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History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER â?˘ NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today Not since Thomas L. Friedmanâ??s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land. Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own familyâ??s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension. We meet Shavitâ??s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestineâ??s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europeâ??s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israelâ??s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Avivâ??s booming club scene; and todayâ??s architects of Israelâ??s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country. As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in todayâ??s global political landscape. Praise for My Promised Land â??This book will sweep you up in its narrative force and not let go of you until it is done. [Shavitâ??s] accomplishment is so unlikely, so total . . . that it makes you believe anything is possible, even, God help us, peace in the Middle East.â?ťâ??Simon Schama, Financial Times â??[A] must-read book.â?ťâ??Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times â??Important and powerful . . . the least tendentious book about Israel I have ever read.â?ťâ??Leon Wieseltier, The New York Times Book Review â??Spellbinding . . . Shavitâ??s prophetic voice ca… (more)
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There are a number of things I really liked about this book. First and foremost is that Ari Shavit is willing to tackle the tough issues and willing to let you know what he feels about them. There's no sense that this is a whitewash: he's a Left-leaning, Occupation-hating journalist who is convinced his country is headed on the path of possible self-destruction. At the same time, there's no sense that this is a rant by a chronically disaffected anti-Zionist: his conviction that Israel was and is necessary, and his belief that it is a unique social force in the world is all too evident.
Another thing that I liked was that, despite letting you know how he feels, he is willing to give the opposite bench equal time in the debate. He, the Ashkenazi descendant of the country's founders, lets you meet his friend, Gal Gabai, the dark-skinned, Moroccan Sephardic Jew who sits on the other side of the debate about whether Israel should be secular. And he introduces us to another friend, Mohammed Dahla, the first Palestinian to clerk in the Israeli Supreme Court and who now spends his time representing Palestinian terrorists on trial.
The result is that you understand that...to twist a quote from the movie The American President..."Israel isn't easy. Israel is advanced citizenship." If there were easy answers, there are enough smart people over there who would have figured it out. But there aren't and, so, there is this nation of people who have done amazing things and terrible things, who have said, "Enough!" to the pogroms and the Holocaust, but who have committed their own pogroms and created their own ghettos.
Shavit is a born story teller. Despite being — largely — a history book, the stories suck you right in whether he's talking about the challenges of that first kibbutz at Ein Harod, about the reclamation of Masada, or about the nightclub mindset of today's young generation. With so much to like, is there anything I didn't? Well, I would have cut the last 30 pages. This book would have ended perfectly with his reflections on Israel's future in nuclear-powered Iran age. The final chapter, which was largely just a mental vacation drive across his country, was anticlimactic.
However, that still leaves 385 pages well worth reading.
My Promised Land is Shavit's personalized history of the State of Israel, based on interviews with hundreds of Israelis--Jews and Arabs, men and women, descendants of early immigrants, Holocaust survivors, displaced Palestinians, prosperous business leaders, authors, orange growers, fighter pilots. It is also a rational, frank and honest look at how that country came into being, what it cost and continues to cost both Israelis and Palestinians, and what it means to the larger world in the 21st century. It reads like a generational saga destined to become a sweeping mini-series of the caliber of John Adams or Shogun. Not once is the narrative flow blocked by a chunk of dry facts, and yet this book is loaded with facts. My ARC is dog-eared and page-pointed as though I expected to be comprehensively tested on its contents. The things I learned...they could fill a book. They do fill a book, a very fine book that is important, beautiful and profound. Shavit's love of his native land is not blind, but rather extremely insightful, accepting and forgiving her sins, but never trying to conceal them. He is eloquent in describing the seemingly insoluble problem, the tragedy of a clash between one very powerful, very convincing claim over this land, and another no less powerful, no less convincing claim. "I am haunted by the notion that we hold them by the balls and they hold us by the throat. We squeeze and they squeeze back. We are trapped by them and they are trapped by us. And every few years the conflict takes on a new form, ever more gruesome...The tragedy ends one chapter and begins another, but the tragedy never ends."
All history should be written this well. Highly recommended.
Shavit takes the reader through the history of Israel by honing in on one or two events per decade per chapter. Shavit begins with the journey to Palestine, 1897, of his great-grandfather, an English Jew and gentleman who was sympathetic to the need for a Jewish state. Thus Shavit's story is inexorably entwined with Israel. Shavit moves forward at a steady clip, jumping from decade to decade, capturing the remarkable development of the Jewish settlements and, eventually, the Israeli state. His chapter on the establishment of the first kibbutz is particularly well done.
The pace of the book begins to drag a bit as Shavit catches up to recent decades, particularly the beginning of the settlement movement in the 1970s. This is somewhat paradoxical, since these developments are the most relevant to our understanding of recent Middle Eastern history. Still, readers will find here insight that will add nuance to the snippets they here on the evening news. An interview with one of Shavit's Palestinian friends is particularly interesting.
A remarkably well written, heroically scoped memoir/history recommended to readers who are willing to be open-minded and balanced in their approach to Israel and the Middle East.
Shavit shows us how both the right and the left in Israel today have flaws in their grasp of where Israel is in relation to the Palestinians, the Arab world, indeed, even America. He is blunt, bruising, argumentative but illuminating as he cuts away at justifications of former and would-be leaders. The underpinnings of their stance are revealed in this way.
We know where Shavit stands:
”…the choice is clear: either reject Zionism because of (the expulsion of Palestinians from) Lydda, or accept Zionism along with Lydda. One thing is clear to me: the brigade commander and the military governor were right to get angry at the bleeding-heart Israeli liberals of later years who condemn what they did in Lydda but enjoy the fruits of their deed. I condemn Bulldozer. I reject the sniper. But I will not damn the brigade commander and the military governor and the training group boys. On the contrary. If need be, I’ll stand by the damned. Because I know that if it wasn’t for them, the State of Israel would not have been born. If it wasn’t for them, I would not have been born. They did the dirty, filthy work that enables my people, myself, my daughter, and my sons to live.” (p. 131)
The following passage was one of the most revealing and enlightening to me for it gave me a perspective I had not considered: ”Israel of the 1950s was a state on steroids: more and more people, more and more cities, more and more villages, more and more of everything. But although development was rampant, social gaps were narrow. The government was committed to full employment. There was a genuine effort to provide every person with housing, work, education, and health care. The newborn state was one of the most egalitarian democracies in the world. The Israel of the 1950s was a just social democracy. But it was also a nation of practicality that combined modernity, nationalism, and development in an aggressive manner. There was no time, and there was no peace of mind, and therefore there was no human sensitivity. As the state became everything, the individual was marginalized. As it marched toward the future, Israel erased the past. There was no place for the previous landscape, no place for previous identities. Everything was done en masse. Everything was imposed from above. There was an artificial quality to everything. Zionism was not an organic process anymore but a futuristic coup. For its outstanding economic, social, and engineering achievements, the new Israel paid a dear moral price. There was no notion of human rights, civil rights, due process, or laissez-faire. There was no equality for the Palestinian minority and no compassion for the Palestinian refugees. There was little respect for the Jewish Diaspora and little empathy for the survivors of the Holocaust. Ben Gurion’s statism and monolithic rule compelled the nation forward.”(p. 151)
Shavit seems to mourn, to regret, that the folks who were instrumental in setting up and continuing the success of the Israeli state seemed not to know what they were doing in terms of outcomes. The folks he is talking about were big, big in every way: in society, in influence, in action, and that they should have taken more care to think how their actions would affect the present and the future of Israel (and I would add, the world). But they were only men. Only human. They did the best they could at what they were best at. Most of us would be proud to have that written on our gravestones. But we now have to ask ourselves, “is this the best we can do?” The legacy of these folks is unacceptable.
Shavit begins with the historical underpinnings of the state of Israel, but by the end he admits the “binding historical narrative has fallen apart.” One almost wishes it were possible to begin again, starting back when land was actually purchased rather than stolen. Shavit acknowledges it is difficult to ignore the truth of displaced Palestinians. “What I see and hear here is an entire population of ours…imprisoning am entire population of theirs. This is a phenomenon without parallel in the West. This is systematic brutality no democracy can endure.” Whatever else Israel has succeeded in accomplishing must be paired with this bald fact.
But many in Israel are willing to live with this. Even Shavit claims it gives his people the edge (“quick, vital, creative”) that living under the “looming shadow of a smoking volcano” brings. Some “harbor in their heart a great belief in a great war, which will be their only salvation.” Well. (pause) Do I need to add that this does not seem much of a solution?
It was difficult for me to finish reading this book. My emotions roiled as I read the bulk of Shavit’s narrative, and at some point I exclaimed, “thank god for Shavit,” for he is willing to struggle with hard truths and face them like a leader. But I felt I was finished before I got to Shavit’s concluding chapter.
This exhaustive (and exhausting) catalog of personal histories, slights and wrongs, achievements and successes, thoughts and second thoughts about who really deserves to be in Israel and Palestine culminated in me wanting to say “just do it.” Now that everyone has had their say and we understand all…just fix it.
The contrast between Israel’s self-congratulation on one hand (we have so much talent, wealth, ambition, vision) and despair on the other (we have no friends, and so many enemies, we must actually bomb sovereign states to feel safe) is stark. But the state of Israel may be facing what every nation appears to be facing these days: a more divided electorate that hews to less moderate viewpoints, growing ever more radical and less tolerant by the year. While it is possible for me to feel empathy for individuals, it is difficult for me to feel sorry for a nation.
I did read the end of Shavit’s book. He is not optimistic. We all have reason for despair, but real leadership refuses to acknowledge the same boundaries that constrain the rest of us. It seems clear that we all want someone else to do the hard work of compromise and “leading” for us, and we wait for someone else to appear…when we really should all be thinking now, in this age of global warning and divided nations: What have we wrought?
Because I did.
Immensely.
Shavit takes the
Shavit discusses the bad as well. Such as their willingness to ignore the Arab prescence already living in Palestine and how they had to other facts or gloss them over in order to survive. He elaborates on how Israel has change with current climate. It has become more open. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the night club owner. Israel is slowly becoming more open about homosexuality. But it was also sad about the prevalent drug use among the young people. Just another way to survive.
There were other aspects and chapters that were incredibly interesting. I like the chapter on the nuclear power plant the best. It was intriguing as how the Israelies saw it as a means of protection but recognized it as a very dangerous weapon. Learning about Israel as a whole made me realized how much I didn't even know and never knew about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I hate when great books make me feel ignorant but I appreciated it.
Shavit's My Promised Land is the epitome of love. He is a left wing but was incredibly objective during his interviews. He got passionate but he listened and kept his anger in check. I believed his love and adoration for his country. He was inspired by Israel but aware of its shortcomings.
It was obvious to me from the very beginning of this fascinating and informative book that for Ari
As Shavit puts it, "Israel is a nation-state founded in the heart of the Arab world... A wide circle of 350 million Arabs surrounds the Zionist state and threatens its very existence." An inner circle of 10 million Palestinians also poses a threat to Israel's ability to survive. Given those numbers, Israel doesn't appear to have much going for it. Unless, of course, the sheer will power to exist as a free society is taken into account. Israel is continued proof that people with one specific goal in mind, the right and necessity to have and keep a homeland, is motivation enough to succeed no matter what the cost.
The subtitle to My Promised Land is 'The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel'. Shavit begins his story with the arrival in Jaffa of 30 passengers from London, England, among whom is is his great-grandfather, Herbert Bentwich. It is Bentwich who believes that Jews must settle in their ancient homeland. Shavit follows the route his great-grandfather took upon arrival in Jaffa, and he continues throughout the book to visit all the areas in which early settlers were faced with challenge after challenge in learning how to live productively in places that were essentially undeveloped. He tells how these settlers learned to work the land. If technology did not exist to support their activity, they invented it themselves. The dedication of those people was awe inspiring. They had to be creative, practical, and find sources of income to support these new ideas in agriculture which led to more development in other areas of setting up a life style. Those early years were full of back breaking labor, but no matter what the challenge someone always came through with answers. As a result the orange industry grew in Jaffa which distributed the fruit throughout Europe.
There are many success stories throughout Israel's history many of which I was unaware. What stands out most about the story of the Jews who came to settle the Israeli state is those who survived the Holocaust. Before Shavit details that, he writes about Masada. For me, that is one of the most heart breaking, and yet inspiring, events in history. I was familiar with the Masada story, but I did not know about the events in the 20th century that led to the revisiting of Masada as a historical shrine. I found Shavit's retelling of the Masada story to be riveting.
There are times when Shavit makes very clear his opinions on certain events in Israel's history, particularly those decisions with which he does not agree. He holds strong opinions about Israel's development of nuclear weapons as well as the continuing struggle over Israel's Occupation of disputed Palestinian territory. I do not agree with some of the conclusions Shavit draws on those two subjects in particular. The Israeli people have been persecuted for thousands of years, and there was a well thought out plan to annihilate the entire Jewish population from the face of the earth. In view of that history, I believe Israel has every right to do what it needs to do to protect itself. There was no voice of reason dominant enough to stop the murder of over 6 million people. There were no effective "peaceniks" speaking out nor taking the measures necessary to stop the murder of so many innocent people. For me, that's a lesson learned. If Israel doesn't stick up for its own, no one else is going to do it for them. I think it's easy to sit back and take a moralistic attitude; it's much more difficult to live each day knowing the Arab world does not follow that same lofty position.
With that said, I still highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Israel along with the dedication of the men and women who brought a dream of statehood to fruition. Shavit does an excellent job of presenting all sides of the issues Israel faced in the past and what they will have to face in the future if they want to remain a viable global entity. I wish I could give this book a rating higher than 5 Stars. It's worth at least a 10.
This was an Early Reviewer copy sent by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
If you're old enough to remember the words "And, YOU were there!" then I can tell you
I also appreciate the author's perspective. As a Jew, I've had more than a niggling doubt about Israel. I feel the author tackled it nicely--blending history with the here and now--both realities.
And you'll never eat a Jaffa orange again without thinking about this book! I highly recommend this to both Jews and historians.
The author portrays an account of the history of Israel that mixes fiction and non-fiction. He is the omniscient narrator
During the course of the book, he tends to downplay or ignore the deaths of the Jews or Israelis at the hands of the Arabs or Palestinians. He portrays the displacement of the Arabs in the Galilee in 1948 but virtually ignores the deaths of the Jews throughout Israel during the War of Independence. He ignores the continual Jewish presence in Jerusalem from ancient times until 1948 and minimizes any ties to the land that was settled by the Jews.
Given that premise, it is difficult to evaluate the other aspects of the book. But it is clear from the lack of the portrayal of the infitadas that the perspective continues throughout.
The author clearly is tied to his country but given his perspective, it is difficult to understand why he stays there. His only excuse, is seemingly, that it is the only nation where Jews can thrive as Jews.
He almost has the perspective of Groucho Marx who stated that he would not want to belong to any club who would have him as a member. The author seems apologetic for his own existence.
This is a very readable book and has some value.
There is much to learn and much to be said about Israel, and Ari Shavit succeeds in coming to the conclusion that it's complicated. There is no easy solution for the Holy Land. If you read this book you will learn much about the conflict and probably change your position several times, possibly not arriving at a conclusion.
If you are interested in the land that is today Israel, you will find much to ponder in this book, and I don't mind if you disagree with my feelings about Mr. Shavit's writing style.
Ari Shavit draws not only on his family's own story, but interviews and other historical documents to tell the story of the Zionist movement and the creation of modern day Israel. Ari provides the reader with a deeply moving and and deeply personal story about Israel,
I recommend this book to history and foreign policy fans. 4 out of 5 stars.
Ari Shavit is a columnist and political Leftist but he provides a thorough even handed look at the modern day crisis in Israel. From the first Pilgrims in 1897 he has the ability to inhabit what it felt like to be one of them, often using first person accounts through an exhaustive interview process; he can trace history, the feeling, and the despair of the first years and the extreme difficulty in establishing a new state in an existing state. Shavit can draw the line recognizing the need for this new state but also knows where righteousness meets theft and how this displacement would haunt Israel. His book follows many books coming out that are covering the same topics such as We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel's Jews from Arab Lands by Rachel Shabi (Shavit covers this in the J’accuse chapter) and the short story collection The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu (which Avit captures in Gaza Beach and Sex, Drugs, and the Israeli Condition) and many from the Palestinian perspective such as I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish.
In one book he is able to encompass the many crises of Israel, from first founding, to pushing out the Palestinians, the wars, occupation, military duty, and the change in Israeli culture. His fears are best summarized in the last chapter. His intent to bring up the topics in this book is for Israel to look at itself and prepare for the future. Will Israel continue 50 years on 100? How can they survive with this identity crisis along with this circle of hate that surrounds them? This thorough work will be eye-opening for any newcomer to Israeli history and an easy introduction, but Shavit is also able to deal with the more advanced issues in a readable and approachable manner. This is the book to read on modern day Israel.
What made this book different from all of the other books I've read about this subject so far is that unlike most
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