Non Fiction: Israel / Middle East

In this section we'll keep you up to date with news of books you might be interested in. The information will come from the publishers' website and we will add our reviews as often as we can.

Do also look out for events information and keep us posted if you are an organiser.

And remember, feedback is always welcome.

The 33 Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Aftermath

Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski

Saqi ISBN 978-0863566462

April 2007

This is a timely, incisive and richly informed assessment of the recent Israel-Lebanon conflict written by noted experts from the two countries: the Lebanese Gilbert Achcar and the Israeli Michel Warschawski. The authors describe the popular basis of Hezbollah in Lebanon among the Shiites, and its relation to the country's other religious communities and political forces. They analyze the regional roles of Syria, Iran and Hamas as well as the politics of the US and Europe. They then dissect the political background behind recent actions taken by Israel, the impact of Israel's incursion into Lebanon and effects on Lebanon's population, and the consequences of the war on Israeli polity and society whilst offering their assessments of future prospects.

 A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths

Karen Armstrong

HarperCollins ISBN 978-0006383475

January 2005

Jerusalem has probably cast more of a spell over the human imagination than any other city in the world. Held by believers to contain the site where Abraham offered up Isaac, the place of the crucifixion of Christ and the rock from which the prophet Muhammed ascended to heaven, Jerusalem has been celebrated and revered for centuries by Jews, Christians and Muslims. Such is the symbolic power of this ancient city that its future status poses a major obstacle to a comprehensive regional peace in the Middle East. In this comprehensive and elegantly written work, Karen Armstrong traces the turbulent history of the city from the prehistoric era to the present day.

Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait

Uri Dan

Palgrave ISBN 1403977909

In 1954 reporter Uri Dan met a young military commander named Ariel Sharon and followed him closely for more than half a century. Dan became Sharon's trusted advisor and a witness to the defining moments of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- from secret meetings with heads of state, to open warfare in the Sinai.

This riveting combination of political history, narrative biography, interviews, and correspondence sheds new light on the conflict in the Middle East and provides an intimate, definitive portrait of Ariel Sharon, a man whose life is inextricably intertwined with Israel's destiny. With Hamas governing Palestine, Ariel Sharon gravely ill and the party he founded, the Kadima, in control of the Knesset, this book couldn't be more timely.

The Case for Israel

Alan Dershowitz

John Wiley & Sons ISBN 978-0471679523

September 2004

The Case for Israel is an ardent defense of Israel's rights, supported by indisputable evidence.

It presents a passionate look at what Israel's accusers and detractors are saying about this war-torn country. Dershowitz accuses those who attack Israel of international bigotry and backs up his argument with hard facts.

Widely respected as a civil libertarian, legal educator, and defense attorney extraordinaire, Alan Dershowitz has also been a passionate though not uncritical supporter of Israel.

Identity and Modern Israeli Literature

Risa Domb

Vallentine Mitchell ISBN 9780853036609

This book explores through literature the long and complex evolution of Jewish identity in Israel and the central role that language, ideology, memory, and culture have played in that journey. Language is possibly the most important component of any collective identity. Indeed, any nation can be better understood through its imaginative literature and never more so than in the case of Israeli literature, whose story runs in parallel with that of the State of Israel and with Zionism. The political task of nationalism directed the course of Israeli literature into a distinct national literature and in turn the literature participated in the formation of the nation. Language became inseparable from identity. But whose Hebrew is it? Through key texts by such authors as Y. H. Brenner, S. Y. Agnon, Nathan Shaham, Yoram Kaniuk, Aharon Appelfeld, A. B. Yehoshua, Gabriela Avigur-Rotem and Sami Michael, Risa Domb explores the connections between language, ideology, memory, culture, and identity, and asks whether ideology and identity are on an inescapable collision course.

The Yom Kippur War: The Arab-Israeli War of 1973: The Arab-Israeli War of 1973

Simon Dunstan

Osprey ISBN 978-1846032882

September 2007

On 6 October 1973, simultaneous attacks on two fronts caught Israel by surprise. Both attacks aimed to take back the territory occupied by Israel following the Six Day War of 1967. On the holiest day of the Jewish year, Israeli forces were caught largely unprepared and consequently the Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal, and the Syrian attack on the Golan Heights were both initially successful. By the afternoon of the following day, a Syrian brigade was less than 10km from the Sea of Galilee. The following month saw desperate bitter fighting as the Israeli forces slowly drove the invading armies. Simon Dunstan offers a balanced analysis of the fierce Yom Kippur War, describes the key battle and the forces involved and examines that outcome of the war - how at national and international level the Yom Kippur War was a disaster from which Israel has not yet recovered, her image of invincibility and the concept of a national superpower erased when the nation was forced into dependence on the USA for military, diplomatic and economic support. Illustrated with full colour artwork, contemporary photographs and detailed maps, this book provides an insight into the hostilities that enveloped the Middle East, the after-effects of which are still seen today.

The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control

Abraham H Foxman

Palgrave ISBN 1403984921

September 2007

The representative of the Jewish community and staunch defender of human rights, Foxman delivers a powerful blow to such ideas as 'The Israel Lobby'. He shows how old bigoted stereotypes have been resurfacing and taking subtle new forms. Foxman advocates forthright and decisive solutions to an international crisis.

Abraham H Foxman is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and one of today's pre-eminent voices against hatred, discrimination, and violence across the world. He is the author of Never Again?: The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism.

Holy Land Mosaic: Stories of Cooperation and Coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians

Daniel Gavron

Rowman Littlefield ISBN 978-0-7425-4013-2

December 2007

The unrelenting conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East is reported daily, but the ongoing dialogue and cooperation between the two is less known. Holy Land Mosaic chronicles the less reported side of the Middle East scene: the ongoing projects of conciliation and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Arabs and Jews in Israel.

Daniel Gavron presents a personal journey through the different movements, projects, organizations, and NGOs that promote tolerance and understanding between the two warring peoples, depicting some remarkable Jews and Arabs. Among the projects described are the village of Neve Shalom, where Jews and Arabs have lived together for three decades; the Hand-in-Hand bilingual schools, where Arab and Jewish children study in Hebrew and Arabic; and an Israeli group that rebuilds demolished Arab houses.

In no way does the author play down the grim reality of the Middle East conflict, but his narrative shows that the enmity is not endemic. The current atmosphere is far from one of harmony and tranquility, but it can be different.

The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia
Foreword by Howard Fast

Daniel Gavron

Rowman Littlefield ISBN 978-0-8476-9526-3

2000

The Israeli kibbutz, the twentieth century's most interesting social experiment, is in the throes of change. Instrumental in establishing the State of Israel, defending its borders, creating its agriculture and industry, and setting its social norms, the kibbutz is the only commune in history to have played a central role in a nation's life. Over the years, however, Israel has developed from an idealistic pioneering community into a materialistic free market society. Consequently, the kibbutz has been marginalized and is undergoing a radical transformation. The egalitarian ethic expressed in the phrase,  From each according to ability, to each according to need,  is being replaced by the concept of reward for effort. Cooperative management is increasingly giving way to business administration. Kibbutz members, who were obligated to and dependent on their community, are now responsible for running their own lives and earning their own living.

Through distinguished journalist Daniel Gavron's revealing portraits of ten kibbutzim we hear the voices both of the veterans who are witnessing the collapse of their dream and of the youngsters who have rejected the vision of their parents. The author also analyzes the economic collapse that triggered the changes and the failure of the unique kibbutz education system to perpetuate communal values. The opening and concluding chapters provide a compelling overview of the situation and look toward the future.

Gavron, a former kibbutznik, brings a keen and sensitive eye to this first overview of the current revolution in the Israeli kibbutz. Jewish readers and all those interested in Israel will find this book a compelling portrait of a country trying to hold onto its past while facing its future.

Daniel Gavron is a long-time journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, the Jerusalem Post, and Ariel and aired on NBC and National Public Radio. He is the author of The Other Side of Despair and lives in Motza Elite, Israel.  

The Story of Israel

Martin Gilbert

Carlton Books ISBN 9780233002101

April 2008

Celebratory books, 64 pages long, covering events from the Herzl's endeavours to the erection of the separation barrier, replete with maps, detachable posters, illustrations and pullout facsimile documents.

Just over 100 years ago, Theodor Herzl launched the Zionist Movement. They called for a Jewish State in their ancestral land, Palestine. Fifty years later, the State of Israel came into being. Israel was established so that Jews anywhere in the world could have a homeland of their own. After independence, that process began with the in gathering of three quarters of a million Jews from Arab lands. As Communism disintegrated, more than a million Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union. Despite war and terror, Israel has sought peace through both secret and public negotiations. These efforts continue to this day.

Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew across the Middle East Divide

Jeffrey Goldberg

Picador ISBN 9780330488204 

The story of an American Jew and a Palestinian who forge a friendship out of what appear to be irreconcilable differences.

Jeffrey Goldberg moved from Long Island to Israel while still a college student. In the middle of the first Palestinian uprising in 1990, the Israeli army sent him to serve as a prison guard at Ketziot, the largest jail in the Middle East. Realizing that among the prisoners were the future leaders of Palestine, and that this was a unique opportunity to learn from them about themselves, he began an extended dialogue with a prisoner named Rafiq.

This is an account of life in that harsh desert prison and of that dialogue—the accusations, explanations, fears, prejudices and aspirations each man expressed—which continues to this day. We see how their discussion deepened over the years as Goldberg returned to the States, to Washington, D.C., where Rafiq coincidentally became a graduate student, and the political landscape of the Middle East changed. And we see, again and again, how their willingness to confront religious, cultural, and political differences made possible what both could finally acknowledge to be a true, if necessarily tenuous, friendship.

Prisoners is a remarkable book: spare, impassioned, energetic, and unstinting in its candour about both the darkness and the hope buried within the animosities of the Middle East.

Occupied Territories: The Untold Story of Israel's Settlement

Gershom Gorenberg

I.B. Tauris  ISBN 9781845114305

In the fog of the 1967 war and its aftermath, Israel's generals and politicians took a series of fateful decisions that led to a bloody, bitter and seemingly endless occupation of Arab lands. Gershom Gorenberg takes us behind the scenes of history to glimpse those decisions being made. He reveals for the first time the motivation, influences and strategies of key players such as Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir. He shows how Labour politicians allowed themselves to be persuaded by a mixture of political convenience, military alarmism and religious fanaticism in to allowing settlements to develop in the occupied territories, despite being fully aware that this contravened international law. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's eviction of Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2004 has shown that it is possible for the Israeli government to confront the settler movement. and further evacuations have been mooted. But the issue is a divisive one: all the passions, ambitions and political alliances which gave rise to Israel's pursuit of 'The Whole Land', from the Mediterranean to the Jordan Valley, remain potent forces. Gorenberg's book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand not only the occupation, but the mindset of the occupiers.

Gershom Gorenberg is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post and Ha'aretz.

The People on the Streets: A Writer's View of Israel

Linda Grant

Virago ISBN 9781844082544

March 2006

'The further away anyone was from that block of Ben Yehuda street, the easier it seemed to find a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, that stubborn mess in the centre of the Middle East and the more I studied these solutions, the more I thought that they depended for their implementation on a population of table football men, painted in the colours of the two teams: blue and white for the Israelis, green, red and black for the Palestinians. All the international community had to do was to twist the levers and the little players would kick and swing and send the ball into the net, to victory' One block of a Tel Aviv street is the starting point for Linda Grant's exploration of the inner dynamics of Israelis - not the government and its policies, but the people themselves, in all their variety. Iraqi shop-keepers, Teenage soldiers, Mob bosses, Tunisian- born settlers, Russian scientists, and the father of the child victim of a suicide bomber are some of the people she meets.

Man in the Shadows: Inside the Middle East Crisis with the Man who Led Mossad
Efraim Halevy

Weidenfeld & Nicolson ISBN 0297848313

From Operation Desert Storm to the beginning of US incursions into Iraq, Efraim Halevy was Deputy Director and then Director of Israel's Mossad, arguably the most developed and, sometimes, ruthless intelligence service in the world. Man in the Shadows is Halevy's memoir of that period from his vantage point inside the Mossad, as well as a look at what lies ahead for a world transformed by Islamic terrorism.  Having served as the secret envoy to Prime Ministers Rabin, Shamir, Netanyahu, Barak and Sharon, Halevy was privy to, and collector of, some of the most sensitive information coming out of the region.  Beginning with a prologue that describes a visit he made to Jordan in 1993, Halevy looks back to Desert Storm, an event he calls 'an epic of unfinished business' and brings the reader up to the present day through 9/11 and the WMD crisis in Iraq.

Informed by his extraordinary access from the beginning of his Mossad career in 1961, hewrites frankly of the Israeli PMs he worked under as well as most of the other major players in the region and around the world: Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Hafez Assad, Hosni Mubaraq, Crown Prince Abdullah, Muammar Gaddafi, Presidents Clinton and Bush, as well as former CIA director George Tenet and counter-intelligence chief James Angleton. Though Halevy looks to the past, he also looks to the future and talks bluntly about how the world might achieve peace in the region and elsewhere.  Much of what he has to say will surprise and shock even those readers well versed in the complexities of the region.

Efraim Halevy was born in London in 1934. He was head of the Mossad between 1998-2002 and then Head of the National Security Council and National Security Advisor to PrimeMinister Sharon from 2002-2003. Previously he had been deputy head of the Mossad from 1990-1995 (which included Operation Desert Storm). Before his appointment to the Mossad he was Israel's ambassador to the European Union, from 1996-1998.  During the time he worked for the Israeli government, he was the secret envoy to five of that country's Prime Ministers: Rabin, Shamir, Netanyahu, Barak and Sharon.  Efraim Halevy is now the Head of the Centre for Strategic and Policy Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  In April 2005 he received the prestigious Chaim Herzog Prize for extraordinary contributions to the state of Israel.

Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism

Judith Palmer Harik

IB Tauris ISBN 978 184511 0246

July 2007

Since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in early 2005, Lebanese politics has been plunged into a new era. Will Syrian withdrawal send the country back into civil war? How will the seismic political shifts underway affect the stability of the region? At the centre of the turmoil stands one player that will affect the outcome more than any other: Hezbollah. Hezbollah, or the ‘Party of God’, is one of the most powerful and the most misunderstood forces in Middle Eastern politics. In this new edition of her acclaimed book, Judith Harik explains what it actually believes in, what its real relationship with other regional players is, and in what direction it is heading.
Hezbollah arose amidst the chaos of the Lebanese civil war to resist the Israeli invasion of 1982. Based amongst the poor Shi’ite population, it takes its inspiration from the Iranian revolution and the teachings of Ayatollah Khomeini. Today Hezbollah’s military wing controls the major fault-line of the Middle East: the Lebanese-Israeli border. To the US, Hezbollah represents one of the most dangerous terrorist networks in the world. In Lebanon, it is a democratically elected party within the Lebanese parliament, backed not just by Shi’ites, but by Christians and secular Muslims. To the wider Arab world, Hezbollah is a legend: the only Arab fighting force to have defeated Israel, forcing its withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000.
Harik draws on her considerable first-hand experience of the movement to tell the story of how a clandestine, radical militia transformed itself into a seemingly moderate and mainstream player in the Lebanese political arena. She looks at key questions: why do so many non-Shiites support them? Who controls the movement - the Mullahs, or the grassroots? Harik’s penetrating analysis helps us make sense of fast-moving events as the future of Lebanon - and the region - hangs in the balance.

Judith Palmer Harik is a political analyst who has spent over twenty years lecturing and researching as a Professor of Political Science at the American University of Beirut. She is one of the world's foremost experts on Hezbollah.

Barrier: The Seam of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Isabel Kershner

Palgrave MacMillan

To the Israelis it is a security fence or separation barrier; to Palestinians “an apartheid wall”. The two sides agree that it is ugly, both in appearance and in effect. Looping around the Israeli-occupied West Bank, thrusting occasional fingers deep into the occupied lands to take in a far-flung settlement block, the wall divides many Palestinians from their own fields and schools, and traps thousands in a Kafkaesque “seam zone”, with the wall to the east of them and the old “green line” border with Israel to the west.

If you really wonder why Israel is building its wall, and want to understand its human consequences, invest in Isabel Kershner's readable, compassionate and thoroughly fair “Barrier”. An Israeli journalist, she talks to victims and activists from both sides of the line, bringing lives and landscape vividly to life at the same time as putting the wall in its political context.

Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians

Anton La Guardia

Penguin ISBN 978-0141028019

July 2007

Writing dispassionately about the Holy Land, said Mark Twain, is as hard as being dispassionate about your own wife or children. Today, more than a century after Twain led the way for mass tourism to what was then a remote corner of the Ottoman Empire, the difficulties are redoubled.

The modern struggles of the Israelis and Palestinians - with their larger-than-life stories of disaster and redemption - command the obsessive attention and passion of sympathizers around the world.

With the experienced journalist's eye for the telling detail and anecdote, Anton La Guardia offers an intimate portrait of the people behind the headlines. He explores their histories and cultures: from the religious upheavals of Jerusalem to the extremism of Jewish settlers and Islamic suicide bombers, from the first Zionist pioneers to the post-Zionist generation in Tel Aviv, from the stirrings of Arab nationalism to the Lebanon War. The author explains how the searing traumas of the Holocaust and the Palestinian exodus have shaped Israeli and Palestinian societies. He also looks at the role of the outside world, from the awe-struck visits of medieval Christian pilgrims to the scheming of world powers. He traces how the promise of peace has turned into the curse of war, drawing on his reporter's notebooks from years spent covering the peace accords, Islamic suicide bombings, the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the outbreak of the latest Palestinian uprising.

This book is part contemporary political reportage and part iconoclastic history. A dispassionate account of Israel and Palestine may be impossible, but this book is written with the first-hand knowledge, affection and exasperation of one who writes about embittered relatives.

Dying for Jerusalem

Walter Laqueur

Sourcebooks ISBN 1402206321
2006

A quasi-memoir of his time spent living and working in Jerusalem, Laquer's volume exploits the author's experiences and relationships with key figures in Jerusalem's history (Eliezer Sukenik, Golda Meir, Richard Kauffman, Gershom Scholem, Mordechai Shenhabi) as the starting points for several discussions and reminiscences of the people, events, trends and movements that shape Jerusalem. Laquer, a know-it-all without the pretense, is clearly conflicted: the writing has a cathartic element to it, as the author laments the economic plight of the city, "the exodus of the young, secular, and enterprising among the population," the increasingly ultraorthodox culture of the city and the diminishing hope for compromise between Jerusalem's Jews and Muslims, while confessing his undying feelings for the place. From the "second religion" of archaeology among Palestinians and Israelis to the distinctive architecture of the city's neighborhoods to the first contact of well-established Palestinian Arabs with newly arrived Ashkenazi Zionist immigrants, Laqueur's account creates a remarkable sense of time and place-a worthwhile read for anyone interested in knowing more intimately the city and its history.

Walter Laqueur, one of the world’s foremost historians, was born in Breslau in 1921. He divides his time between London, Israel and Washington, where he is a director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt

Allen Lane ISBN 9781846140075
September 07

According to Mearsheimer and Walt, by encouraging unconditional US support for Israel and promoting the use of American power to remake the Middle East, the lobby has jeopardized America's own national interest. Preventing the United States from playing a more constructive role in the region has also undermined Israel's own long-term security and put the interests of other countries — including Great Britain — at risk.

John J. Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt is Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

1948

Benny Morris

Yale University Press ISBN 9780300126969

May 2008

This history of the foundational war in the Arab-Israeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. This is a riveting account of the military engagements and it also focuses on the war's political dimensions. Benny Morris probes the motives and aims of the protagonists on the basis of newly opened Israeli and Western documentation. The Arab side, where the archives are still closed, is illuminated with the help of intelligence and diplomatic materials.Morris stresses the jihadi character of the two-stage Arab assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Throughout, he examines the dialectic between the war's military and political developments and highlights the military impetus in the creation of the refugee problem, which was a by-product of the disintegration of Palestinian Arab society. The book thoroughly investigates the role of the Great Powers - Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union - in shaping the conflict and its tentative termination in 1949. Morris looks both at high politics and general staff decision-making processes and at the nitty-gritty of combat in the successive battles that resulted in the emergence of the State of Israel and the humiliation of the Arab world, a humiliation that underlines the continued Arab antagonism toward Israel.

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited

Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521009676

December 2003

Benny Morris' The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem was published in 1988. Its startling revelations about how and why 700,000 Palestinians left their homes and became refugees during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 undermined traditional interpretations as to whether they left voluntarily or were expelled as part of a systematic plan.

This book represents a revised edition of the earlier work, compiled on the basis of newly-opened Israeli military archives. While the focus remains the 1948 war and the analysis of the Palestinian exodus, the new material contains more information about what happened in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, and how events there led to the collapse of Palestinian urban society. It also sheds light on the battles and atrocities that resulted in the disintegration of rural communities.

The story is a harrowing one. The refugees now number four million and their existence remains a major obstacle to peace.

The Road to Jerusalem

Benny Morris

IB Tauris ISBN 978 186064 9899

July 2003

General Sir John Glubb was the last British pro-Consul of the region and commander of the Arab Legion during the crucial years between 1936 and 1956 - which were to witness the collapse of Palestine and the final foundation and establishment of the State of Israel. As well as an analysis of Glubb’s personal vision of the Middle East and its peoples - a surprisingly racial vision that would condition his politics - the book examines his
reactions to the Arab Revolt in Palestine and the periodic plans to partition Palestine and establish a Jewish state.
It offers the first in-depth account of his thinking and actions during 1948, as he led his small army into Palestine and war against Israel. His aims and actions - which lie at the very heart of the controversy between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ historians of the Arab-Israeli conflict - are carefully detailed using, for the first time, contemporary British, Arab Legion and Israel Defence Forces intelligence sources. This masterful account of Glubb the soldier, strategist and pro-Arab mouth-piece will become a vital addition to the literature on this defining period in Middle Eastern history.

Benny Morris is a world-renowned author and Professor of Middle East History at Ben-Gurion University. His pioneering revisionist work on the origins of the Palestinian refugee problem and on Israeli-Arab relations during the 1950s has overturned some of the most basic assumptions about the formation of the State of Israel, and has made him one of the most respected and controversial historians working there today. His books include
'Righteous Victims', 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem', '1948 and After', 'Israel's Border Wars (1949-1956)' and 'The Roots of Appeasement'.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present

Michael Oren
W. W. Norton & Company ISBN 978-0393058260
January 2007

As Oren explains in his introduction “America is deeply, substantively, and perhaps even existentially involved in the Middle East.” Most people, however, would think that America’s involvement began with the creation of Israel in 1948, or with the Suez Crisis of 1956, or even with the Oil Embargo if 1973. What Power, Faith, and Fantasy now demonstrates is that the roots of the US engagement run much deeper: the United States actually fought its first international war against Arabic-speaking Muslims, and the region was so important at the turn of the 19th century that Thomas Jefferson declared the Middle East to be his main overseas concern. Not only did George Washington have a policy on the region, but also our early conflicts in the Middle East played a critical role in shaping of the American Constitution. Moreover, the great icons of American literature and culture, including Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain, took fundamental inspiration from this seemingly strange and alien land. Despite this legacy, most Americans remain largely ignorant of the ways our country has been continuously intertwined with the region for over two centuries.

Drawing on government documents, thousands of classified papers, and the memoirs of merchants, missionaries, and travelers, as well as personal correspondence, Oren seeks to fill this gap in our collective knowledge by reconstructing the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this alluring and often hostile region. Oren tells the remarkable stories of those Americans, whether drawn by the temptation of adventure, glory, profit, or the missionary ideal, who journeyed to the Middle East to try and modernize, convert, organize, and learn from its peoples. Through these narratives -- including such remarkable figures as John Ledyard, the first American to journey to the Middle Easy, and Mark Twain, whose memoirs of his travels helped launch his career -- Oren displays the myriad of ways in which Americans have impacted the region and, in many respects, how they have been unalterably changed in the process.

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Michael Oren

Penguin Books ISBN 978-0141014357

July 2003

The Yom Kippur War and the War in Lebanon, the Intifada and the rise of Palestinian terror, the controversy over Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, the peace process—all resulted from six days of intense Arab-Israeli fighting in June 1967. The Six-Day War, as it is widely known, was totally unique in history. Never has a conflict so short, yielded such profound and far-reaching results. Seldom has a war, unforeseen and mostly unwanted, concluded so astonishingly.

Six Days of War explorse both its military and diplomatic dimensions, and spotlights all its participants: Arab, Israeli, Soviet and American. It tells the story of why the war broke out and the shocking ways it unfolded.

Drawing on thousands of formerly top-secret documents, on rare papers in Russian and Arabic, and on exclusive personal interviews, Six Days of War recreates the regional and international context, which, by the late 1960s, virtually assured an Arab-Israeli conflagration. Also examined are the domestic crises in each of the battling states, and the extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yitzhak Rabin, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—that precipitated this earthshaking clash.

Michael B. Oren is a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center. An expert on the diplomatic and military history of the Middle East, he has written extensively for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, of which he is a contributing editor.

A graduate of Princeton and Columbia universities, he has received fellowships from the U.S. departments of State and Defense, and from the British and Canadian governments. He was a Lady Davis Fellow of Hebrew University and a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel-Aviv University. In 2006, he was a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale. He has briefed the White House and has testified before Congress on Middle Eastern affairs.
Raised in New Jersey, Michael Oren moved to Israel in the 1970s. He served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces - in the paratroopers in the first Lebanon War, a liaison with the U.S. Sixth Fleet during the Gulf War, and an army spokesman in the second Lebanon War. He acted as a representative of the Prime Minister's Office to Jewish refuseniks in the Soviet Union, and as an advisor to Israel's delegation to the United Nations. He was the director of Inter-Religious Affairs in the government of Yitzhak Rabin. Michael Oren lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.

Gandhi in The Middle East - Jews, Arabs and Imperial Interests
Simone Panter-Brick

IB Tauris ISBN 9781845115845

December 2007

Gandhi's involvement in Middle Eastern politics is largely forgotten, yet it goes to the heart of his teaching and ambition - to lead a united freedom movement against British colonial power. Gandhi became involved in the politics of the Middle East as a result of his concern over the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate following the First World War. He subsequently - at the invitation of the Jewish Agency - sought to reconcile Jews and Arabs in a secret deal at the time of the Mandate of Palestine. However, Jewish and British interference coupled with the Arab Revolt and the rise of the Muslim League in India thwarted Gandhi's efforts in the region. Like so many who would follow, Gandhi was unable to solve the problems of the Middle East, but this book for the first time reveals his previously obscure attempt to do so. Gandhi's experience in the Middle East was in marked contrast to his other successes around the world and is crucial for a full understanding of his life and teachings. Gandhi in the Middle East offers many new and revealing insights into the goals and limits of an international statesman at a critical period of imperial history.

Simone Panter-Brick obtained her doctorate in Law and Political Science at the University of Nancy, France. Her previous publications include Gandhi Against Machiavellism: Non-Violence in Politics.

Shattered Dreams

Judah Passow

Halban Publishers ISBN 978-1905559060

February 2008

These photographs are more than simply a journalistic record of conflict and turmoil. They are the product of a very personal journey in a place full of shattered dreams brought about by an endless conflict which crosses the boundaries of culture and time. It's a place where the young are robbed of their youth and the elderly stripped of their dignity. The people who live here glorify their past, curse the present, and have difficulty imagining a future. Publishing this book for the 60th anniversary serves as a way of explaining the profound sense of frustration and loss felt on both sides of the Israel/ Palestine divide.

The Last Resistance

Jacqueline Rose

Verso ISBN 978 1 84467 124 3
May 2007

In The Last Resistance, Jacqueline Rose explores the power of writing to create and transform our political lives. In particular Rose examines the role of literature in the Zionist imagination: here, literature is presented as a unique form of dissidence, with the power to expose the unconscious of nations, and often proposing radical alternatives to their dominant pathways and beliefs.

While Israel-Palestine is the repeated focus, The Last Resistance also turns to post-apartheid South Africa, to American national fantasy post-9/11, and to key moments for the understanding of Jewish culture and memory. Rose also underscores the importance of psychoanalysis, both historically in relation to the unfolding of world events, and as a tool of political understanding. Examining topics ranging from David Grossman, through W.G. Sebald, Freud, Nadine Gordimer, the concept of evil, and suicide bombers, The Last Resistance offers a unique way of responding to the crises of the times.

Jaqueline Rose is Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London, UK. Her books include Sexuality in the Field of Vision, the novel Albertine, On Not Being Able to Sleep and The Question of Zion. She contributes regularly to the London Review of Books, and wrote and presented the Channel 4 documentary, “Dangerous Liaison—Israel and America.”

Transformations from Ethiopia to Israel

Ricki Rosen and Micha Odenheimer

Reality Check Productions ISBN 978-9652293770

May 2006

Renowned photojournalist Ricki Rosen documented Israel’s rescue of 15,000 Jews from Ethiopia during the historic Operation Solomon airlift. Thirteen years later, she searched for and photographed the same Ethiopian Jews now settled all over Israel.

This is an inspiring story of remarkable transformations. Rosen’s compelling photos portray dramatic scenes of the mass exodus of the Ethiopian Jews -- thousands wrapped in white robes heading towards the Promised Land, like the biblical Exodus from Egypt. Her contemporary photos are poignant portraits of these Ethiopians radically transformed by their Israeli experience. Children in rags have grown up to be proud Israeli soldiers, malnourished babies have developed into fashionable teenagers, and mothers who lost children to starvation and disease have given birth to new families.

Rosen’s insightful images take us on a journey from the mud huts of Africa to the skyscrapers of Israel, from the exotic and traditional to the ultra-modern. We see an ancient lost tribe become the newest Israelis, and we travel with them from exile to the Promised Land.

The photos are accompanied by an introductory essay by writer Micha Odenheimer, whose reporting from Ethiopia, as well as founding the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, have made him one of the most important activists for Ethiopian Jewish immigration and integration.

Photographer Ricki Rosen has been published in every major international magazine, including on the covers of the New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, People, and Figaro, and featured in numerous books and exhibitions. She began her career in New York and has been based in Israel for the last seventeen years.

The Volunteer: My Secret Life in the Mossad

Michael Ross

Vision ISBN 978-1905745197

August 2007

The riveting story of a Canadian who serves as a senior officer in Israel’s legendary Mossad.

In 1982 a young Michael Ross joins the legion of Canadian twenty-somethings backpacking in Europe. Through happenstance, he winds up working on a Kibbutz in Israel, where he falls in love with the land and its ancient, multi-layered history. He immerses himself in Israeli culture, converts to Judaism, and adopts his new country’s struggle for survival as his own, joining the Israel Defence Force and eventually Mossad’s most elite and storied covert-operations unit, Caesaria.

For seven-and-a-half years, Ross worked as an undercover agent — a classic spy. In The Volunteer, he describes his role in missions to foil attempts by Syria, Libya, and Iran to acquire advanced weapons technology. He tells of his part in the capture of three senior al Qaeda operatives who masterminded the 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; a joint Mossad-FBI operation that uncovered a senior Hezbollah terrorist based in the United States; and a mission to South Africa in which he intercepted Iranian agents seeking to expand their country’s military arsenal; and two-and-a-half years as Mossad’s Counterterrorism Liaison Officer to the CIA and FBI.

Many of the operations Ross describes have never before been revealed to the public.

Shared Histories
A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue
By Paul Scham, Walid Salem and Benjamin Pogrund

Left Coast Press, ISBN 1598740121

'This book provides a view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict unavailable in any other single volume...The reader, whether steeped in the history of the conflict or simply looking for some explanation of why it is so intractable, sees through the eyes of the protagonists themselves why mutual understanding is so difficult and, in the process, begins to understand why the two sides have not been able to come to terms.'
Edy Kaufman, University of Maryland & Hebrew University of Jerusalem

There is no single history of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are two.

The Israeli historical narrative speaks of Zionism as the Jewish national movement, of building a refuge from persecution, and of national regeneration. The Palestinian narrative speaks of invasion, expulsion, and oppression. No wonder peace remains elusive.

Paul Scham, formerly a lawyer, is currently a Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., and a Visiting Scholar at George Washington University. Walid Salem is a journalist and director of the Palestinian Center for the Dissemination of Democracy and Community Development (Panorama), Jerusalem. Benjamin Pogrund is a journalist and director of the Yakar Center for Social Concern, Jerusalem.

Back to the top

1967: Israel, the War and the Year that Transformed the Middle East

Tom Segev

Little, Brown 9780316724784

May 2007

1967 did not mark the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it was a year that changed the course of history. When Egypt's President Nasser closed the straits of Tiran to Israeli navigation, it triggered a conflict between Israel and the armies of Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Within six days the Israelis had occupied territories three times wider than their own, populated by over a million Palestinian Arabs.

Israel suddenly became something of a colonial empire, more Goliath than David. The war granted political legitimacy to Menachem Begin's right-wing Herut party, and Arab terrorism paved the way for Israel's secret service to become a major factor in the country's power structure.

1967 will not be a military history, nor will it focus mainly on political developments. The year 1967 dramatically altered the lives of millions of individuals and this book will focus on the personal stories from both sides of the conflict.

Tom Segev is the acclaimed author of One Palestine, Complete and writes a weekly column for Haaretz, Israel's most prestigious newspaper.

Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape

Raja Shehadeh

ISBN 1861978049

August 2007

Raja Shehadeh navigates recent Palestinian history, from Ayn Kenya to the Shukba Caves, the Ramallah hills and the Dead Sea. Literally entwined within the chinks and fissures of these walks is a mine of conflict and failures, which Shehadeh chronicles with vigour and poignancy.

Raja Shehadeh is the author of the highly praised When the Bulbul Stopped Singing and Strangers in the House. A Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah, he is a founder of the pioneering human rights organisation, Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, and the author of several books about international law, human rights and the Middle East.

What Do Zionists Believe?
Colin Shindler

Granta ISBN 9781862078369

April 2007

Zionism was a movement of national liberation. It sought to establish a permanent home for the Jewish people where they could attain political independence and instigate a national renaissance. Some Zionists were inspired by a vision of religious redemption and the onset of the messianic age. For others it represented the construction of a perfect society. Others aspired to the more modest creation of a modern technological, capitalist state. The Hebrew Republic which came into being in May 1948 embellished all these possibilities. Today thirty-eight per cent of all Jews live in Israel.

The tragedy of Zionism was that it arose during the same period of history as Arab nationalism - and in the same land. Our perception of what it stood for and how it came about has been shaped and distorted by the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Colin Shindler explains the evolution of Zionism as a unique ideology and provides a clear and perceptive analysis of its ideas.

A History of Modern Israel

Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780521615389

February 2008

The state of Israel came into existence in 1948. Colin Shindler’s book traces Israel’s history across sixty years, from its optimistic beginnings - immigration, settlement, the creation of its towns and institutions - through the wars with its Arab neighbours, and the confrontation with the Palestinians. Shindler paints a broad canvas which affords unusual insights into this multicultural society, forged from over a hundred different Jewish communities and united by a common history. Despite these commonalities, however, Israel in the twenty-first century is riven by ideological disputes and different interpretations of ‘Jewishness’ and Judaism. Nowhere are these divisions more revealingly portrayed than in the lives and ideologies of Israel’s leaders. Biographical portraits of Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime-minister, Yitzhak Rabin, whose assassination is still a traumatic memory for many Israelis, and the controversial Ariel Sharon, offer fascinating examinations of those who have led the country to where it is today.

Colin Shindler is Reader in Israeli and Modern Jewish Studies at the University of London.

The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World

Avi Shlaim

Penguin Books ISBN 978-0140288704

February 2001

Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, and with the Arab world at large, casts a long shadow over her history. When Zionist leaders formulated the 'Iron Wall' strategy in the 1920s - dealing with the Arabs from a position of unassailable strength - they intended that when sufficiently strong Israel would be able to make peace with her Arab neighbours. This has been an elusive hope, and Shlaim explores with an uncompromising lens the reasons for Israel's long reliance on military power in the absence of a settlement. His analysis will bring scant comfort to partisans on both sides, but it will be required reading for anyone interested in this fascinating and troubled region of the world.

Avi Shlaim was born in Baghdad in 1945 and grew up in Israel where he did national service from 1964 to 66. He is now a Professor of International Relations at St Antony's College, Oxford. His previous books include Collusion across the Jordan (winner of the 1988 Political Studies Association's W. J. M. Mackenzie Prize); The Politics of Partition (1990 and 1998); War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (1995) and The Cold War and the Middle East (co-editor, 1997). Avi Shlaim is a frequent contributor to the newspapers and a commentator on radio and television on Middle East affairs.

Gideon's Spies: The Inside Story of Israel’s Legendary Secret Service, The Mossad

Gordon Thomas

JR Books ISBN

June 08

Created in 1951 to ensure an embattled Israel’s future, the Mossad has been responsible for many of the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counter-terrorism and assassination ever ventured. Based on interviews with Mossad agents, informants and spymasters, and drawing from classified documents and top-secret sources, Gideon’s Spies is a riveting inside account of perhaps the world’s foremost intelligence agency.

Published to mark the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel, this brand new edition of the international best-seller has been fully updated and greatly expanded, and features previously unpublished revelations about recent dramatic events in the Middle East. Gideon’s Spies portrays a highly imaginative but utterly ruthless organisation that has vowed to “fight fire with fire” in a world increasingly plagued by ‘Holy War’ and international terrorism.

Why did the Mossad make contact with Princess Diana’s chauffeur? Did they really assassinate Robert Maxwell? Why did they use explicit phone calls to Monica Lewinsky to blackmail Bill Clinton? Why did both Clinton and Bush ignore clear warnings from the Mossad about 9/11? Did Mossad agents buy nuclear materials from the Russian mafia? How did they help MI5 foil the plot to bring down seven transatlantic flights from Heathrow? Why did they suspect that Dr David Kelly was in contact with sinister figures from the world of germ warfare? How did the Mossad destroy a nuclear weapons complex in Syria? And how did they finally manage to assassinate the world’s second most wanted terrorist? Gideon’s Spies explores the answers to all these questions and more.

Gordon Thomas is a journalist, broadcaster and award-winning author of over forty books published worldwide, a number dealing with the intelligence world.

The Lemon Tree

Sandy Tolan

Bantam ISBN 978-0593057452

February 2007

The Lemon Tree tells the astonishing true story of a 40-year friendship between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man. Dalia Eshkenazi and Bashir Khairi are on opposite sides of political, religious and racial divides, but their lives are inextricably linked by the house which Bashir's father built and where Dalia's family came to live.

Dalia’s family flee Nazi persecution in Bulgaria during the Second World War and come to settle in the town of Ramla in Israel in 1948, in a house recently evacuated of its previous residents, the Khairi family, who have been evicted by armed soldiers and forced to flee to Ramallah on the West Bank.

Nearly two decades later, in July 1967, Israeli troops have occupied the whole of Palestine at the end of the Six Day War. Ironically, this means that Bashir is able for the first time to travel back to Ramla and to visit the house where he was born. He locates the house, knocks on the door and it is answered by Dalia whoinvites him in. So begins their long friendship. Bashir and his family return to visit the house several times and Dalia makes her first visit to Ramallah to meet the Khairis, her first time across the border into Palestine and her first experience of Arab hospitality.

Bashir, who is by this time a lawyer involved in Palestinian politics, is imprisoned for 15 years, accused of involvement with the Supersol market bombing. Confused and upset, Dalia breaks off communication with him. But when her father dies and she inherits the house, she makes contact with Bashir again and between them they begin to make plans to turn the house into a pre-school for the Arab children of Ramla.

These plans are dashed when in 1988, at the start of the intifada, Bashir is arrested yet again and deported. Dalia writes an open letter to him, published in the Jerusalem Post, lamenting his deportation but also asking that he renounce violence. Bashir replies to her that he has never been involved in violence, he was wrongfully imprisoned and also telling her the story of how, aged 6, the palm and four fingers of his left hand were blown off by a bomb in a toy booby-trapped by Zionist terrorists, deliberately targeting Palestinian children.

Dalia is galvanized into action – the house becomes Open House, a kindergarten where Arab and Israeli chidren can play together. In a world of increasing violence, suicide bombings and air strikes, Open House offers some hope for the future. Bashir returns from eight years in exile to see children playing together the garden of the house his father had built.

Woven into this narrative at every stage are the global political machinations that shape Dalia and Bashir’s lives, from the Balfour Declaration to the Oslo Accords and from the Six Day War to September 11. And the cast of characters includes world leaders: Arafat, Clinton, Nasser, Rabin and Sharon all have their parts to play in the story.

At the end of the book, the children at Open House plant a lemon tree to replace the one originally put there in 1936 by Bashir’s father, which has died. The story has come full circle.

Sandy Tolan is a journalist, teacher and documentary radio producer. He has reported from more than 30 countries around the world, particularly in the Middle East, but also Latin America, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. He has produced dozens of radio documentaries and has written for more than 40 newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. Much of his focus has been on land, water, natural resources, ethnic conflict and indigenous affairs. He was a 1993 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an I.F. Stone Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, where he now teaches international reporting.

In writing The Lemon Tree (which began life as a radio documentary) he conducted hundreds of hours of interviews with Dalia and Bashir, as well as speaking to hundreds of other people, in six languages over the course of seven years.

A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel's Rift Valley

Haim Watzman

Farrar Straus Giroux  ISBN 978-0374130589

May 2007

The Jordan Rift Valley, stretching from the Red Sea to Lebanon, was ripped open millions of years ago by vast forces within the earth. This geological object has also been a part of human history ever since early humans used it as a path in their journey out of Africa. And for a quarter of a century it has been part of the biography of Haim Watzman, an Israeli journalist.

In the autumn of 2004, as his country was riven by a fierce debate over its borders, Watzman took a two-week journey up the valley. Along the way he met scientists who try to understand the rift through the evidence lying on its surface—an archaeologist who reconstructs the fallen altars of a long-forgotten people, a zoologist whose study of bird societies has produced a theory of why organisms cooperate, and a geologist who thinks that the valley will some day be an ocean. He encountered people whose life and work on the shores of the Dead Sea and Jordan River have led them to dream of paradise and to seek to build Gardens of Eden on earth—a booster for a chemical factory, the director of a tourist site, and an aging socialist farmer who curates a museum of idols. And he discovered that the geography’s instability is mirrored in the volatility of the tales that people tell about the Sea of Galilee.
As an observant Jew who has written extensively about science and scholarship, Watzman strives to understand the valley in all its complexity—its physical facts, its role in human history and in his own life, and the myths it has engendered. He realizes that human beings can never see the rift in isolation. “It is the stories that men and women have told to explain what they see and what they do as a result that create the rift as we see it   .   .   .   As hard as we try to comprehend the landscape itself, it is humanity that we find.”
Watzman’s poetic evocation of the scientific and the human is a unique chronicle of a quest for knowledge.

Shortlisted for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature

Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation

Eyal Weizman

Verso ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 125 0

June 2007

Hollow Land is a groundbreaking exploration of the political space created by Israel’s colonial occupation. In this journey from the deep subterranean spaces of the West Bank and Gaza to their militarized airspace, Weizman unravels Israel’s mechanisms of control and its transformation of the Occupied Territories into a theoretically constructed artifice, in which natural and built features function as the weapons and ammunition with which the conflict is waged.

Weizman traces the development of these ideas, from the influence of archaeology on urban planning, Ariel Sharon’s reconceptualization of military defense during the 1973 war, through the planning and architecture of the settlements, to contemporary Israeli discourse and practice of urban warfare. In exploring Israel’s methods to transform the landscape itself into a tool of total domination and control, Hollow Land lays bare the political system at the heart of this complex and terrifying project of late-modern colonial occupation

Eyal Weizman is Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and has worked with a variety of NGOs and human right groups in Israel-Palestine. He is an editor-at-large of Cabinet magazine, and received the James Stirling Memorial Lecture Prize for 2006–7.

Lords of the Land: The War for Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories

Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar

Nation Books ISBN 978-1568583709

October 2007

Lords of the Land tells the tragic story of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of the 1967 war and Israel’s devastating victory over its Arab neighbors, catastrophe struck both the soul and psyche of the state of Israel. Based on years of research, and written by one of Israel's leading historians and journalists, this involving narrative focuses on the settlers themselves — often fueled by messianic zeal but also inspired by the original Zionist settlers — and shows the role the state of Israel has played in nurturing them through massive economic aid and legal sanctions.

The occupation, the authors argue, has transformed the very foundations of Israel's society, economy, army, history, language, moral profile, and international standing. “The vast majority of the 6.5 million Israelis who live in their country do not know any other reality,” the authors write. “The vast majority of the 3.5 million Palestinians who live in the regions of their occupied land do not know any other reality. The prolonged military occupation and the Jewish settlements that are perpetuating it have toppled Israeli governments and have brought Israel's democracy and its political culture to the brink of an abyss.”