This book was published in 1989 by a New York Times journalist who covered the Beirut, Lebanon crisis that took place in the early 1980s. The author assumes you already know about the events. He relates many back stories, sometimes with a sense of humor and always with information about the culture and customs. The last third of this book explains, from the author's point of view, how Israel decided to keep on settling in the West Bank without concern for its affect on the Palestinians while claiming to be a democratic country. I found this last part of the book to be quite illuminating.