Exodus is a good read, but it's also very blatant propaganda. It was commissioned and written (and the movie was made) as a very conscious effort to gather support for Israel and its struggle against its Arab neighbors. In particular, it was targeted at Amercian Jews, with the goal of making them identify with Israel as the Jewish Homeland for all Jews, including those in North America whose life was far more comfortable than their European and Israeli co-religionists.


Whether this was justified is a separate question. This is not the appropriate forum for that discussion. Without money and other support from America, Israel may not have survived. But as a young American Jew, Exodus was presented to me and others of the postwar generation as a heroic saga with "us" as the epic heroes.


Leon Uris was indeed a fine storyteller. But it's important to understand exactly how he and his backers manipulated his audience.