A cleareyed study that sounds a serious alarm for the future of Israel—a must for any library’s collection on the conflict.
Evenhanded summary of Arab-Israeli relations since the beginning of the Zionist settlements 100 years ago.
“For the past fifty years,” writes Slater, a retired political science professor, “I have been studying, teaching, and writing about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and have many close connections in that country.” In this highly valuable contribution to the subject, the author combs secondary sources—he does not read Hebrew but notes that most studies are translated immediately into English—offering a "work of synthesis and interpretation of the existing literature." Slater is especially influenced by the so-called new historians such as Ilan Pappé, Benny Morris, and Avi Shlaim, and he essentially provides a systematic refutation of Abba Eban's famously snide 1973 comment: “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” As Slater points out, along with Israeli aggression in the region, the U.S. has become a willing and noncritical ally. The author first debunks the myths that both Israel and the U.S. have long held regarding the founding of Israel—e.g., the "underdog" argument, the religious argument, and "Arab intransigence" argument, among others. Writing about the nature of Zionism, he shows that, “despite the Israeli mythology, the evidence is irrefutable that [David] Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders were not willing to compromise over Palestine and therefore 'accepted' the 1947 UN partition plan only as a temporary tactic to gain time until Israel was strong enough to take over all of Palestine." Moving meticulously through the many relevant conflicts—1948, 1956, 1967, the Cold War, and wars with Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt—to the present, the author argues convincingly that Israeli officials have often worked from a policy of deliberate provocation. Slater concludes with the Trump plan, which makes a two-state solution nearly impossible.
A cleareyed study that sounds a serious alarm for the future of Israel—a must for any library’s collection on the conflict.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-19-045908-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
