Solid historical guidance for policymakers and students of the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum.
Profiles in leadership spotlighting four towering figures in Israeli history who took great “risks for an elusive peace”—and why those qualities are needed in our current time.
American authors Ross and Makovsky (co-authors: Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East, 2009) are both passionately committed to Israeli-Palestinian peace and diplomacy and believe the current Israeli leadership cannot deliver the solution. They observe that long-term Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not believe peace with the Palestinians is in his political interest and is allowing the issue to drift inexorably toward the establishment of a binational state. The authors offer the instructive examples of David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon as guides for the next step. Though all were flawed leaders, they all were “able to see risks clearly and understand which ones had to be run and not avoided,” and they were “willing to make very lonely decisions.” Founding father Ben-Gurion maintained a single-minded determination to establish a Zionist state, a desire magnified by the Holocaust, although he grasped the terrible cost of a war with the Arab neighbors; he was willing to compromise, when needed, though he did not foresee the growth of the religious right. Begin, former leader of the paramilitary underground, led the conservative coalition Likud to leadership in 1977, seizing the moment of making peace with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat (thanks to U.S. mediation) and ending “the virtually constant threat of war looming over Israel during its last three decades.” Rabin also understood the need for concessions, despite the awful political consequences, and Sharon, the early architect of the building of settlements, rehabilitated himself, after a controversial military career, by making the decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and recognizing Palestinian statehood. The choice for the next leaders, write the authors, is “whether [Israel] remains Jewish and democratic.”
Solid historical guidance for policymakers and students of the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5417-6765-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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