![Thomas Friedman says, “[A] must-read book.”](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/aplus-media-library-service-media/db7ce94c-7634-44df-8a42-4fe5d481716d.__CR0,0,1080,1080_PT0_SX300_V1___.jpg)
With his fantastic, balanced and absorbing writing, Mr. Ari Shavit places me in every historically significant event that has created and shaped the State of Israel that I have come to know from various media outlets that have portrayed and "reported on" the profound daily life and death struggles between the Israeli-Jews and Israeli-Palestinians.
I heard a radio interview of Mr. Shavit by Terry Gross on her Fresh Air show and was mesmerized by what Mr. Shavit was saying, prompting me to buy this book from Amazon to read.
I also hope to better understand why Professor Ze'ev Sternhell, "a lauded political activist against Israeli fascism, told Mr. Shavit: "To be a Jew was to have to run away all the time."
While Mr. Shavit's book is captivating, the subjects and topics he elaborates upon are so infinitely complex (yet need to be understood by everyone who cares about humanity) that I will write my review of this book piecemeal -- so that I can accurately capture the moral, human and historical lessons Mr. Shavit imparts upon me, as I embark on my own personal journey through his beautifully written book, filled with profoundly honest personal reflections by this author.
I will engage in a running review of this must-read book, which I hope will provide me with insights and better appreciation for why so many pogroms befell upon Jewish towns, neighborhoods, businesses and homes throughout Europe and Russian in living memory.
The founding of the State of Israel is testament to the extraordinary resiliency, tenacity, devotion, courage and creativity of the Jewish people. Mr. Shavit writes: "Israel is a harsh, hot land; ice cream is cold and comforting. So Israelis consumes much more ice cream than North Americans and Western Europeans. [I]sreal is a bitter land; dairy desserts are sweet and soothing. So Israelis love dairy desserts. [I]srael is an exciting and excitable country,so Israelis need ever-increasing excitement. [T]here [are] no nuances for Israel; everything [has] to be fierce and aggressive, to hit the palate with flavor. [I]srael has extraordinary people. [A]n astonishing geyser of innovation erupted out of this barren land."
My own understanding, prior to reading this book and hearing what Mr. Shavit said to Terry Gross on NPR, comports with the thesis Mr. Shavit's embraces: the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" has been hoisted up by two pillars that have been present in the State of Israel -- "intimidation and occupation".
A "two-state solution," which I too believe is what might bring lasting peaceful co-existence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, is also fraught with existential threats to both peoples, especially since both people are living relatively close to one another in the same modern State of Israel.
The British Empire proposed a two nation-states when Palestine was still one of its colonies. In July 1937, Lord Peel's Royal Commission recommended to the British government to partition Palestine into "two nation-states, Jewish and Arab." Easier said than done!
Mr. Amos Oz, whom the author describes as "Israel's most distinguished author," "the peace prophet," "the guru of the peace movement and the chief rabbi of Israel's peace congregation," also believes "both morals and realism dictate[] only one solution, the two-state solution."
Mr. Shavit acknowledges: On July 25, 1938, Jewish extremists "murdered more than thirty-five Arabs by exploding a highly powerful bomb in the crowded Haifa market." Predictably, "[i]n the dance of blood, the atrocities that Arabs visited upon the Jews and the atrocities that Jews visited upon the Arabs grew even more grisly." As Max Boot recounted in his Herculean book entitled "Invisible Armies . . .," every underdog has used terror against its mightier opponent. Mr. Shavit acknowledges that the birth of the State of Israel witnessed the use of terror by all sides.
A very intriguing thesis was noted in a CNN program I was watching last night -- December 22, 2013 -- entitled "Back to the Beginning" by Christiane Amanpour made by ABC and first broadcast in 2012 -- what if the Israeli and Palestinian came from the same ancient tribe and they were in fact ancient brothers, sisters and/or cousins. What if the results of a well devised and administered, in statistically terms, DNA tests reveal this to be the case. What then? History has shown time and again that family feuds have lead to self-destruction of the family members, usually outside third-parties benefited greatly (unscathed).
I'm pleased that Mr. Shavit introduced us to his great-grandfather Herbert Bentwich,an upper-middle-class British Jew who went on a pilgrimage as a Zionist to Jaffa in 1897 and about Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism.
It is so heartening and inspiring to read about the youngsters who founded Ein Harod in the 1920's and their first arrival there in September 1921. It is refreshing for a person of Mr. Shavit great stature to observe: "Some will argue that choosing socialism at this critical stage (the founding of Ein Harod) is Zionism's cunning way of conquering the land (ancient land of Israel). [Y]et all this idealistic socialism is just subterfuge, future critics will claim. It is the moral camouflage of an aggressive national movement whose purpose is to obscure its colonialist, expansionist nature." The reality, of course, is not the simplistic black/white paradigm, as horrifically demonstrated by the 20th century Holocaust against millions and millions of Jews by the Nazis.
The late Shmaryahu Gutman's, whom Mr. Shavit interviewed for this book, arduous journey to Masada with forty-six disciples in early 1942 provides insights to the backbones that created and are upholding the modern state of Israel. Mr. Gutman "believes that the essence of Zionism is momentum -- never to retreat, never to rest, always to push forward. The new Hebrews must push the limits of what the Jews can do, of what any people can do. They must defy fate." Hence, Mr. Shavit notes: "The only way to maintain life is resistance." This ethos of resistance, as embodied by Gutman's Masada, enable me to better understand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose charisma and orations captured my imagination when he began appearing on PBS's NewsHour and Charlie Rose.
While history cannot be undone, Mr. Shavit acknowledges "Lydda is our black box. In it lies the dark secret of Zionism." He exposes the raw truth about the "massacre" the new State of Israel, founded in May 14, 1948 after the British Empire relinquished Palestine and the UN General Assembly then endorsed partitioning it into a Jewish state and an Arab state, carried out against the Arabs -- Christian and Muslim families -- in Lydda in July 1948.
Mr. Shavit recounts a letter written by a Jewish lady during those early days.
"I cannot recognize the guys anymore. All of them are drunk with victory and driven by the lust for loot. Each one of them took all that he could and in the joy of triumph they broke loose, expressing feelings of hatred and revenge, turning into real animals. They smashed, destroyed, and killed anything in their path".
However, Mr. Shavit acknowledges: "If it wasn't for them, I would not have been born. They did the dirty, filthy work that enables my people, myself, my daughter, and my sons to live." Indeed, unhealed wounds abound, hindering peace from flourishing among Jews and Palestinians.
Mr. Shavit engages in a frank introspective about the first ten years of the State of Jewish-Israel, where and when he was born. He sheds instructive light on the Bizaron housing estate (shikun), which provided a new life for Pole, Russian, Hungarian, German, Iraqi, Ukraine and Czech Jewish refugees who escaped and survived the anti-Semitic genocides, Hitler's Holocaust and Mengeles' evil experiments.
Mr. Shavit argues that the existential need for Jewish-Israel to accommodate nearly one million immigrants engendered "four forces of amnesia": (a) "the denial of the Palestinian past," (b) "the denial of the Palestinian disaster," (c) "the denial of the Jewish past," and (d) "the denial of the Jewish catastrophe."
Mr. Shavit raises a profound (and likely controversial) thesis: "In the first decade, the unique endeavor of nation building consumes all of the young state's physical and mental resources. There is no time and no place for guilt or compassion. The number of Jewish refugees that Israel absorbs surpasses the number of Palestinian refugees it expelled. And all the while, the vast Arab nation doesn't life a finger to help its Palestinian brothers and sisters."
In the illuminating chapter about Dimona, Israel's (open) secret successful nuclear energy and defense programs, Mr. Shavit notes: "Even those among them who were not Jewish believed that Israel represented a historical act of justice and regarded it as a Western bulwark in the East."
Despite the decades of normalcy and deterrence Dimona has provided Israel, the author warns that "Israel's nuclear hegemony in the Middle East is probably coming to a close. Sooner or later, the Israeli monopoly will be broken. First one hostile state will go nuclear, then a second hostile state, then a third. In the first half of the twenty-first century, the Middle East is bound to be nuclearized."
Lasting resolution of the prolonged Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires equitable resolution of the settlements. Mr. Shavit, a self-professed "left-wing journalist," concedes that "[w]ith horror I realize that the DNA of [Yehuda Etzion's -- a founder of the Ofra settlement, which is "the mother of all settlements"] Zionism and the DNA of my Zionism share a few genes." The author states that people cannot understand the settlements without first understanding the searing consequences upon the psyche of Israelis caused by the Six Day War in May 1967 and the Yom Kippur War that began on October 6, 1973.
While Mr. Shavit provides the reader with a succinct, yet profound understanding of the settlements, this issue seems even more daunting and intractable and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians seems even more unattainable.
This apparent hopelessness is colored by Mr. Shavit's harsh criticism of two founders, Pinchas Wallerstein and Yehuda Etzion, of Ofra: "The reality created by Wallerstein and Etzion and their friends has entangled Israel in a predicament that cannot be untangled. The settlements have placed Israel's neck in a noose. They created an untenable demographic, political, moral, and judicial reality. But now Ofra's illegitimacy taints Israel itself. Like a cancer, it spreads from one organ to another, endangering the entire body. Ofra's colonialism makes the world perceive Israel as a colonialist entity."
But, as of Chapter Eight, Mr. Shavit had yet to offer any vision of how the 21st Century State of Israel could endeavor to achieve lasting peace among Israelis and Palestinians. In Chapter Ten, entitled "Peace, 1993," suggests anti-war protests and demonstrations for peace without "action" will render the State of Israel "a rudderless nation, lost at sea with no captain and no compass and no sense of direction."
In recounting a recent face-to-face discussion he had with Yossi Sarid, whom Mr. Shavit describes as "the undisputed hero of the Israeli peace movement" in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of Israelis who had demonstrated against wars in the 1970s and 1980s, the author seems to criticize his own inaction in the peace process. The author admits: "The hours I spent with him leave me bewildered and disheartened."
Mr. Shavit writes what he told Mr. Sarid: "Both you and the peace movement were always against. Against Meir, against Begin, against occupation. [Y]our failing was you were always about negation. Protests. Demonstrations. [Y]ou never built anything. You never put up a home or planted a tree. And you never accepted the heavy responsibility of dealing with the complexity of Israeli reality. [P]olitically and emotionally it was unproductive and barren, even corrosive. [A]nd there was too much judgment. [Y]ou did not nurture, did not inspire, you did not lead." Mr. Shavit's harsh criticism against Mr. Sarid seems also to be aimed against himself. The author seems to be projecting here; perhaps this is his own mea culpa, of sorts.
Mr. Amos Oz, the peace prophet, tells the author: "I made one big mistake. I underestimated the importance of fear. The Right's strongest argument is fear. [I]t's a legitimate argument. I, too, am afraid of the Arabs. So if I were to start the peace movement all over again, that's the one change I would make. I would address our fear of the Arabs. I would have a genuine dialogue about the Israeli fear of extinction."
The take-away from this book thus far is that Israelis, like residents and citizens throughout the world, are not monolithic about how best to resolve the seemingly never ending tragedy that grips the modern State of Israel -- the settlements. Mr. Shavit notes "Israel is at odds with itself."
His longtime colleague and friend, Israel Harel, reminds him: "The people of Tel Aviv will understand how hollow their existence is, that without us they have no roots, no depth, and no life. [W]hat began in Ofra will make Israel Jewish and Zionist again."
Another take-away from this profoundly insightful book is that Israelis and Palestinians in the current State of Israel have a connected destiny, wherein both peoples must succeed. The author yearns: "Like most Israelis, we'd prefer our Israel to be a sort of California. . . ." Having lived in California for decades, as a reader, I know our streets are not paved with gold. But wouldn't it be wonderful if in our lifetime all of the mountains and streets in the State of Israel and a new State of Palestine were lined with Jaffa orange groves and everyone enjoying the fruits of peace and prosperity.
Mr. Shavit espouses a hopeful vision. "One day, when Free Palestine is established, its government will surely lease this piece of land to some international entrepreneur who will build the Gaza Beach Club Med. One day, when there is peace, Israelis will come out here for a short holiday break abroad. By these blue-green waters, they will drink whine and dance the samba. On their way home they will buy embroidered black Palestinian dresses in the air-conditioned duty-free shop of the international terminal separating prosperous Israel from peaceful Palestine."
But still the author is resigned to the harsh realities on the grounds: "What is needed to make peace between the two peoples of this land is probably more than humans can summon." He notes: "Hulda says peace shall not be." He says the Valley of Hulda is a "cursed" land, which now has "an upper-middle-class community of Israel's new bourgeoisie" and boasts six varies of grapes, including Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc.
Early Jewish pioneers had purchased barren land from Arabs in Hulda and toiled to establish a thriving kibbutz. But in April 1948, a Jewish army invaded the Arab villages in Hulda and chased away the Arabs and pillaged their homes and farms. Mr. Shavit laments: "Hulda is the crux of the matter. Hulda is what the conflict is really about. And Hulda has no solution. Hulda is our fate."
The author notes a historical irony and makes a tragically dire prediction: "After eighteen hundred years of powerless existence, Jewish soldiers employed a large, organized force to take another people's land and to conquer dozens of villages -- of which Hulda was one of the first. Here, by the old well of Hulda, we moved from one phase of our history to another, from one sphere of morality to another. So all that has haunted us ever since is right here. All that will go on haunting us is right here. Generation after generation. War after war."
To his great credit, Mr. Shavit gives voice to the displaced Palestinian refugees. The author writes that in April 1993, he searched for and found a seventy-year-old Jamal Munheir, a Palestinian refugee in the West Bank, and then went with him to his ancestral land in Hulda.
Mr. Shavit poignantly reminds us how many of the Palestinians became refugees:
"You were a rich man," I said. Immediately, I realized I have made a terrible mistake. Jamal [Munheir] erupted, "My heart burns when I come here. I go crazy when I come here. We were respected people. Englishmen and Jews and Arabs listened to us. Our words carried weight. But today, who are we, what are we? Beggars. No one respects us. We, who owned all this land, don't even have one grain of wheat. Only a UNRWA refugee certificate."
"He went silent. Under the old pine trees the only sound was that of my small tape recorder recording the silence. Until Jamal turned to me again, crying, saying that from the beginning of time his forefathers lived here and died here and were buried here. They plowed this plot of land for hundreds of years. From this old well they drew water for generations. Until the Jews came to Hulda and wiped out the Munheir family. Until the Jews conquered and pillaged Hulda. "Where is Rasheed?" Jamal cried. "And where is Mahmoud, and where are all the village people? Where is our Hulda?"
The author recounts a 2003 "road-trip" to Galilee he took with Mr. Mohammed Dahla, the prominent Palestinian-Israeli attorney who was born and have deep roots in the Galilee village of Turan, whom Mr. Shavit considers an Israeli brethren and close friend.
Mr. Dahla reveals that he participated in the peace process through back-channels in the late 1990, wherein "the Palestinians demanded repatriations for their suffering and asked that these reparations be paid by Israel to the future Palestinian state so it would utilize them just as the reparations paid by Germany to Israel were utilized for national projects."
Mr. Dahla explains: "At the outset, the Jews had no legal, historical, or religious rights to the land. The only right they had was the right born of persecution, but that right cannot justify taking 78 percent of a land that is not theirs. It cannot justify the fact that the guests went on to become the masters. [W]e are not like you. We are not strangers ow wanderers or emigrants. For centuries we have lived upon this land and we multiplied. No one can uproot us. No one can separate us from the land. Not even you."
The author writes: "He [Mr. Dahla] tells me that the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 was not exactly like the Holocaust, but that he is not willing to accept the Jewish monopoly on the term 'Holocaust.' 'It's true that here, there were no concentration camps,' Dahla says. 'But on the other hand, unlike the Holocaust, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 is still going on. And while the Holocaust was the holocaust of man, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 was a holocaust of man and land. The destruction of our people,' he says, 'was also the destruction of our homeland.'"
In my humble opinion, the world owes a tremendous amount of gratitude to Mr. Avi Shavit for writing this eloquent, balanced and profoundly insightful book. He faces reality on the grounds with brave honesty and objectivity. I now better appreciate and understand the State of Israel and its people, including religious and secular Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, Oriental Jews and Sunni and Christian Arabs. The chapter about Mr. Aryeh Machluf Deri, the (controversial) Moroccan-born Oriental ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader, added a nuanced and deep dimension to my understanding of the State of Israel.
But, after reading this marvelous book, I am less pessimistic than Mr. Shavit about the peace process. I'm cautiously optimistic that the current peace process, being partly spearheaded by the US Secretary of State John F. Kerry, could product a true peace accord that would preserve the State of Israel and create the State of Palestine. A perfect storm is sweeping through the Middle East -- Iraq is plunging into a failed state, especially with the recent fall of Fallujah to Al-Qaeda, Egypt has descended into military rule, Syria is being torn asunder by raging wars and internal fighting fueled by Al-Qaeda militants, Lebanon has erupted yet again into violence, Jordan is being crushed by the deluge of Syrian refugees that continue to multiply and pour in, and Al-Qaeda franchises are metastasizing throughout the Middle East.
My current optimism is supported by Charlie Rose's interview of Mr. Riyad H. Mansour, the current Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN, that aired on US PBS TV stations on January 7, 2014. It sounds like Mr. Kerry has been able to help the parties reach advance negotiations. Mr. Mansour praised Mr. Kerry as tenaciously and passionately committed to this round of peace process, as evinced by his frequent face-to-face meetings with the parties. A peaceful and safe State of Israel is needed in the region more than ever. A peaceful, prosperous and safe State of Palestine will likely serve to help stabilize the chaotic Middle East.
The deep, simmering ethnic tensions between the Ashkenazi Jews (the European Jewry) and Oriental Jews (the Levant or Arabic Jewry) is yet another reality that compels the young State of Israel to achieve peace (with guaranteed security) with the Palestinians, sooner rather than later.
Mr. Shavit writes movingly and honestly about the plight of the Oriental Jewry, whose population may one day eclipse that of other ethnic Jews in the State of Israel. By 1990, Oriental Jews purportedly exceeded 50 percent of Jewish Israelis.
Ms. Gal Gabai, a journalist and the anchor of a popular political talk show, explains to the author, who is also her friend and colleague, why she is drawn to Mr. Dari: "Until Dari came and proved that we could stand tall and proud -- walk among the Ashkenazim as equals. Deri brought North African Jewish tradition to center stage. [H]e gave even Oriental yuppies like me the ability to be at peace with ourselves and feel worthy."
The author notes: "Between the mid-nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, Arab world Jewry experienced a relative golden age. As it was close to French and British colonial rulers, it enjoyed their patronage. It won rights it had never enjoyed before. Many Jews in North Africa and the Middle East benefited from all that Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, Alexandria, Tunis and Casablanca had to offer. But by the 1940s and 1950s the magic of the Orient had evaporated. Colonialism retreated, Arab nationalism was on the rise, and Zionism was triumphant. Within a few years a civilization collapsed. Thousand-year-old communities disintegrated within months. With one swing of history's sword the soft underbelly of the old Levant was sliced open. The enchanting, pluralist Orient was gone. A million Jewish Arabs were uprooted, their world destroyed, their culture decimated, their homes lost."
Ms. Gabai theorizes that "[i]n Israel, belonging is bought with blood. We Oriental Jews didn't bleed enough into the river of belonging. We were not murdered in the Holocaust. We did not get killed in the War of Independence. [W]e were imported only because European Jewry was exterminated and there was no other way to grow the state. [W]estern Zionism feared us. It feared the Arabism we brought with us: the Arab music, the smells and tastes of Arab cuisines, Arab mannerisms. [F]rom the outset we were under suspicion. So we were culturally castrated. [W]e had to prove daily that we were not Arabs. [W]e do not accept ourselves and we do not love ourselves. [A]nd we are always asked to present proof. We have to prove we are not inferior and not flawed. [A]lthough my three kids are half-Ashkenazi, Ashkenazi Israel does not accept me as I am [a Moroccan-born Jew]. Israel still suspects me."
The history of every nation, including and especially the United State of America, is tainted by racism to varying degrees. The healing process can seem to take an eternity.
Courageously, Mr. Shavit discusses the tough issue of racism in this book. Equally important to ponder is the following: "Yet there is another way to look at this. There is a politically incorrect truth here that is not easy to express. And this truth is this truth is that Israel did a favor to those it extracted from the Orient. The Jews there had no real future in the new Baghdad, the new Beirut, the new Cairo, or the new Meknes. Had they stayed, they would have been annihilated."
In describing the Israeli "condition" on its fifth-decade of statehood, which coincided with the second millennium, Mr. Shavit notes that "there is a huge divide here." He states "You can see it at Allenby 58, young people saying, 'Enough, it's time for fun.' There is a new generation in Israel and it's demanding happiness."
By 2006, after the Second Lebanon War, the euphoria that ushered in the new millennium for the State of Israel had evaporated. The author notes: "By now Allenby 58 is closed, but Jerusalem's Hauman 17 has turned a huge garage in southern Tel Aviv into the new mecca of dance, drugs and casual encounters." As part of his research, Mr. Shavit meets a twenty-five-year-old blond psychology student at a new hip underground club in Tel Aviv, who laments: "Ecstasy was love-sex, coke is alienation-sex. [I]t's hard-core, in your face, but there's no love, no affection. No hope whatsoever."
Mr. Shavit characterizes the State of Israel as schizophrenic and laments that today "[t]here is no Israeli togetherness." He explains that the year 1973 was the "most decisive" pivotal year in Israel's history: "The trauma of the Yom Kippur War terminated the reign of Israel's ancient regime. It promulgated a deep distrust of the state, its government, and its leadership. It empowered the individual and weakened the collective. It crushed Ben Gurion's legacy and his concrete state."
The author contends: "The mass Russian immigration of 1989-1991 added to the chaos. The one million immigrants . . . invigorated [Israel's] economy and shared its Jewish majority but added to the lack of cohesion. [T]he well-educated newcomers [many of whom are engineers, technicians, programmers] felt they were superior to the ones absorbing them. Hence, they did not shed their old identity and endorse an Israeli identity as previous immigrants had done. They maintained their Russian values and their Russian way of life and they largely lived in Russian enclaves."
Mr. Shavit concedes: "Yes, occupation is killing us morally and politically, but occupation is not only the cause of the malaise but its outcome. [T]he immediate challenge is the challenge of regaining national potency. An impotent Israel cannot make peace or wage war -- or end occupation. The 2006 trauma provided Israelis with an accurate picture of the overall condition of their political body: an enfeebled national leadership, a barely functional government, a public sector in decay, an army consumed with rot, and a startling disconnect between metropolis and periphery."
The author adds: "But the 2006 experience also provides a detailed panoramic picture of the world Israel lives in: Iran on the rise, Hezbollah building up in the north, Hamas building up in the south. [F]aced with renewed existential danger, Israel has no relevant national strategy. It is confused and paralyzed."
It is highly encouraging that the Israeli youths awoke and took to the streets peacefully in the summer of 2011, occupying the posh Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard, which may even have served as partial inspiration for Occupy Wall Street to mobilize later in the same year. The author writes: "Moderate and nonviolent, it succeeded in wining the support of 80 percent of Israelis. For one summer, it unites Israelis again by giving them a sense of hope."
"On July 23, [2011,] 30,000 youths march in the streets of Tel Aviv, chanting a new-old slogan: 'The people demand social justice.' On July 30, they are 130,000 strong, on August 6, they are 300,000 strong. On September 3, 450,000 people take to the streets -- 6 percent of Israel's population. [Itzik] Shmuli is the keynote speaker at the rally held in Tel Aviv's Nation Square. 'We are the new Israelis,' he calls out to the 330,000 cheering demonstrations. 'We love our country and we are willing to die for our country. Let us live in the country we love.'"
Mr. Shumli tells the author: "We do not see ourselves anymore as cynical hedonists. Now our life as Israelis has meaning. This new sense of meaning is the great achievement of 2011. We love Israel again and believes in Israel and we are determined to reform it."
Like the Republic of Korea ("South Korea"), the State of Israel became an economic Hebrew Tiger! Mr. Shavit explains that Israel's economy is "one of the most nimble economies in the West." Mr. Stanley Fischer, who served as the governor of the Bank of Israel from 2005 to 2013, notes "Israel has more companies traded on the NASDAQ than Canada or Japan. No wonder that venture capital investments in Israel are larger than in Germany or France. [T]he high-tech revolution combined with a prudent macroeconomic policy has made Israel a hub of prosperity."
Mr. Michael Strauss, the Israeli business magnate, tells the author: "Israelis are exceptionally quick, creative, and audacious. They are sexy even in the way they work. They are hardworking and tireless. They are endowed with a competitive spirit -- with the need to be the first at the finish line. And they are willing to do whatever it takes to be the first at the finish line. They never take no for an answer. They never accept failure or acknowledge defeat."
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Reviews with images
Making Sense of Israel's Complexities
Ari Shavit has long been recognized as one of Israel's most brilliant and penetrating journalists. In this thought-provoking book, Shavit, a columnist for Haaretz and a commentator on Israeli television, uses his intimate knowledge of history and his keen interviewing skills to compellingly examine the complexities of modern Israeli society. No stone is left unturned, from the challenges faced by the early pioneers -- one of whom was Shavit's great grandfather, a prominent English barrister named Herbert Bentwich -- to issues of war and peace, relations between Arabs and Jews, and the moral dilemma posed by West Bank settlements."My Promised Land" is must reading for anyone seeking to achieve greater understanding of the boiling cauldron into which the Middle East has descended.
Top reviews from other countries
preeta chag
The author's journey into the land’s birth, occupation, existence and survival. A good read
Reviewed in India on December 20, 2023
