Henry Gurney was the last Chief Secretary of the Mandate Government of Palestine. From mid-March to mid-May 1948, at his HQ in Jerusalem's King David Hotel, he wrote his diary under fire from Jews and Arabs alike, with both groups taking aim at the British Administration as the Mandate drew to a close and the country spiralled into violence.

British General Sir Allan Cunningham was appointed in 1945 as high commissioner of Palestine, and served in this capacity until the end of the British mandate on May 15, 1948. The three years of Cunningham's tenure were tremendously complex politically: players included the British government in London, the British army, the British administration in Jerusalem, and diverse military forces within the Zionist establishment, both Jew and Arab. Golani revisits this period from the perspective of the high commissioner, examining understudied official documents as well as Cunningham's letters, notes, and cables. He emphasizes especially the challenges of navigating Jewish and Arab terrorists, on the one hand, and the multiple layers of British institutional bureaucracies, on the other, and does an excellent job of establishing Sir Allan's daily trials within the broad frame of the collapse of the British Empire following World War II.

This volume examines the events of the Sinai Campaign of 1955-56. The Suez Crisis and the Sinai Campaign, were the final stage in a process rather than an autonomous episode. For at least a year prior to the eruption of the Suez Crisis in July 1956, Israel had been looking for a pretext to launch a war against Egypt. By this means Israel believed it would achieve a stronger position in future talks. As early as Spring 1955, some highly placed individuals in Israel, led by officers in the army, tried to turn the issue of border security into a casus belli. They were blocked in their efforts by some Israeli politicians.