Zev Barak tried to see things as they were, a habit of thought learned on the battlefield and he feared that this tenuous new 'Jewish State' might not last out the month of May in which it had been declared. How long could it go on this way? In the scrawny Hebrew newspapers stories of victories and heroism abounded, some true enough but there were plenty of rotten stories, too -cowardice, desertion, profiteering - that could never be told about this frightening time. No matter what, life went on! Inside the war room of the Red House the battle picture was even more grim than these civilians knew, for near Netanya, halfway up the coast to Haifa, the Iraqis had rolled within ten miles of the sea, threatening to cut the entire Yishuv in two while Jewish-held parts of Jerusalem were shuddering day and night under the Arab Legion's artillery barrages, and the city's hundred thousand Jews were drinking rationed water, and were close to running out of food. Anxious-faced civilians were hurrying about their business, though the Egyptians were now twenty miles south of Tel Aviv, units of Transjordan's Arab Legion were in the city's eastern outskirts at Lydda and Ramie, and the Syrians were driving down on the northern settlements. He strode down a side street to Ben Yehuda Boulevard, wrinkling his nose at the stink of the trash and garbage tumbled everywhere. No silver-platter transfer of essential services if the Jews wanted a state so much, let them sweat for it. No doubt the British had planned it this way. 'Latrun will be taken at all cost!' Now what to do in this brief breath of burning air? Try again to call Nakhama? But the telephone system was in chaos, like the mail and the electric power.

Less than two weeks into this war for survival, the despatches from the other fronts were worrisome enough, but that silence at Latrun was truly ominous the worst-conceived operation yet, that attack was, and entirely the Old Man's doing. By then the war with five invading Arab armies had been raging for ten days, and on top of everything else that was going wrong, hamsin, the heat wave from the desert! Bad, bad news for that ragtag new Seventh Brigade, patched up of immigrants and motley Haganah units, on the move toward the Latrun fortress since before dawn. The Israel Defense Force Above all to those who fell And to those who survived, to those who now stand guard, and to those who will stand guard until by God's grace Israel dwells in peace with all her neighbors This tale of Hope is dedicatedĭon Kishote That smashed elbow was still in a crooked cast after a month of repeated surgery, when Zev Barak emerged from a dingy reddish building on the Tel Aviv waterfront, into blinding noontime sunlight and a blistering hot breeze. ISBN 8 6 Typeset by Hewer Text Composition Services, Edinburgh Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, A division of Hodder Headline PLC 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP Catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Further clarification of certain distinctions between fact and fancy appears in the Historical Notes at the end of this volume.Ĭopyright © 1993 by Herman Wouk First published in Great Britain in 1993 by Hodder and Stoughton a division of Hodder Headline PLC Coronet edition 1994 The right of Herman Wouk to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with theĬopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The simplified map, of a region much subject to clouded boundary disputes, is intended only to illustrate the narrative. Any resemblance of the imaginary characters to actual persons living or dead is unintended and fortuitous. Any other usage of real people's names is coincidental.

Their portraits are offered as essentially truthful, though scenes and dialogue involving them with fictitious characters are of course invented. Israeli and other public personages both living and dead appear in the story under their right names. The Hope A Novel by Herman Wouk The Hope is a work of fiction set in a background of history.

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