Defy the Wilderness by Lynn Reed Banks 1981 300pages

 This is a novel that documents life in Israel at the time of writing, it makes interesting reading in 2023 with Israel in  the current Gaza crisis. 1/11/23

Her husband Peter had fought in the Western Desert in 1943 and vowed that he would never go abroad again. She had travelled through Europe and arrived in the new Israel and been Manachems partner on the kibbutz where she taught English. She could not marry him in Israel but if she fell pregnant it would solve the problem . After a number of years Ann returned home and married Peter. 

She was now 49 and childless. She returned to Israel now as a reporter. In 1981 Israel was a country with no drug problem , no organised crime and patriotism was not a dirty word. She stayed now with Amnon in Jerusalem , he had not one thing from a broad in his flat.  Biologically a woman has to make life not end it. Kibbutz ideology was breaking down and people were returning to religion. Gush Emunim were the inheritors of the pioneering spirit.

Her friends were people who visited the1948  Palmach cemetery at Kiriat Anavim. If the dead could talk they would say "We won the war . Did you win the peace?."  People have modern Hebrew names no longer the biblical ones. Doubts are the mark of an intellectual, government Policy shaped public opinion..

She returned to Israel to get inspiration for a new book . A woman with a holocaust number tells her that previously women took part in the war now only men do.  If they want to give money for settlement let them do it in the Negev and Galilee.  Neville a Jewish reporter from Liverpool who has been in Israel for years says "My son took off into Israeli life and before we knew it we were strangers.

In 1973 Israeli Arabs generally did not support the war effort.  De Gaul did not pull out of Algeria for the sake of the Algerians. We must give the West  Bank back to the Palestinians not for their sake but for ours.

The 1973 war had seen Golda weeping and the opposition had accused her of causing young mens deaths.  Now it was their turn to scorn their political opponents.

The Muslim religion has never gone through any form of Reformation and Enlightenment the way that Christianity did.

In the early days one listened to every radio news bulletin.  A kibbutz is made up of whispers, the kibbutz will turn into a village and the comune will end.

There will always be wars that we will win, but lose them in the forums of the world.

Amos Oz declared that Israel was established by 4 things:: communal activity , settlements, Jerusalem and the Hebrew language. 

The book ends with the "Bridge" theatre set up between East and West Jerusalem being blown up and a child actor being killed.

Lynn Reed Banks . was born in 1929, she married an Israeli sculptor and settled with 3 children in Surrey, England.