The Other Side of Despair: Jews and Arabs in the Promised Land / Edition 1

by Daniel Gavron author of Holy Land Mosaic: Stories of Cooperation and Coexistence between

Overview

This compelling book takes the reader behind the headlines of the confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians, examining its human dimension and setting it in a balanced historical context. In the last decade of the millennium, the century-long conflict came within a hair's breadth of a solution through the 'slo Accords, only to explode in violence, hatred, and mutual recrimination, following the failed summit at Camp David in the summer of 2000. In his search for understanding, Daniel Gavron talks to Israelis and Palestinians of all backgrounds and shades of opinion. Politicians and economists, entrepreneurs and writers, psychologists and teachers, men and women, veterans and youngsters, fervent militants and pragmatic realists all speak in these pages. We hear the Palestinian fighter and the Israeli soldier, the Jewish settler and the Arab Israeli, the negotiators from the opposite sides of the table, the bereaved parents. These Israeli and Palestinian voices reflect the excruciating agony of both societies, conveying a searing reality that, although seemingly hopeless, emphasizes the basic humanity of both peoples. In a startling final section, the author proposes a daring old-new idea to lead the region out of its tragic morass.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742517523
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/19/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.49(d)

About the Author

Born in London in 1935, Daniel Gavron emigrated to Israel in 1961. A long-time journalist, he has been a reporter for the Israel National Radio and the Jerusalem Post. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Commentary, the Wall Street Journal, and Ariel. His broadcasts have been aired on NBC and National Public Radio. He was a member of the team that founded Palestine-Israel Journal and the author of Walking Through Israel (Houghton Mifflin), Israel After Begin (Houghton Mifflin), and The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia (Rowman & Littlefield).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Chronology Part 2 Introduction Part 3 Part I Yesterday Chapter 4 Chapter 1: The Unsolved Problem Chapter 5 Chapter 2: Nasser Eddin Nashashibi: Palestinian Patrician Chapter 6 Chapter 3: Lova Eliav: Israeli Pioneer Part 7 Part II Today Chapter 8 Chapter 4: The Reluctant Warriors Chapter 9 Abdulla Abu-Hadid: For a Two-State Solution Chapter 10 Nir Shoshani: "Each Time It's More Difficult" Chapter 11 Adi Eilat: Courage to Refuse Chapter 12 Jonathan Kuttab: The Nonviolent Militant Chapter 13 Chapter 5: The Price Chapter 14 Yitzhak Frankenthal, Israeli Bereaved Parent Chapter 15 Tariq Essawi, Palestinian Bereaved Parent Chapter 16 Mariet Khouri: Ubiquitous Trauma Chapter 17 Zehava Solomon: Selective Trauma Chapter 18 Baiga Shochat: Peace Means Prosperity Chapter 19 Samir Huleileh: Preventive Action Now Chapter 20 Chapter 6: The Entanglement Chapter 21 Meira Dolev and Amit Segal, Second-Generation Settlers Chapter 22 Sayed Kashu, The Invisible Man Chapter 23 Menahem Froman, The Maverick Settler Part 24 Part III Tomorrow Chapter 25 Chapter 7: The Impossible Solution Chapter 26 Chapter 8: The Improbable Solution

What People are Saying About This

Deborah Treisman

Daniel Gavron's new book is hugely impressive—even-handed, interesting, and original.

Clancy Sigal

A lovely, hopeful, daring book that offers the whole mishegas in one volume.

Editorial Reviews

Beginning with a remarkably balanced, 40-page overview of the historical evolution and contemporary situation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Gavron then profiles 16 Palestinians and Israelis to bring a human dimension to different perspectives of the struggle.. .. Recommended.

Choice Reviews

A lovely, hopeful, daring book that offers the whole mishegas in one volume.

Clancy Sigal

Daniel Gavron's new book is hugely impressive—even-handed, interesting, and original.

Deborah Treisman

Many of the testimonies are moving and revealing.

The Jewish Chronicle [UK]

A useful, insightful book.

Resurgence

The first chapter lays out the historical background to the Middle East conflict, with the next six providing an engaging, if not novel, attempt to understand the violence through the deftly woven portraits of 16 Israelis and Palestinians.

Ha'aretz

In his hugely intelligent and originally structured book [Gavron] has interviewed and drawn portraits of 16 remarkable Palestinians and Jews. His conclusions are startling. In this clearly assembled, imaginatively researched selection of interviews, Gavron offers those different angles of vision, many of which were unknown. The Jewish, Palestinian, and Christian voices within his book reaffirm a humane sanity of which we are all desperately in need.

The Guardian

I highly recommend this fascinating and original book, which is full of wisdom, sanity, and hope.

Jewish Quarterly - Deborah Maccoby

I highly recommend this fascinating and original book, which is full of wisdom, sanity, and hope.
— Deborah Maccoby

Jewish Quarterly

Beginning with a remarkably balanced, 40-page overview of the historical evolution and contemporary situation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Gavron then profiles 16 Palestinians and Israelis to bring a human dimension to different perspectives of the struggle. . . . Recommended.

CHOICE

Beginning with a remarkably balanced, 40-page overview of the historical evolution and contemporary situation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Gavron then profiles 16 Palestinians and Israelis to bring a human dimension to different perspectives of the struggle. . . . Recommended.

Choice

In a part of the world where extremists seem to be driving political affairs, veteran Israeli journalist Gavron focuses on more moderate voices in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In doing so, he has created a moving, if somewhat uneven, book. Gavron (Israel After Begin) presents brief profiles of 15 Israelis and Palestinians: old-time leftists, young fighters, bereaved parents. The result is a humanized portrait of individuals trapped in the "cycle of violence" and unable to see their way out. "It isn't true we want to throw the Jews into the sea," a Fatah militia leader says; a few pages later, an Israeli reserve soldier says that Israel "must get out of the territories." Activists on both sides may protest the implied moral relativism that is part of the book's structure-Gavron is fairly even-handed in apportioning blame for today's ongoing violence-but most readers will appreciate the honest, behind-the-scenes look at how ordinary people suffer from everyday violence and try to make sense of it. In the final two chapters, Gavron shifts gears and resuscitates an old idea: instead of a two-state solution, he proposes creating a single, binational state, shared by the Israelis and Palestinians. The idea has little currency in today's Middle East, but it's a measure of the failure of the two-state solution that, when Gavron points out the extent to which Israel and the territories are already enmeshed, the plan doesn't seem so ridiculous. But it deserves a fuller treatment than Gavron gives it here. B&w photos, maps. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Many of the testimonies are moving and revealing.

UK The Jewish Chronicle