Terror Out of Zion: Fight for Israeli Independence

An academic expert on terrorism and author of a previous book about the Mideast (Th e Long War, 1969) has written a unique anecdotal narrative about the ‘Revisionist'Zionist underground, the Irgun and LEHI. Bell, who interviewed many paramilitary veterans, calls himself a 'small-r revisionist’ in seeking to present their activity free of ‘orthodox’ depreciation or normal aversion to terrorism; instead, he views them sympathetically as counterparts of the Irish Revolutionary Army. After they united in rejecting the dominant concept of mere self-defense against the Arabs in the late 1930s, a split occurred among the terrorists during WWII when Avraham Stern refused to support the British war eff ort and instead made overtures toward the Axis. After 1945, terrorism came into its own; Bell records prison escapes, arms smuggling and assassination plots in great detail (preferred disguises for the Irgun: RAF offi cers, Arab deliverymen, or non-kosher beef scouts). -Kirkus Reviews