A fan of the Western genre, Uris wrote Exodus to appeal to American “gentiles.” The reception for his book, which dovetailed with the cause of Israeli redemption, was rapt. Nine years after Exodus’s publication, the Six-Day War consecrated an American martial love of Israel. It was 1967, and America was embroiled in a war with a colonized enemy in which it was losing both the physical battles and the moral high ground. But in Israel, Americans saw Western warriors vanquishing the savages. These were not soldiers but righteous, reluctant defenders of a long-persecuted people, killing only when
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