Moshe
Sharett: My Struggle for Peace
The Diary of
Edited by Neil Caplan and Yaakov Sharett
Translated by Yaakov Sharett and Neil Caplan
Moshe Sharett was a compulsive writer. He enjoyed the very act of
writing, the flavour of the words and the quest for precision of expression....
[T]his is by no means a diary kept at leisure. Most of it was written under the
extremely heavy pressure of work and great mental strain, very often in the
middle of the night when he was on the verge of physical exhaustion....
Standing out above all [the Diary’s revelations] is the moral force which
dominated Sharett’s personality.... This extraordinary diary, besides being a
unique human document, is a treasure trove for the student of
- Joshua Justman, The
The most important thing Sharett
contributed to the state is the personal diary he wrote during his tenure as
prime minister. It is difficult to overstate the importance of those eight
volumes to the study of the 1950s and to the understanding of Israeli history
as a whole. This is a debt that
- Tom Segev, Haaretz, September 12, 2003
In 1978, Yaakov Sharett edited and published in its
entirety the detailed and highly-revealing diary which his father Moshe Sharett
had kept during his last years in government office and immediately after his
forced resignation. The eight-volume Hebrew edition (covering 1953-1957), long
out of print but now digitized and available here, has become
a “must” for all serious scholars of Israel’s foreign and defense
policy-making, and of the internal workings of the dominant Israel Labor Party
in the turbulent period climaxed by the Suez/Sinai war of October 1956.
In response to numerous queries over the years, the Moshe Sharett Heritage Society has
now completed the work of having these diaries translated, edited and prepared
for the English-speaking reader by Dr. Neil Caplan, Canadian scholar
specializing in the diplomatic history of the period, in
collaboration with Yaakov Sharett, Moshe’s son and a former diplomat and
journalist. The editors have recently signed an agreement to publish a new
English edition with Indiana University Press.
The diary is a remarkable political document,
providing intimate insights, both flattering and critical, into leading local
politicians (including Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Shimon Peres,
Menachem Begin and Abba Eban) and world statesmen (including John Foster
Dulles, Jawaharlal Nehru, and U Nu). They offer first-hand revelations of the
complex workings of the Israeli political system, and trace the disintegration
of
The diary also unfolds the dramatic human story of
the premature end of the political career of Moshe Sharett – an unusually
sensitive, dedicated and talented public servant, exposing his innermost
struggles, doubts and frustrations. It tells the story of one politician’s battle
against “activist-militant” personalities and tendencies in Israeli society. In
its closing pages Sharett (no longer in office) makes a number of painful,
prophetic and poignant comments about Israel’s 1956 victory at Suez; he
considered himself and his political career as one of the “casualties and
losses” of that war, noting upon his return home from an extended tour of Asia:
“My country has walked out on me.” Looking back over the decades, Sharett’s
diary may also be viewed as an intimate record of the power struggle in which
the defeat of the “moderate school” in Israeli foreign policy becomes
irreversible.
The long-awaited English edition, covering October
1953 to December 1956, is condensed into three volumes, eliminating
non-essential descriptive detail while maintaining the integrity, flavor and
impact of the full original Hebrew diary as published in 1978. The English
edition provides the following (partly available or soon to be available here):
- · an editors’ introduction
- ·
an
introduction by Prof. Yehiam Weitz, Land of Israel Studies Department,
- · explanatory and biographical notes
- · additional primary material that was not available at the time of the original publication in 1978
- · abundant cross-references to archival papers, official documentary publications, memoirs and studies that have appeared since the original publication
- · link to the designated website Sharett Diary: Webdocs, containing supplementary documentary sources
Selections
of the translated diary have appeared previously in the following academic
journals:
“The 1956
Sinai Campaign Viewed from
“The 1953 Qibya Raid Revisited: Excerpts from Moshe
Sharett's Diaries,” introduced and annotated by Neil Caplan, Journal of
Palestine Studies 31:4 (Summer 2002), 77-98.
Review by Randy Pinsky, Azrieli Institute of Israeli Studies, 2023
Review by Ronald W. Zweig, Journal of Palestine Studies, 50:2, 2021
Review by Itamar Rabinovich, Bustan: The
"Discovering Moshe Sharett" - blog post by Neil Caplan, IUP, 10 June 2020
Review by Alexander Kaye, Middle East Journal, Spring 2020
"The Forgotten Prime Minister", review by Ben Fisher, Jerusalem Post, 16/8/19