Didn't feel right giving it a 4 or even a 5 despite the fact that Part I was brilliant. Part II was also highly enjoyable, however I may have missed tDidn't feel right giving it a 4 or even a 5 despite the fact that Part I was brilliant. Part II was also highly enjoyable, however I may have missed the point of the ending because even upon finishing it I felt it left a bit of a question mark in my mind for a couple of days....more
A beautiful book that deals with racial oppression, violence against women, religion, family, friendships, and love. The book starts slow and choppy bA beautiful book that deals with racial oppression, violence against women, religion, family, friendships, and love. The book starts slow and choppy but once it hits its stride it's impossible to put down. Highly recommended to anyone interested in reading a realistic depiction of the life of a young black woman living in the American South....more
I normally don't like giving books 5 stars unless they've resonated with me months after I've finished them, or if the ending is particularly impressiI normally don't like giving books 5 stars unless they've resonated with me months after I've finished them, or if the ending is particularly impressive. In this case, I knew what the book would be about and I already knew how it would end. But knowing that didn't affect my appreciation of this book.
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is such an inspiring person who had to endure a tough childhood growing up in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He had to work endless hours as a child to earn every grain of rice on his plate, and even then remembers always being hungry and never having enough to eat. He studied hard and went through hell and back to become the respected doctor he is today, despite all the difficulties and humiliation involved: spending hours crossing the Erez border to get to Israel for work, being discriminated against purely for being a Palestinian, and being away from his family 5 days a week so he could earn enough money to provide for them. He's been through endless pain and suffering in his life, from being held up for hours by the Israeli border police and being barred from crossing when his wife was on her deathbed just miles away, to witnessing the murder of his three daughters and niece by IDF bombs a few months later.
Yet despite everything he went through, he never let hatred take over his life. He describes hate as a chronic disease that needs to be eradicated, and explains the need for people to come together in unity rather than spend fruitless years hating each other. This message, when espoused in the context of his life and endless struggle, carries a lot of weight to it. If a man who has been through as much as Dr. Abuelaish has yet still finds it in his heart to forgive and communicate with the other side, then what excuse do we have?
I didn't think I would get anything out of this book, since I started it thinking I knew exactly what it would be about, but I was wrong. This book has opened my eyes and made me truly understand that the conflict will never come to an end if we are constantly picking sides. Communication, unity, and co-existence are the only way forward.
Thank you, Dr. Izzeldin, for spreading your message of peace....more
Barring the outstanding quality of this book and the depth of information presented within it, the fact that it took me ten months to finish The Iron Barring the outstanding quality of this book and the depth of information presented within it, the fact that it took me ten months to finish The Iron Wall is in itself a reason to take a few seconds of my time to comment on it.
This book is a mammoth, especially for someone like me who wouldn’t term themselves a ‘fast reader� by any means. It is so long, and so dense with facts, dates and events that I started off only reading about 10 pages a day before I had put it down in exhaustion. But the one thing that kept me coming back to it was Shlaim’s writing style and humanization of each Israeli prime minister.
The Iron Wall recounts every major event in Arab-Israeli history since Israel’s establishment, focusing on the Israeli government’s policies, motivations, reactions and internal politics. It’s a fascinating account of the internal affairs of one of the youngest and most controversial countries in the world.
It’s fair to say that this book is extremely Israeli-centric, in the sense that Shlaim delves deep into the psyche of each Israeli prime minister from David Ben-Gurion to Binyamin Netanyahu and explores their relationships with their surrounding ministers and cabinet. This seems like an obvious stylistic choice � almost inevitable, really � considering his emphasis is on Israel’s policies towards Arabs, and the prime minister is the ultimate policy- and decision-maker in Israel. Regardless, his choice to recount history in this way makes it more accessible and engaging because you start to anticipate what each PM will do given a particular problem. Each PM is so different, some more hardline (“hawkish�) and others more open to compromise (“dovish�) , and it’s interesting to see how the policies that come out of the government differ depending on which PM is currently in power. As the reader, you start to sympathise with some PMs more than others, depending on your personal stance on the matter.
Shlaim shows a clear distaste for the more hawkish prime ministers, but other than the occasional critical adjectives thrown in now and then this book is extremely objective and bases its content entirely on research from internal documents, state archives, interviews with senior officials and leaders, memoirs, and meeting minutes. You’d be hard pressed to find a more objective report on Israeli history.
Avi Shlaim is known as one of the best Israeli “new historians� and judging from this book he is very deserving of that reputation. He does a great job of dismantling the oft-repeated and frankly stale argument that Israel is a defenseless nation surrounded by aggressive and hostile Arab states, and reassembling it to show the truth on the ground, which is that since its establishment, Israel has been stubborn to the point of military aggression to ever compromise on any of the important problems that they themselves created: land, refugees, Palestinian rights and settlements. The only exception to this rule was during Yitzhak Rabin’s second term as prime minister, between the years of 1992 � 1995.
In short, this is a book that everyone should read, regardless of which “side� of the conflict you see yourself. It is a well-researched, highly authoritative book that lays out pretty much every important event that has occurred in Israel and in relation to Israel from 1947 to 1998....more
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