(Future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem as leader of the Irgun.  According to the British during and after World War II, Begin led this terrorist organization)

This past week’s news cycle has been dominated by the Iran nuclear talks and the reelection of Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli Prime Minister, two stories that are interrelated due to the politics of the Middle East.  Both situations have been parlayed by politicians to reinforce their own ideological agendas.  The results have been extremely negative with Republicans in Congress grand standing about a deal that has not been concluded, and PM Netanyahu’s somewhat racist comments about Arab voting, and his diplomatic dance surrounding his support or non-support of a two state solution in negotiations with the Palestinians.  The relationship between President Obama and Netanyahu have never been strong, and now have become even more dysfunctional.  The consequences of these events for the region are extremely important since the Arab-Israeli Conflict has produced four major wars, and a series of lesser wars since 1948.  It would be useful to revisit the history of the pre-1948 War and try to understand the background of the conflict that may never be settled.  All one has to do is think about the situation in Gaza last summer as Israel and Hamas exchanged missile strikes resulting in the destruction of a major part of the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.  In addition, the Palestinian community is split between the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and Hamas that governs the Gaza Strip.  Currently, the diplomatic game is at a standstill so Bruce Hoffman’s THE STRUGGLE FOR ISRAEL, 1917-1947 is both timely and important.

Mr. Hoffman, the Director of Security Studies at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Center raises the important question, “does terrorism work?  According to Hoffman “campaigns of terrorism depend on rational choice.”  It results from a group’s decision to oppose a government and is seen “as a logical means to advance desired ends.”(x)  Today in the Middle East there are a number of groups whose choice of terror fits this description; Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ISIS, and al-Qaeda’s many derivations.  Hoffman has chosen to concentrate on three groups that have been credited with convincing the British government to relinquish its League of Nations mandate over Palestine in 1947 that led to the creation of the state of Israel.  The book explores these three groups; the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi and determines that it was the Irgun that should be given most of the credit for forcing the British withdrawal.  If this is an accurate assumption, then according to Hoffman, terror, in this particular instance worked.

The title of the book is derived from a poem written by Abraham Stern, a messianic Zionist who implored Jews to fight for the creation of their own state; “We are the anonymous soldiers without uniform, Surrounded by fear and the shadow of death.  We have all been conscripted for life; from these ranks, only death will free us.” (96) The strategy embodied in the concept of anonymous soldiers was extended by the Irgun leader following World War II, and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.  Begin believed that Israeli freedom fighters (as opposed to terrorists) could blend into the general population and hide in its battle against the British.  He believed that all Jews who lived in the Yishuv were fighters for the creation of the Jewish state, a concept that the British accepted and as explained by the author based their counter-terrorism policy arguing that since the Jewish terrorists hid among and were assisted by the general population, they were just as culpable for terrorist attacks as the actual perpetrators.

Hoffman’s premise, whether terrorism works, is an important one, but at times it becomes lost in the minutiae of each terrorist attack that he presents.  The book is a comprehensive recounting of the role of terror played in Palestine from World War I through the declaration of Israeli statehood on May 15, 1948. It encompasses major decision making by the British as they tried to carry out their mandate over Palestine, the reactions of the Arab community, particularly before World War II, and the Jewish responses throughout the period.  All the major and lesser personalities involved are examined, including Winston Churchill, Ernest Bevin, Clement Atlee, General Bernard Montgomery and High Commissioner Alan Cunningham on the British side to, David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, and Abraham Stern representing the Jews, and Hajj Amin-al Husseini, and Izz al-Din Abd al-Qadir al Qassam, who embodied the Arab cause.  Along with the personalities involved the author described in detail what seems to be every important terror attack that took place within the scope of his topic.  The book appears to be broken down into three parts.  The first major delineation occurs in 1929 as Arab riots against Jewish immigration and land purchases led to British quotas regulating Jewish immigration to Palestine.  As the riots led to a pogrom in Hebron, the Yishuv leadership realized it could not rely on the British for protection.  The reorganization and centralization of the underground Jewish army, the Haganah resulted, and Jewish revisionists like Vladimir Jabotinsky set up their own autonomous group that would fight Arab terror with Jewish terror.  The next turning point would be the Arab rebellion that lasted from 1936 to 1939 that eventually would produce the 1939 British White Paper that limited Jewish immigration to Palestine to 1500 per month for five years and declined to partition Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state.  Issued as Jews were trying to escape Nazi Germany it would have a profound impact on the plight of the Jews and British policy that did not want to aggravate its relations with the Arabs as the war approached.   Obviously the end of the war is another watershed as Jewish terror increased against the British evolving into a situation of all-out war that only ended with British withdrawal from Palestine.

(The King David Hotel, Jerusalm that was bombed by the Irgun on July 22, 1946)

The most important part of the book is Hoffman’s description and analysis of what appears to be each terrorist attack that took place particularly after World War II.  It seems that the author did not find an attack that he didn’t feel the need to describe in minute detail.  For the student of the period it is valuable, but the general reader will become bogged down in what seems at times to be a daily description of the terrorist and counter-terrorist activity that takes place.  The author reports on all major attacks, describing their explosive power, and casualties from what seems to be every angle.  The reader learns the details of the bombing of the King David Hotel that housed Britain’s governmental agencies for Palestine by the Irgun, assassinations of major figures, i.e.; Lord Moyne, kidnappings, hangings, as well as the overall terrorist dance that the Irgun and its allies engaged in with the British military and the Palestine Police Force (PPF).  What is most interesting is Hoffman’s analysis of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy.  His observation that the British applied tactics that worked between 1936 and 1939 dealing with a rural insurrection, to an urban terrorist strategy employed by the Irgun between 1945 and 1948 reinforced the objectives sought by Begin and his cohorts in Lehi.  Further, once the British decided to employ 100,000 troops in Palestine after the PPF was not able to bring the terrorist threat under control, Palestine became a garrison state.  The actions of the police and military became confused and this segmented the police away from any source of actionable intelligence, the people themselves.  The British intelligence structure in Palestine was severely criticized as the political leadership in London could not make up its mind, and to make matters worse the intelligence agency (CID) in Palestine was poorly trained, under manned, and underfunded.  The result was that American intelligence (OSS) was much more reliable than that of the British and in many cases the British played right into the hands of Ben-Gurion and Begin.  The Irgun leader’s strategy was designed to counter British tactics.  His goal was to undermine the British government’s prestige and control of Palestine by striking at symbols of British rule.  The Irgun and its junior partner, Lehi targeted immigration, land registry, tax and finance offices, and made the price the British would have to pay to remain in Palestine much too high in light of England’s overall economic condition during the winter of 1947.

(The Arab Revolt in Palestine designed to stop Jewish immigration)

Apart from events Hoffman does a superb job explaining the ideological development of the major characters and the strategies they hoped to employ.  Though long winded at times the reader will emerge with a firm understanding of the beliefs of Begin, Ben-Gurion, al-Husseini, Qassam and many others.  The political machinations and battles that contributed to Britain’s inability to accomplish their goals is always present.  A discussion of the hatred between English Generals Bernard Montgomery and Evelyn Barker, and Montgomery and High Commissioner Alan Cunningham disrupted British decision-making repeatedly as did disagreement within the English cabinet in London.  The growing rift between the Atlee government and the Truman administration over a solution to the Palestine problem is present for all to see.  The divisive conflict within the Jewish leadership is detailed and is extremely important as Ben-Gurion and Begin did not enjoy the best relationship as they agreed and disagreed over the use of terror throughout their war against the British.  What was shocking to me was the degree of overt anti-Semitism that was evident on the part of many of the major British players.  As more and more British soldiers and civilians were victims of the violence perpetrated by the Irgun and Lehi, British frustration and anger manifested itself with a virulent type of anti-Jewish behavior.  One must ask, did British anti-Semitism inhibit their ability to solve the Palestinian problem?

Hoffman is a very skillful writer, and though he is somewhat repetitious, his integration of so much detail at times is very engrossing, but at other times it can be overwhelming.  He raises the issue that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter and the partisan debate over such issues will find supportive evidence for each position throughout the book.  In addition, some might argue that there is no difference between the Irgun approach to statehood and that of Hamas and others today.  Hoffman argues that the Irgun and Lehi focused on British military and governmental targets.  Civilians were killed, but not targeted.  For Hoffman, Palestinian terrorists have often been indiscriminate and at times targeted civilians directly.  No matter the reader’s point of view, there is a great deal of history presented that could be debated, in addition to contemporary strategies that can be argued.  Overall, Hoffman has written a very important book that provides many insights as to why the problem remains so intractable.

(the old city of Jerusalem in winter, 1942…notice the snow!)

As Israel approaches new elections in March, the Palestinian Authority calls for further recognition in the United Nations, and Hamas still struts their weapons in Gaza, we find ourselves asking what is next for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  According to Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist, “there is a growing sense that Israel is becoming an isolated ghetto, which is exactly what the founding fathers and mothers hoped to leave behind them forever when they created the state of Israel…Unless there are two states—Israel next door to Palestine—and soon, there will be one state.  If there will be one state, it will be an Arab state.  The other option is an Israeli dictatorship, probably a religious nationalist dictatorship, suppressing the Palestinians and suppressing its Jewish opponents.”* Is this the vision that Israel’s founders saw in 1948?  If we examine the ideological splits in Zionism at the time there were groups that favored the concept of some sort of Israeli government excluding Palestinians in Palestine.  This ideology was part of the belief system of Abraham Stern, a Jewish freedom fighter and/or terrorist depending if you were Jewish refugee escaping the Nazis, or a member of the British mandate government in Palestine.  In his new book, THE RECKONING: DEATH AND INTRIGUE IN THE PROMISED LAND, Patrick Bishop examines the death of Stern by British police in 1942 and its impact on those individuals and groups who were bent on the creation of an Israeli state following the Holocaust.

(Israeli commemorative stamp of Abraham Stern)

The core of Bishop’s narrative centers on the personal conflict between Abraham Stern and Geoffrey Morton, the British Assistant Superintendent of the Palestine Police Force.   For Morton, Stern was a terrorist who was responsible for political assassinations of British officials, the murder of innocent Arabs, as well as Jews who became collateral damage.  The issue for Morton became personal, when Stern’s group killed his close friend and second in command, Wally Medler.  From Stern’s perspective, Morton represented a government that blocked the immigration of Jewish refugees in Europe who were trying to flee Nazi persecution, and stood in the way of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.   Stern had evolved from a career as a promising poet in Poland, to an aspiring Zionist theorist, to an underground fighter.  By 1942 he saw himself as a warrior prophet who believed that England was the main enemy of the Jews and the chief obstacle to a Jewish state in Palestine.  For Morton, Stern and his followers were causing major difficulties for his government at a time when things in Europe were not going well, the Battle of Britain was in full swing, and Rommel’s Afrika Corps were approaching Palestine.  When Stern reached out to Italy as a source of weapons, it became clear to Morton that Stern could be a conduit for a “fifth column” for Nazis in the region.

(British wanted poster, 1942 for Stern Gang members)

Bishop provides biographical information for all of his characters and takes the reader through the politics on both sides.  The rupture between the Yishuv (the Jewish Agency that governed Palestine for the Jews, who at the outset felt working with the British would be beneficial in the long run), its military wing the Haganah, the Irgun (the revisionist group under the leadership of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who rejected gradualism in dealing with the British), and the Stern group (that eventually broke with the Irgun and pursued a policy of violence) is examined in detail.  Bishop also explores the different factions within the British government, some who favored greater leniency toward the Jews because of their plight, and those like Morton who wanted to enforce the law as it was written and did not want to compromise.  The reader is taken behind the scenes reflecting solid research for each group and witnesses how decisions were reached and operations were planned.  Bishop keeps the reader aware of events in Europe and how they impacted the region to promote further understanding of all sides.  We meet all the major characters, those who hunted Stern and his cohorts, and those who carried out Stern’s plans and hid him from British authorities.

Bishop discusses the major actions taken by the Stern Group as it became known and its results.  He details the British response to the violence and how it finally was able to kill Stern in February, 1942.  It is the killing of Stern that forms a major focus of the book and the controversy that ensued.  Was Stern killed while escaping a friend’s apartment, or was he murdered as he was unarmed and trying to flee through a window in an area that was sealed off by British police.  Both points of view are given and to this day the controversy remains as to how Stern died.  The problem for British authorities was that the controversy over Stern’s death made him a martyr to the Zionist cause and was used to rally Jews against the British.  Following his death, Stern’s remaining followers worked out a Modus Vivendi with the Irgun, and the Haganah to continue the fight against the British mandate government in Palestine.

Bishop tries to present his narrative as a detective story designed to capture the reader’s interest and keep them on the edge of their seats.  A sub title of the book states, “a true detective story.”  Here I think the book fails.  In trying to take a historical monograph that describes so many different characters, ideologies, and government edicts it is very difficult to try and fit it into the parameters of detective non-fiction.  From the outset of the book, Bishop drops numerous hints as to his plot line and the coming death of Stern.  His repeated clues about Stern’s demise are better left out, and what Bishop should have done is let the story, an interesting an important one in light of current events, play out.  There are a number of important findings that Bishop emphasizes, particularly Stern’s attempts to come to agreement with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany for weapons and support as an ally against the British.  This component of the book reflects Stern’s obsession for the ultimate goal of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and his tunnel vision in that he would work with anyone to achieve it.  This did cause opposition in his “gang,” but ultimately they remained together.  Further findings dealing with Morton’s motivations in dealing with Stern and the Jewish problem and his rationalizations are important as well as his removal by British authorities who felt he had gone too far.

The book is very timely and it points out the influence Stern had on two future Prime Ministers of Israel, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.  Some might also argue that elements of Stern’s beliefs still exist in Israeli politics, particularly among right-wingers as we approach the Israeli elections in two months.  The book is a useful addition to the vast bibliography that deals with the creation of Israel, but it does itself a disservice by trying to create a historical mystery.

*”What Will Israel Become?” by Roger Cohen, New York Times, December 20, 2014.

Sean McMeekin is a historian who specializes in the diplomacy of World War I and has written an interesting survey of Turkish-German relations leading up to and during the “Great War.” The author concentrates on the role and construction of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway project that was designed to allow Germany to penetrate the Middle East and present the British with a diplomatic and economic defeat in the region. The railway was to counter the importance of the Suez Canal and was to be an integral part of Germany’s strategy to upset the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East. The book is well researched and documented and provides useful insights into German and Ottoman policies apart from the railyway itself, ie; Armenian massacre, Gallipoli. The important characters of the period, ie; Mustafa Kamal, Winston Churchill are discussed in detail resulting in a very satisfying read.

Ari Shavit’s MY PROMISED LAND is the most important book dealing with the Arab-Israeli Conflict to be published since Thomas Friedman’s FROM BERUIT TO JERUSALEM.  After digesting Shavit’s work I am confused in trying to categorize it.  It is in part a personal memoir, it also contains the historical background of the region, it discusses the political strategies and military actions that have taken place in Palestine since the turn of the twentieth century, but more importantly it seems to be the philosophical and moral ruminations of one of Israel’s most important commentators analyzing contemporary issues and what the future may hold.  Shavit’s journey begins with his great grandfather Herbert Bentwich’s decision to forgo his comfortable family life in England and immigrate to Palestine in 1897.  From that point on Shavit takes the reader on a wondrous journey that encompasses the early history of Zionism, the uprooting of Jews as they try to escape anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the survival of the Holocaust, and the creation Jewish state, with its many economic, social, and political problems.

Shavit’s approach is a masterful blending of interviews with the actors in this drama, including perceptive historical analysis.  At the outset Shavit has what appears to be a dialogue with himself as he wonders what his life would have been if his great grandfather had not gone to Palestine.  He correctly points out that his great grandfather, like other Jews before and after him do not see the Palestinian villages as he is motivated not to see them.  “He does not see because if he does see, he will have to turn back” because the wonderful possibilities that exist in the valley he witnesses are already spoken for.  But the plight of the Jews in Eastern Europe are such that a safe haven is needed where the Jews can develop their Zionist dream and establish a new Jewish identity based on cultivating the land.  According to Shavit, “as the plow begins to do their work, the Jews return to history and regain their masculinity: as they take on the physical labor of tilling the earth, they transform themselves from object to subject, from passive to active, from victims to sovereigns.” (35)  But in doing so they do not see or solve the problem that the Palestinian Arab presents.

Through Shavit’s interviews and vast knowledge the reader is presented with intimate details of kibbutzniks working the desolate valley that makes up Ein Harod, and the settlement of Rehovot which by 1935 reflect throughout Palestine that the Zionist dream is taking root.  The author  tells the story of the orange growers in Rehovot as a microcosm of the brewing conflict between Jews and Palestinians that will boil over in 1936.  Interweaving events in Nazi Germany and the development of Palestinian nationalism in the north the reader is presented a narrative and analysis of why the Palestinians will revolt in 1936 without the traditional political and ideological arguments that most historians present.  The Zionist argument is presented in a local weekly published in Rehovot; “we are returning to our homeland that has awaited for us as wasteland, and we are entering a new country that is not ours….all these riches we bring with us as a gift to our ancient land, and to the people who have settled it while we were away….” (62) But again no reference to the Palestinian.  Shavit’s argument throughout is that for the Zionist to be successful he had to be a colonialist and occupy the land that belonged to others and eventually force them out.  1936 is the first watershed year that Shavit speaks about as we witness the onslaught of Arab rage against the Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Tel Aviv.  The violence and a general strike are different than past Arab protests as this is a “collective uprising of a national Arab-Palestinian movement that results in 80 dead and 400 wounded Jews that transforms their collective psyche as “the Jewish national liberation movement had to acknowledge that it was facing an Arab liberation movement that wished to disgorge the Jews from the shores they settled on.” (74)  The Arabs could no longer be ignored and the response led to further violence and brutality through 1939 as for the first time the Jews retaliated in kind.

In a wonderful chapter dealing with Masada, Shavit describes his interview with  Shmaryahu Gutman who realizes that as 1942 dawned the future of world Jewry rested in the hands of the Soviet army as it tried to stem the Nazi tide on the Eastern Front.  At the same time General Erwin Rommel is threatening Cairo and if successful the Jews of Palestine would be decimated.  At this point Gutman leads a group of 46 teenagers to climb Masada as part of their leadership training which the author describes in detail.  Gutman wants Masada to become the poignant symbol that will substitute for the theology and mythology that Zionism lacks.  He wants to create a Jewish ethos of resistance that will override the reputation of Jews who do not fight back.  It is an interesting concept that was explored in an earlier book by Jay Gonen, A PSYCHOHISTORY OF ZIONISM which offers the idea that Israel as a nation suffers from a Masada Complex, a type of Adlerian inferiority complex based on Jewish history.  Gonen argues that to overcome ones perceived inferiority, one adopts a superiority complex as compensation.  If so this offers a useful explanation of Israeli domestic and foreign policy from 1948 onward.  The Soviets blunt the Nazi advance and Rommel is stopped at El Alamein and “the Zionist enterprise is not that of drained or of orange groves bearing fruit but that of a lonely desert fortress casting the shadow of awe on an arid land.” (97)

For Shavit the lessons Jews learned concerning lethal historical circumstances are the key to Jewish survival.  The author uses the Arab village of Lydda as an example of Israel’s demographic policies during the 1948 War of Independence.  Because of its location it must be controlled by Israeli Jews if the new state is to survive.  In addition, the area of the eastern Galilee must be Arab free to provide land for survivors of the Holocaust.  The new Israeli government under David Ben-Gurion sees the War of Independence as a one time opportunity to solve the Arab problem.  Ilan Pappe, another Israeli historian describes in minute detail Operation Dalet in his book THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE, a plan to clear out Arab villages from areas that the new Israeli government wanted for its development.  Shavit agrees with Pappe and ruminates on the issue of Israeli occupation and what it has meant for Israel and how it has become an albatross around its neck from 1948 until today.  Once these lands were seized in 1948 the issue of the right of Palestinians to return has become one of the major stumbling blocks for any future peace.

Shavit tells the stories of Holocaust survivors and Jews who were able to leave Arab countries to come to Palestine and later Israel.  Shavit also tells the stories of displaced Arab families who have lived as refugees since 1948.  In so doing the reader is presented with a picture that is far from equitable.  Between 1945-1951 685,000 people were absorbed by a society of 655,000.  This was facilitated in part by reparations paid by the German government.  When interviewing Palestinian Arabs, Shavit hears that they would like resettlement and reparations, this time from the Israeli government to a Palestinian one.

The state of Israeli society is a major concern for Shavit and we see it through the eyes of many Israelis.  The economic miracle of the 1950s is based upon the denial of Palestinian rights as it “expunged Palestine from its memory and soul.” (160)  But this denial Shavit argues from a very personal perspective “was a life-or-death imperative for the nine-year-old nation into which I was born.” (162)  Shavit describes the common thread that all immigrants that are highlighted in his interviews.  First, travel by ship from a European port to Israel, followed by time in a refugee camp living in a tent for months on end, and finally a small apartment consisting of one and a half room in a town or joining an agricultural kibbutz.  The author is sensitive to the difficulties of societal integration, and the ability of families to adapt to their new surroundings.

In developing the narrative Shavit has chosen a number of important dates of which 1948, 1957, and 1967 stand out.  The War of Independence and the resettlement of Arabs is obvious, but 1957 is not so.  It was during that year that Israel and the France began colluding to develop a nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert.  French feelings of guilt because of the events of World War II made it possible for Israel to develop the Dimona Reactor which allowed Israel to develop a nuclear stockpile.  From the Israeli perspective Shavit argues that the reactor was a necessity because the expulsion of 1948 meant that the Palestinians would never rest until they recovered what they believed had been stolen from them.  He further argues that following the 1956 Suez War, Israel found itself surrounded by Arab armies that would never accept her and though Israel never acknowledged the facility the Arab states believed it existed.  The 1967 War brings forth a new concept for Israel, one of preemption, which allowed the success of the Six Day War.  That success however created a climate of preemption that will be carried out repeatedly in the future, i.e.; attacking the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, invading Lebanon in 1982, and destroying the Syrian reactor in 2007.  The policy of preemption has had mixed results for Israel and as we hear the same rumblings concerning the Iranian nuclear reactor today, we can just hope.

Israel’s actions after 1967 solidified her as an occupier of Arab territory and for a few years Shavit argues that Israel felt secure.  However, the early stages of the 1973 War proved a disaster for Israel.  Shavit correctly points out that Israel was victorious militarily, but psychologically it was a defeat.  The end result was the weakening of the Labour government that had led Israel since 1948 and for the first time Israelis felt doubt about the future.  With the weakened government the ultra-orthodox saw it as an opportunity to built settlements in the West Bank which Shavit describes through the eyes of the leadership of Gush Emunim and the resulting splintering of Israeli society.  This on top of the already emerging schism between the Oriental Jewish underclass and the Ashkenazi elite reflects a country that Israel was not unified and has not really come together to this day.

Shavit points out what he perceives to be the mistakes that Israel has made since independence.  The greatest one being one of occupation as he describes during one of his own army reserve tours in a Gaza prison.  But he also reflects as to the choices that Israel has as it is surrounded in a sea of Islamic countries who want to destroy her.  Shavit argues that each time Israel gives up territory as in Gaza and Lebanon it winds up with Hezbollah and Hamas.  He does not see a war breaking out in the near future but how viable will Israel be in fifty years when their own Arab population is a majority and orthodox Jews will outnumber secular Jews.  As far as the peace process is concerned Shavit correctly states that  “ what is needed to make peace between the two peoples of this land is probably more than humans can summon.  They will not give up their demand for what they see as justice.” (266)

There is much more to this book than I have discussed as Shavit ruminates on the conundrum that is Israel;  “if Israel does not retreat from the West Bank, it will be politically and morally doomed, but if she does retreat, it might face an Iranian-backed and Islamic Brotherhood-inspired West Bank regime whose missiles could endanger Israel’s security.  The need to end occupation is greater than ever, but so are the risks.” (401)  The picture Shavit paints is not a very optimistic one.  Whether he writes about the fractures in Israeli society, the weakness of its government, the inability to control the settlement movement, or the hope that its economic strength can continue, the geo-political world it lives in leads him to conclude his analysis by comparing Israel to a film; “we are a ragtag cast in an epic motion picture whose plot we do not understand and cannot grasp.  The script writer went mad.  The director went away.  The producer went bankrupt.  But we are still here, on this biblical set.  The camera is still rolling.  And as the camera pans out and pulls up, it sees us converging on this shore and clinging to this shore and living on this shore.  Come what may.” (419)