August 1, 2013
Israeli journalist Shavit (editorial board, Haaretz) presents a history of and meditation on Zionism's successes and failures since his great-grandfather's arrival at Jaffa in 1897. He traces the rise and demise of the kibbutzim, the 1948 displacement of Palestinians, the shock of 1967's Six-Day War victory, and the near defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Unlike other recent books, either by foreign journalists focusing on the military or Israelis who accentuate the positive (e.g., Martin van Creveld's The Land of Blood and Honey: The Rise of Modern Israel), this work attempts a personal, political, intellectual, and cultural history of Israel through dozens of interviews with those who participated in the Zionist enterprise, asking and answering the important questions: Can Israel fully integrate its Arab citizens, do justice to the Palestinians, and assure security in the face of looming military and demographic threats? Long a critic of the "Occupation," Shavit argues that Israel's future depends not only on giving up that land but on coming to terms with those displaced by Zionism. VERDICT Shavit's case for a more inclusive 21st-century Israel will interest all those following Israel's struggles.--Joel Neuberg, Santa Rosa Junior Coll. Lib., CA
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 15, 2013
Shavit is a columnist for the center-left Israeli daily Haaretz. Unlike some on the Israeli Left, he isn't an anti-Zionist provocateur. Rather, he is a fervently patriotic Israeli with an abiding love for his nation's history and the best of its traditions and institutions. So his honest and sometimes brutally frank portrait of his homeland's past and its present dilemmas is especially poignant. Shavit's narrative is strongest when he utilizes the stories of individual Israelis to paint a rich tableau based on personal experiences. What emerges isn't necessarily optimistic. He regards the current peace process as a dead end, since no Palestinian leader or government can guarantee an agreement that offers the necessary security for Israel. Yet his own military experience on the West Bank has convinced him that control over Palestinians is poisonous and cannot be sustained. Finally, he makes clear that Iran truly is an existential threat that must, somehow, be neutralized. This is a masterful portrait of contemporary Israel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)