This book was not easy to read (I am not an academic!) but well worth the effort. I understood the need for clarity and detail, but found it difficult to take in all the time. The author is refreshingly unbiased and exceedingly well researched. He never takes sides. Most interesting for me were all the facts which came to light - facts which have purposefully been ignored by the western media. This is a good book to read if you want to know what really goes on in Israel, and if you are tired of the name-calling and the blame game that the west has trust down our throats for the past 60 years.
Tired of being ignorant of what it is exactly that the Israelis and Palestinians are constantly fighting about I picked up this book. It serves as an excellent historical survey of Israel and Palestine as well as explaining the political standpoints in an unbiased way, along with cultural sketches of the different peoples that inhabit/occupy these countries.
Facing this masterpieace, i shocked: it destroyed all my belief concerning politics in Middle East. with the important face that i am a muslim, i faced with a book talking about things i cannot believed: that world is completely different ... i Love this book: this text remind me of the past that all of us (Jews, Muslims, etc) lost. i recommend this book to all the people concerning todays life in Middle East ...
Un exposé en profondeur des sociétés israélienne et palestinienne. Tous les grands événements depuis la création de l'état d'Israël ainsi que les aléas du conflit avec lequel nous avons tous grandi. Accessible, intelligent, complet, juste et rempli d'espoir. Cinq étoiles.