This book tells the full story of the first Arab-Israeli war and the birth of the State of Israel. Based largely on some 1000 interviews with participants of all nations, it describes the important military and diplomatic events of that epic war - from the struggle between Truman and Dean Rusk to the fall of Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter; from the Irgun-Stern Gang massacre at Deir Yassin to the ambush of a Hadassah hospital convoy; from the clandestine operations of the Jewish underground in the US to the secret negotiations between Jordan's King Abdullah and Moshe Dayan. Here are anecdotes and glimpses of great figures such as Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, Dayan, Abba Eban, Abdullah, Glubb Pasha, Ralph Bunche, and Nasser, and of the ordinary people who did the fighting; concentration-camp survivors, Sabras, foreign volunteers, and Arabs from throughout the Middle East. Here are all the major and minor participants and events of the great conflict that set the stage for and is crucial to the understanding of the present-day Israeli nation.