The Rise of the Israeli Right From Odessa to Hebron

The Israeli Right first came to power nearly four decades ago. Its election was described then as 'an earthquake', and its reverberations are still with us. How then did the Right rise to power? What are its origins? Colin Shindler traces this development from the birth of Zionism in cosmopolitan Odessa in the nineteenth century to today's Hebron, a centre of radical Jewish nationalism. He looks at central figures such as Vladimir Jabotinsky, an intellectual and founder of the Revisionist movement and Menahem Begin, the single-minded politician who brought the Right to power in 1977. Both accessible and comprehensive, this book explains the political ideas and philosophies that were the Right's ideological bedrock and the compromises that were made in its journey to government.

Introduction; 1. Birth and rebirth; 2. Fully fledged Zionism; 3. An army of Jews; 4. The making of the Revisionists; 5. The maximalists; 6. The legacy of Abba Ahimeir; 7. The Arabs of Palestine; 8. The road of active resistance; 9. Retaliation, violence and turmoil; 10. The Irgun and the Lehi; 11. The fight for independence; 12. From military underground to political party; 13. The survival of the fittest; 14. Expanding the political circle; 15. The road to power; 16. A coming of age; 17. The permanent revolution; 18. The resurrection of Sharon.

Colin Shindler is Emeritus Professor at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies and the founding chairman of the European Association of Israel Studies. He is the author of eight books on Israel including the bestselling History of Modern Israel (Cambridge, 2008 and 2013), which has been translated into Italian, Polish and Estonian.