Israel: Back into Battle

Celebrating his 79th birthday last week, with his famed burning-bush hair do newly cropped, the patriarch of modern Israel lounged on the lawn in front of his prefabricated house at the Sde Boker kibbutz in the Negev. He accepted gifts of gladioli, roses and wine, together with the traditional Jewish greeting, "You should live to be 120!" "Is that all?" joked David Ben-Gurion.

Good question. For months, Ben-Gurion has been keeping a grueling political schedule that would make a far younger man feel six score years of age. On the day...

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