israel's major political philosophies, classical Zionism. Whether or not one agrees with Eldad's conclusions or thinks that they are realistic, one cannot ignore the influence these ideas have had in determining the political situation in the Middle East even to this day. This alone makes it worth reading. ( )

Anyway familiar with historical books/studies will automatically notice that this book is missing a bibliography and does not cite any sources. If you are familiar with European and Middle Eastern history, especially the role that Jews have played in both, then much of what is written here will not be a surprise for you. The context given to all of the above is, on the other hand, interesting, from time to time. It would be even more interesting if the author could cite sources!

I can't say I agree for 100% with all the arguments but much here makes sense. The sad fact, in the end, is that the world cannot and will not function as this book/author would like. A lot of what is advocated comes from hindsight, but humanity does not work that way. At other times the author wishes that double standards would not exist against Israel, so do I, but that is, again, not the world we live in. In the end this book is filled with a good amount of truth and honesty as well as emotion. At the same time, there is also too much idealism and not enough realistic thinking and acceptance. If the majority of the world was familiar with its own history then many of the mistakes made today would never have occurred, but that type of idealistic dream is just that. We should not concentrated on what could have been but rather try to understand our present reality, including how and why it came about, and what we can do to change it in the future, for the better. ( )

I found the book to contain some interesting stories and ideas. However, the author failed to document his assertions which I found to be very distracting. He made numerous assertions about what is and what would have been had some certain event happened or not happened without a shred of evidence.

If you can overlook the author's overly high opinion of himself you may find enough of interest to hold your attention. That didn't happen with me. ( )