Book picks similar to
Israel, Palestine and Peace: Essays by Amos Oz
history
essays
jewish
politics
It's Easier to Reach Heaven Than the End of the Street: A Jerusalem Memoir
Emma Williams - 2006
A month later the second Palestinian Intifada erupted. For the next three years she worked with Palestinians in Ramallah by day and spent her time with Israelis in Tel Aviv. This is her story.
Walking Israel: A Personal Search for the Soul of a Nation
Martin Fletcher - 2010
With its dense history of endless conflict and biblical events, Israel's coastline is by far the most interesting hundred miles in the world. As longtime chief of NBC's Tel Aviv news bureau, Martin Fletcher is in a unique position to interpret Israel, and he brings it off in a spectacular and novel manner. Last year he strolled along the entire coast, from Lebanon to Gaza, observing facets of the country that are ignored in news reports, yet tell a different and truer story. "Walking Israel "is packed with hilarious moments, historical insights, emotional, true-life tales, and, above all, great storytelling.
Warrior: An Autobiography
Ariel Sharon - 1989
A hero in Israel's wars, perhaps the most daring and successful commander in Israel's extraordinary military history, Sharon has always been a warrior, whether the enemies were hostile Arab nations, terrorists, Time magazine, or rival politicians. The public man is well known -- aggressive in battle, hard-line in politics -- but the private man has always been obscured by Sharon's dazzling career and powerful personality. In this compelling and dramatic auto-biography, the real Sharon appears for the first time: a complex man, a loving father, a figure of courage and compassion. He is a warrior who commands the respect and love of his troops, a visionary, and an uncompromising, ruthless pragmatist. Sharon tells his story with frankness, power, intelligence, and a brilliant gift for detail. Always controversial, he is as outspoken as his friends -- and enemies -- would expect him to be.
Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics
Marc Lamont Hill - 2021
policy in the region In this major work of daring criticism and analysis, scholar and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill and Israel-Palestine expert Mitchell Plitnick spotlight how holding fast to one-sided and unwaveringly pro-Israel policies reflects the truth-bending grip of authoritarianism on both Israel and the United States. Except for Palestine deftly argues that progressives and liberals who oppose regressive policies on immigration, racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and other issues must extend these core principles to the oppression of Palestinians. In doing so the authors take seriously the political concerns and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians, demonstrating the extent to which U.S. policy has made peace harder to attain. They also unravel the conflation of advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. Hill and Plitnick provide a timely and essential intervention by examining multiple dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including Israel's growing disdain for democracy, the effects of occupation on Palestine, the siege of Gaza, diminishing American funding for Palestinian relief, and the campaign to stigmatize any critique of Israeli occupation. Except for Palestine is a searing polemic and a cri de coeur for elected officials, activists, and everyday citizens alike to align their beliefs and politics with their values.
The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, The West, and The Future of the Holy City
Dore Gold - 2006
With the United Nations untrustworthy and global jihad making waves, the city is a ticking time bomb. Gold shows why only Israel can preserve its sanctuaries for different religions and why uncovering Jerusalem's past and biblical truths prove crucial to saving it.
Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel -- Why Everything You Know Is Wrong
John Stossel - 2006
But movies, TV shows, and other reporting about marriage never feature that fact. • Do we have less free time than we used to? Countless news stories and anecdotes from friends and family make the overwhelming case that we're running ourselves ragged. But when people actually keep track of their activities in a time diary, studies show that we have significantly more free time per day than in 1965. So why is everyone out of time?• Surburban sprawl is ruining America. Huge subdivisions and massive highway construction is eating up our free space and affecting our quality of life. Isn't that what you always hear? So why do you never hear that 95% of America is undeveloped, or that so-called 'smart development' prices lower-income families out of property ownership?• Also: Does shaving make your hair grow back thicker? Do girls feel more pressure to have sex than boys? Are gas prices really through the roof? Is outsourcing bad for American workers?John Stossel takes on these and many more misconceptions, misunderstandings, and plain old stupidity in this collection that will offer much to love for old GIVE ME A BREAK fans, and show everyone why conventional wisdom--economic, political, or social--is wrong.
Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Mitchell G. Bard - 2001
Israel's roots. The Arab-Israeli wars. The United Nations. The refugees. The treatment of Jews in Arab/Islamic countries. Human rights in Israel and the territories. The Palestinian War. Jerusalem. U.S. Middle East policy. The peace process. Settlements. The arms balance. The media. Arab/Muslim attitudes toward Israel. New maps and charts."--P. [4] of cover.
A Land Without Borders: My Journey Around East Jerusalem and the West Bank
Nir Baram - 2015
An honest and troubling snapshot of Israel—both Palestinian and Israeli—that reveals the creeping realization that a two-state solution may no longer be possible."—Kirkus (starred review)Throughout their youth Nir Baram’s generation were bombarded with news about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—the injustices, the wrongdoings, the killings. Over the decades, the horror and despair had become habit—he noticed people had begun to give up on the possibility of resolution. Yet, as Baram notes, ‘the vast majority of Israelis—as well as international onlookers— know next to nothing about life on the West Bank, the area at the heart of the conflict they have spent their adult lives dissecting’. Most have never visited the occupied territories, and thus ‘the debate revolves around a theoretical, ill-defined area sketched out in our political imagination.’This book of reportage emerged from the author’s realization that Israel is separated from the West Bank not only by checkpoints but also, more significantly, by a cognitive barrier. And so began his quest to understand the occupation from both sides. The result is an essential and nuanced journey through places and experiences that receive little coverage.Baram, widely considered one of the most important intellectual voices in Israel today, faces painful challenges to his personal political views and his hopes for a more peaceful future.Nir Baram has worked as a journalist, editor, and advocate for Palestinian rights. He is the author of five novels in Hebrew. In 2010 he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Hebrew Literature.
On Nationalism
Romila Thapar - 2016
It is also one of the most hotly contested ideas of the twenty-first century. In this book, some of our finest thinkers and writers provide calm, measured insights into the origins, nature, practice and future of Indian nationalism.
Lenin the Dictator
Victor Sebestyen - 2017
In Russia to this day Lenin inspires adulation. Everywhere, he continues to fascinate as a man who made history, and who created a new kind of state that would later be imitated by nearly half the countries in the world.Lenin believed that the 'the political is the personal', and while in no way ignoring his political life, Sebestyen focuses on Lenin the man - a man who loved nature almost as much as he loved making revolution, and whose closest ties and friendships were with women. The long-suppressed story of his ménage a trois with his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and his mistress and comrade, Inessa Armand, reveals a different character to the coldly one-dimensional figure of legend.Told through the prism of Lenin's key relationships, Sebestyen's lively biography casts a new light on the Russian Revolution, one of the great turning points of modern history.
The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews
David Mamet - 2006
20,000 first prin
War and Our World
John Keegan - 1998
The themes Keegan concentrates on in this short volume are essential to our understanding of why war remains the single greatest affliction of humanity in the twenty-first century, surpassing famine and disease, its traditional companions.
Arguing About War
Michael Walzer - 2004
Now, for the first time since his classic Just and Unjust Wars was published almost three decades ago, this volume brings together his most provocative arguments about contemporary military conflicts and the ethical issues they raise. The essays in the book are divided into three sections. The first deals with issues such as humanitarian intervention, emergency ethics, and terrorism. The second consists of Walzer’s responses to particular wars, including the first Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And the third presents an essay in which Walzer imagines a future in which war might play a less significant part in our lives. In his introduction, Walzer reveals how his thinking has changed over time. Written during a period of intense debate over the proper use of armed force, this book gets to the heart of difficult problems and argues persuasively for a moral perspective on war.
The World As I See It
Albert Einstein - 1934
Their attitude towards Einstein is like that of Mark Twain towards the writer of a work on mathematics: here was a man who had written an entire book of which Mark could not understand a single sentence. Einstein, therefore, is great in the public eye partly because he has made revolutionary discoveries which cannot be translated into the common tongue. We stand in proper awe of a man whose thoughts move on heights far beyond our range, whose achievements can be measured only by the few who are able to follow his reasoning and challenge his conclusions. There is, however, another side to his personality. It is revealed in the addresses, letters, and occasional writings brought together in this book. These fragments form a mosaic portrait of Einstein the man. Each one is, in a sense, complete in itself; it presents his views on some aspect of progress, education, peace, war, liberty, or other problems of universal...
Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968
Heda Margolius Kovály - 1973
It also illuminates the chaotic life of a nation during the Stalin era.