Inside Israel: The Faiths, the People, and the Modern Conflicts of the World's Holiest Land

by John Miller (Editor), Aaron Kenedi (Editor)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to crescendo, bringing with it the worst violence in the Middle East in decades. Now Inside Israel helps make sense of the region's longstanding travails, detailing the past, present, and future of a place that has been holy to Jews, Christians, and Arabs for thousands of years. Organized into three sections—the History, a Day in the Life, and the Peace Process—the collection includes nonfiction pieces by a distinguished roster of writers, historians, journalists, and scholars. David Grossman offers a portrait of Palestinians on the West Bank, Saul Bellow captures the "length and depth" of Jerusalem's history while Robert Stone considers the capital's future, and Hendrik Hertzberg analyzes the current conflict and how the U.S. needs to be involved in a peaceful solution. Other writings include contributions by David Remnick, Karen Armstrong, David Grossman, Saul Bellow, Robert Kaplan, Robert Stone, David Shipler, Deborah Sontag, Anthony Lewis, and many others. The state of this holy, contested land makes this is an essential book for everyone seeking new levels of understanding about the place whose fate, now more than ever, impacts the entire world.

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2002

About the author

John Miller has edited a number of intriguing anthologies for Chronicle Books, including Lust and White Rabbit. He runs Big Fish Books, a packaging company in San Francisco.

Reviews

[C M · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Inside Israel" is a collection of accessible readings on the history and present of the religion and politics of Israel. Most chapters are written by academics and/or journalists with extensive experience and knowledge of life in Israel and have been previously published as parts of books or as articles in US magazines.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I deals with "The History" and includes four fairly long articles. It is of particular interest to people interested in history and religion, but not (very) knowledgeable about Israel (a small group, I would think). I particularly enjoyed the chapter by Meron Benvenisti, former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, who makes some interesting points on the contemporary context. Part II is entitled "A Day In the Life" and deals with life and politics in contemporary Israel, including the Occupied Territories -- mostly during the late 1980s. It is my favorite part, particularly for providing also some insight into the lives of Palestinians (particularly by Grossman and Sontag). Grossman's chapter is one of the longest and one of the best, O'Rourke's is both stimulating and annoying at the same time, while Hoffman's chapter is the weakest. Part III is entitled "The Peace Process" and includes very short pieces on the Oslo Accords, mostly from a nostalgic perspective. It is the only part with a Palestinian author, the famed Edward Said.

Overall the book provides a highly readable and very useful introduction to the topic, particularly for those turned off by more academic sources. It is, however, very much written from a Zionist perspective, i.e. all authors but Said fully embrace Zionism, while the critical authors mainly lament the perceived perversions of the overall good ideal.