In principle, there's nothing surprising about a blood-and-soil history of Israel from a former Leftist who has now magically found space in his heart for militarism as he ages, and considers his former confederates unbearably naive. (He likes to set them up for interviews, where he gets to tell them how naive and silly they are, and they nod in agreement, or simply decline to reply.

What makes this book an extraordinary accomplishment is that it is a Zionist history of Israel, with all the Jewish amour propre that implies, that steadfastly refuses to ignore the non-Jewish Palestinians. It's depressingly fatalistic, because having recognised the humanity and suffering of his Arab opponents, he sees their suffering as inevitable, a logical consequence of the impossible situation that history has foisted upon them. But the refusal to look away or dismiss the moral gravity of the Palestinian expulsion and refugee experience is a foundation on which, one hopes, more imaginative Israelis might build.