Facing a Cruel Mirror: Israel's Moment of Truth - Hardcover

Bar-Zohar, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684191946 ISBN 13: 9780684191942

Publisher: Scribner, 1990

Synopsis

Examines the history of Israel's policies and their consequences--and the men behind them--and proposes a plan for the resolution of the Palestinian conflict

About this title

From Library Journal:

To outsiders, Israeli domestic affairs frequently appear to border on the hysterical. Bar-Zohar, a veteran Israeli soldier, advisor to Moshe Dayan, and author of Ben Gurion: A Biography (Adama Pubs. Inc., 1986), tries to explains why this is so by analyzing the frustrations, failures, and never-ending search for coherent identity that underlies the Israeli cause. Bar-Zohar criticizes the Israeli political machine, illustrating how peace initiatives over several decades have been thwarted by party politics. Yet, as Bar-Zohar's frequent references to Bulgarian-, Moroccan-, and Yemeni-Jews indicate, Israel's divisiveness is not limited to politics, but includes deep-rooted religious and racial differences. Although Bar-Zohar is critical of religious parties as obstructionist elements in the body politic, he takes solace in the moral superiority of Israeli soldiers, and thus offers little here to solve Israel's conflict. For larger Middle Eastern studies collections.
- Joseph A. Kechichian, La Cana da, Cal.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Bar-Zohar asserts that Israel's downhill slide began under the reign of inflexible if charismatic Golda Meir, who "furiously denied the existence of a Palestinian people." A member of the Knesset, journalist, soldier, Ben-Gurion's biographer and author of spy novels (under the pseudonyms Michael Hastings and Michael Barak), Bar-Zohar offers scathing closeups of well-known figures. Shimon Peres "surrounds himself only with yes-men." Menachem Begin ran "the most unbalanced, reckless government Israel had ever had." A gifted writer, Bar-Zohar presents a remarkably vivid portrayal of Israeli politics and society from the 1967 Six Day War to the Intifada. He opposes a separate Palestinian state but favors the creation of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation which would include most of the now-occupied territories. In support of this proposal, he notes that most Jordanians today are Palestinian.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0684191946
• ISBN 13: 9780684191942
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 246