By Blood and Fire

On July 22, 1946 six members of the Irgun, a Jewish underground group headed by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, entered the basement of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel and planted seven milk churns filled with explosives underneath the wing housing the headquarters of the British Mandatory Government of Palestine. The ensuing explosion killed ninety-one Britons, Arabs, and Jews, in roughly equal numbers, at the time the greatest death toll in any single act of terrorism. The bombing was a pivotal moment in Israeli and Palestinian history, and was one of several dramatic attacks that eventually persuaded the British to leave Palestine. Clarke’s minute-by-minute account of the attack is thrilling, and his narrative brings the perpetrators and victims vividly to life.