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Books
If you'd like to get more facts about Israel and its history, here's a book
I highly recommend:
The history of modern Israel is a search for security and peace -- an elusive,
tragic search at best. Martin Gilbert's history can be viewed as slanted toward
Israel, but that would miss his point, which is that Israelis have
self-consciously wished for and worked for peaceful and fruitful co-existence
with their neighbors and with the Palestinians from the beginning.
Certainly,
there have been grave misdeeds by Israelis (and Arabs) that have resulted in
senseless loss of life. But if we go off on that track we will never see what
Gilbert's point really means. What both sides would likely acknowledge is that
the idea of peaceful coexistence has been more seriously entertained by Israelis
than by Arabs -- Palestinian and otherwise.
If this book is one-sided then it is
so because because Gilbert has revealed this critical asymmetry in a way that
has not been made clear before. The book is overflowing with details, anecdotes,
portraits and asides that lend it an splendid depth. Yet the author never
indulges himself in the sort of speculative forays that might confer color to
his work at the expense of careful historical analysis. As a result, there is a
critical neutrality toward the facts, with a minimum of bias, emotion or
polemic.
Perhaps the most emotional part of the book surrounds the events
leading up to the assassination of Rabin, a masterful, moving account the whole
world should read. Gilbert does not provide an argument for the Labor party or a
brief against the Palestinians. Instead, he draws out the tragic dimension of a
lost opportunity for peace in a part of the world where peace seems always
beyond the pale.
In the end, this is a hopeful, though sober and cautious work,
and certainly not a book that favors one or the other side. It is a book that
should be read by both sides, not with the aim of quibbling about who is
represented more favorably, but to see how fragile is the chance for peace and
how a knowledge of this brief history of Israel can aid in the efforts to bring
about stability and justice for all in this long-suffering part of the world.
(review by Irwin
Savodnik, MD, Ph.D. from Rancho Palos Verdes, CA USA)
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