Description

By (author) Makovsky David; By (author) Ross Dennis

Short /annotation:

This portrait of modern Israel”s founding fathers–the generation of brave, defining leaders unafraid to take bold decisions in the national interest–celebrates Israel”s history and the choices that have shaped the country.

:

At a time when the identity of Israel is more uncertain than at any moment since its modern founding, Be Strong and of Good Courage celebrates the defining generation of leaders who took on the task of safeguarding the country”s future.

David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon were all present at the creation of the new nation, and each faced a threat that directly imperiled the country”s existence. The book is a history of those moments when Israel, a country born of existential peril, required extraordinary acts of leadership and strategic judgment to secure its future. The strength its leaders showed, their character and calculation in the most agonizing moments, made them not just the political center of the country but its moral compass too.

The leaders were not perfect; sometimes the decisions they made had consequences they could not foresee or control, but they managed to maintain the character of the nation without jeopardizing its survival.Israel is currently more secure than ever in its recent history, but it may be on the verge of sacrificing the essential character that its greatest citizens fought to secure. This is the story of that epic fight.

Biographical note:

Dennis Ross is an American diplomat and author. He has served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton, and was a special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ambassador Ross has published extensively on the former Soviet Union, arms control, and the greater Middle East, including most recently Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, October 2015). He has authored many op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other papers and magazines. In addition, he writes monthly columns for US News and World Report and the New York Daily News. He lives in Washington, D.C.

David Makovsky is the Ziegler distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Project on Arab-Israel Relations. He is an adjunct professor of Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins University”s School of Advanced International Studies since 2000 and was a senior advisor on Israel-Palestinian affairs in the Office of the Secretary of State during the Obama Administration. This is his third book.