This tells the epic story of Israel's struggle to exist, providing a blow-by-blow account of one of history's most bitter and enduring conflicts - Arab versus Jew.

As well as describing every military campaign in absorbing and incisive detail - full of desperate defensive actions against massive odds in outlying settlements, fast-paced armoured battles, and breathtaking strategy - Chaim Herzog highlights the personal and political struggles that have determined the Middle East conflict. Herzog, former president of Israel, had the advantage of personally knowing the generals and politicians who worked to ensure the state's survival against seemingly overwhelming odds.

His story is told with the authority of first-hand information, by a soldier-statesman with a unique understanding of the problems and factors that have dogged the violence in the Middle East.

This edition has been revised and updated by General Shlomo Gazit to include the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Herzog served in the British Army in the Second World War and in the Israel Defence Forces. Later he became Director of Israeli Military Intelligence, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations and President of Israel.

Herzog, writing in his autobiography, Living History, which he published just before to his death in 1997, stated: "I have been many things - statesman, diplomat, businessman, commentator, lawyer, family man - but perhaps more than anything, I consider myself a soldier.

"If one has a great cause, I believe nothing is so noble as the willingness to fight and sacrifice for it."

The tragedy of the Middle East is that those words can apply to both the Israeli soldier and the Palestinian suicide bomber.

They probably still do.

Updated: 09:02 Wednesday, September 01, 2004