Israel and the Jews

Bibi: My Story  by Benjamin Netanyahu, Threshold Editions (2022)

God, Guns & Israel: Britain, The First World War And The Jews In The Holy Land  by Jill Hamilton, Sutton Pub Ltd, 2005.  David Lloyd George David Lloyd George was the main force behind the Palestinian Mandate and the Balfour Declaration. Chaim Weizmann had persuaded Balfour to support the cause of Zionism. Lloyd George believed that the Jews should have a country of their own, so he created Palestine out of South Syria.  British Protestant Outside the Anglican Church Hamilton

The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy  by Stephanie Gutmann, Encounter Books, 2005.  Optics While Israel has won military wars against its Arab neighbors, it has lost in the court of international public opinion.  Lazy Western Journalists In general, Western journalists stationed in Israel are perhaps a bit on the lazy side. Western journalists in Jerusalem hang out with each other at the American Colony Hotel, and generally know few Israe

Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle  by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, Twelve, 2009.  Technology In recent years, the state of Israel has produced a large number of technology companies, way out of proportion the small size of its population.  The authors have identified a number of traits that may be responsible for Israel’s phenomenal success: (a) Informality, (b) Chutzpah, (ccc) It is okay to fail, (d) Everyone knows everyone Military Israel depends on a

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East  by Michael Oren, Oxford University Press, 2002.  The Straits of Tiran The Straits of Tiran are located at the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba, between Sharm al-Sheik in Sinai and Saudi Arabia. Israel has a port, Eilat, at the north end of the Gulf of Aqaba. Gamal Abdel Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships in late May 1967. He ordered the Egyptian navy to sink Israeli ships passing through th

The Israel Test: Why the World's Most Besieged State is a Beacon of Freedom and Hope for the World Economy  by George Gilder, Richard Vigilante Books, 2009.  Envy Adolf Hitler envied the Jews of Vienna, because they were successful and he was not. When Austrian businesses were subjected to Aryanization after the 1938 Anschluss, they lost most of their value, because the creative talent had fled abroad (or were escorted into concentration camps). Parasites Hitler’s belief that

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn, W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.  Love After Death It has been widely discussed in recent years that today’s antisemites make a distinction between Jews who are Zionists and Jews who are not Zionists, favoring the latter. Horn points out that today’s antisemites also make a distinction between Jews who are alive and Jews who are dead, favoring the latter. She also tells two fascinating and little known stories a

The War of Return The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace  by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf, Translated into English by Eylon Levy. St. Martin's Griffin, 2020. Reversing the Nakba Whenever negotiations take place on the two-state solution, the Arabs demand that the “right of return” be part of the deal. What the Arabs mean by the “right of return” is that the Arab refugees displaced by the creation of the state of Isra