Why am I passionate about this?

I began studying the Israeli-Palestinian relationship as an idealistic Brandeis University student living in Jerusalem in 1969, when I directly encountered the Palestinian problem and the realities of the occupation. Trained at Berkeley to be a political scientist I devoted my life to finding a path to a two-state solution. In 2010 I reached the tragic conclusion that the “point of no return” toward Israeli absorption of the occupied territories had indeed been passed. Bored with the ideas that my old way of thinking was producing, I forced myself to think, as Hannah Arendt advised, “without a bannister.” Paradigm Lost is the result.


I wrote

Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality

By Ian Lustick,

Book cover of Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality

What is my book about?

In his widely acclaimed book, Ian Lustick offers a provocative explanation of why a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956

Ian Lustick Why did I love this book?

In this startling and deeply researched volume, Benny Morris shows why the war of 1948, including Israeli expulsions of Palestinian Arabs during the fighting, was not itself the cause of the Nakba, the “catastrophe,” that resulted in three-quarters of a million Palestinian stateless Palestinians. The real cause, and that which accounts for much of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as it exists today, is the decision taken after the war to bar return of the refugees to their homes. Morris shows, year by year, how that decision was brutally and systematically enforced by barriers, reprisal raids, killing zones, and forcible expulsions. No other book comes close to the detail provided here, about the early 1950s campaign against “infiltration” that doomed Palestinian refugees to generations of exile, about the thinking of the Israeli politicians, officials, and officers who designed and implemented this ruthless effort, and about its unanticipated and costly consequences.

By Benny Morris,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This revised and updated paperback edition of a highly successful study looks at the development of Israeli-Arab relations during the formative years 1949 to 1956, focusing on Arab infiltration into Israel and Israeli retaliation. Palestinian refugee raiding and cross-border attacks by Egyptian-controlled irregulars and commandos were a core phenomenon during this period and one of the chief causes of Israel's invasion of Sinai and the Gaza strip, the Israeli part of
the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956.

Benny Morris probes the types of Arab infiltration and the attitude of Arab governments towards the phenomenon, and traces the evolution of…


Book cover of Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy

Ian Lustick Why did I love this book?

Yoram Peri’s expertise on the historical entanglements of the military and political sectors in Israel is unrivaled.  Based on personal interviews with all major players Peri goes behind the scenes to show the real meaning of the standard Israeli formula that the “Arab problem” should be seen “through the gunsight.” He describes how different generals, even those open to an accommodation with the Palestinians and opposed to settlers, were either stymied or transformed into saboteurs of the Oslo peace process. This pattern he attributes to the hegemonic psychology, standard operating procedures, processes of socialization, and political demands, associated with the way the Israel Defense Forces are organized and integrated into Israeli politics. Particularly vivid is his portrayal of upper-echelon Israeli military frustration at its forced withdrawal from Lebanon and how that resulted in the IDF’s extraordinarily violent and destructive treatment of the Gaza Strip.

By Yoram Peri,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Generals in the Cabinet Room as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A dramatic shift of power has taken place within Israel's political system; where once the military was usually the servant of civilian politicians, today, argues Yoram Peri, generals lead the way when it comes to foreign and defense policymaking.


Book cover of Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State

Ian Lustick Why did I love this book?

For the first eighteen years of Israel’s existence most Arabs in the country were ruled by a military administration. It was formally abolished only a year before the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 and the establishment of Israeli military rule in those territories. The story of that early military government is not well known, except by specialists. But with the publication of Shira Robinson’s book, based on declassified archival material, we now know the details of how Arab citizens of Israel were subordinated, exploited, and manipulated, under false rationales of security concerns, in order to bolster the political position of the dominant Labor Party, to advance Zionist goals of land acquisition and subsidization of Jewish settlement, and, as the title of the book suggests, to help present Israel as a “liberal” state while concealing its settler colonialist dynamics.

By Shira Robinson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Citizen Strangers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Following the 1948 war and the creation of the state of Israel, Palestinian Arabs comprised just fifteen percent of the population but held a much larger portion of its territory. Offered immediate suffrage rights and, in time, citizenship status, they nonetheless found their movement, employment, and civil rights restricted by a draconian military government put in place to facilitate the colonization of their lands. Citizen Strangers traces how Jewish leaders struggled to advance their historic settler project while forced by new international human rights norms to share political power with the very people they sought to uproot.

For the next…


Book cover of A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion

Ian Lustick Why did I love this book?

Every nationalist struggle requires effective leaders. Zionism, in particular, faced such long odds and such peculiar circumstances, that success depended not only on effective, but ruthless and single-minded leadership. In this monumental biography of David Ben-Gurion, the single most dominant individual within the Zionist movement and in the first two decades of Israel’s existence, Tom Segev shows that Zionism did have such a leader. Contrary to official hagiography, Ben-Gurion offered no brilliant or innovative ideas about politics, history, or the human condition. What he contributed was a shrewd, consuming, and merciless dedication to wresting as much of Palestine, or the Land of Israel, from its Arab inhabitants as possible without risking the state he wanted by demanding more than the world could be forced to provide. 

Ben-Gurion’s model was Lenin, his modus operandi was Bolshevik. Everything for the cause, and nothing not for the cause, at least insofar as those efforts would contribute to his own personal ascendancy and yield recognition of him as the Jewish nation’s supreme and irreplaceable leader. For Ben-Gurion the personal was not so much subordinated to the political, as it was replaced by the political, resulting in cruelty, not just toward Palestinians, but toward family members, friends, and lovers.

By Tom Segev, Haim Watzman (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A State at Any Cost as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The definitive biography of Israel's founder by one of Israel's most celebrated historians.

As the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion long ago secured his reputation as a leading figure of the twentieth century. Determined from an early age to create a Jewish state, he took control of the Zionist movement, declared Israel's independence, and navigated his country through wars, controversies and remarkable achievements.

In this definitive biography, Tom Segev uses previously unreleased archival material to give an original, nuanced account that transcends the myths and legends that have built up around the man. He reveals Ben-Gurion's secret negotiations with the…


Book cover of Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914

Ian Lustick Why did I love this book?

Gershon Shafir’s book on the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a crucial text for all those seeking to reconstruct a history of Israel, the Zionist movement, and the encounter between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. He did the unprecedented act of actually reading and studying virtually all the diaries and journals kept, over decades, by the small but extraordinarily dedicated and articulate group of early Zionist settlers. Contrary to official myths about a visionary Zionist blueprint for building the institutions we associate with Israel, Shafir shows that the kibbutz, the Jewish National Fund, the principle of Jewish labor, and, ultimately, the idea of the kind of “Jewish state” that actually emerged, were not the cause of the confrontation with the Arabs, but a product of it. 

This brings Palestinian Arabs into the story of Zionism in the best and most responsible way—by showing how real people, confronting desperate personal problems, struggled from failure to failure until finally producing an array of exclusionary, discriminatory, and exploitative practices that could make Jewish/Zionist life possible in Palestine. In this way the humanity and the political integrity of both sides to the conflict are preserved.  

By Gershon Shafir,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gershon Shafir challenges the heroic myths about the foundation of the State of Israel by investigating the struggle to control land and labor during the early Zionist enterprise. He argues that it was not the imported Zionist ideas that were responsible for the character of the Israeli state, but the particular conditions of the local conflict between the European "settlers" and the Palestinian Arab population.


Explore my book 😀

Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality

By Ian Lustick,

Book cover of Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality

What is my book about?

In his widely acclaimed book, Ian Lustick offers a provocative explanation of why a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem is unattainable and why efforts to resume the peace process charade will only contribute to what he calls “silent apartheid.” Lustick bases his argument on how failed paradigms of thinking can be replaced and on the unintended consequences of Zionism’s “Iron Wall” strategy toward Arabs; of deep-seated but maladaptive “lessons” of the Holocaust; and the Israel lobby’s hammerlock on American policy toward Israel. In combination these legacies and circumstances scuttled the two-state solution, but have set the stage for new struggles and better problems. He insists that attention must shift from blueprints for solutions that provide no map for realistic action, to the democratizing dynamics of a “one-state reality.”

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The Stark Beauty of Last Things

By Céline Keating,

Book cover of The Stark Beauty of Last Things

Céline Keating Author Of The Stark Beauty of Last Things

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Novelist Environmentalist Beachcomber Classical guitar player

Céline's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

This book is set in Montauk, under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montauk’s last parcel of undeveloped land. Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who are struggling to hold onto their property against pressure to sell. When Clancy…

The Stark Beauty of Last Things

By Céline Keating,

What is this book about?

The Stark Beauty of Last Things is set in Montauk, the far reaches of the famed Hamptons, an area under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montauk's last parcel of undeveloped land.

Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who…


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