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Sharon: Israel's Warrior-Politician

Sharon: Israel's Warrior-Politician

List Price: $32.50
Your Price: $32.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The story of Sharon is the story of his country
Review: After looking forward for some months to receiving this new book, I have been somewhat disappointed. Unlike other monographs of this kind, which are written on the basis of original documentats and first hand information, this book is in part a rehash of secondary materials. As attested by their few earlier publications, the authors are not historians, political scientists or military experts, who might have illuminated their presentation with their own original insight. Nevertheless this book is quite worth reading.

In its first third, this book rehashes earlier books on the subject, which are cited at length throughout the text without critical comment. The first few chapters are based on books with a positive assessment of Sharon, while in the following chapters the authors tend to lean heavily on two monographs, those of Martin Van Creveld and Benny Morris who are critical of Sharon, the IDF and Zionism. To exemplify Van Creveld's bias: In his chapter "The Lebanese Morass", analyzing Sharon's military strategy in Lebanon in 1982, he states "he even voted against the Camp David Accords.", as if Sharon's political views in 1993 have bearing on the military campaign in 1982. When using blatantly biased material, a responsible author is expected to point this out to a naïve reader.

In writing this part of the book the authors seem to be too involved in presenting their borrowed information, so that they failed to use other, highly relevant, more recent resources readily available to them. For instance, in Chapter 25 which describes the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 and in Chapter 26 which describes the aftermaths of that massacre, the authors fail to discuss the eye-witness account of the massacre by Robert Hatem, whose book "From Israel to Damascus: The Painful Road to Blood, Betrayal and Deception" they cite in Chapter 70. Hatem points out that the Sabra and Shatila massacre was a very clever Syrian political move to defeat Israel politically, estrange it from the US and bring about Sharon's political downfall. Under instructions from Damascus, that massacre was instigated and directed by a Syrian agent who managed at the time to fool Sharon as well as the Christian Lebanese leadership. How could the authors have failed to discuss such crucial information that was available to them?

In the second two thirds of this book (Chapters 33 - 84, the authors present a far more balanced reportage of recent events in Israel up the mid 2002. Consequently, this part of the book, which covers the recent pages of Sharon's life story, which is incidental to the history of the State of Israel in the last ten years, is new and quite informative. This part of this book is highly recommended to anyone interested in the current struggle for survival of the Jewish state.

As a whole, this book demonstrates how deeply interwoven is the personal life story of the present Prime Minister of Israel with the history of his country in the last fifty years.

I wish this book was published by one of the major American publishers (to have a better public exposure) rather than have the Senior Acquisition Editor of a small publishing house publish her own book. On the other hand, maybe thanks to this fast, "inside track" publication this book is so up to date.

An editorial comment: I wish that the Notes to each chapter were at the end of the respective chapters, if not at the bottom of each page, rather than at the end of this thick, 84 chapter-long book. Since those notes are quite important in evaluating the text, following them up slows down the reading and enjoyment of serious, interested readers. This should be corrected in the next edition, which I hope will rectify some of the shortcomings pointed out above.

One more comment - this is not "the first biography of Sharon in English" as stated on the back-cover -- half a dozen or so of earlier biographies of Sharon in English are cited even in this book.

In spite of its shortcomings, I still will give it 4 stars (it really deserves 3.5 stars), hoping that the next revised edition will justifiably deserve 5 stars.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: a flawed book, but should be read
Review: Ok so you bought the autobiography of Sharon and now you want the unbiased account. This book may be in order. The problem is that the book is 557 pages long(text). By page 184 you are at 1990. page 362 is already in 2001. This book makes the fatal mistake of focussing so heavily on the present, dedicating 100 pages to only a few years time when the first 100 pages covers more then 50 years. Is it possible that the current situation is worth so much text? I doubt it. Sharon has lived a life of action, serving in all of Isreals wars, the architect of victory in at least two of them. He is an amazing figure and this book focuses to much on the present, not realizing that daily events in ISreal today are just as important as they were in 1953 or 1976. If the book had dont justice to the other years it should be 5000 pages long. SOmething is fishy in denmark when it comes to this book and I would only recommend it as a history of the modern Sharon era, pick up the autobiography "warrior" to understand the rest of Sharons life.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: a flawed book, but should be read
Review: Ok so you bought the autobiography of Sharon and now you want the unbiased account. This book may be in order. The problem is that the book is 557 pages long(text). By page 184 you are at 1990. page 362 is already in 2001. This book makes the fatal mistake of focussing so heavily on the present, dedicating 100 pages to only a few years time when the first 100 pages covers more then 50 years. Is it possible that the current situation is worth so much text? I doubt it. Sharon has lived a life of action, serving in all of Isreals wars, the architect of victory in at least two of them. He is an amazing figure and this book focuses to much on the present, not realizing that daily events in ISreal today are just as important as they were in 1953 or 1976. If the book had dont justice to the other years it should be 5000 pages long. SOmething is fishy in denmark when it comes to this book and I would only recommend it as a history of the modern Sharon era, pick up the autobiography "warrior" to understand the rest of Sharons life.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Great Disappointment
Review: This is not a scholarly work, and not truly a biography (although it does have an elementary review of personal details about Sharon). The presentation is a flat monotone with no attention to relative importance of events discussed. It's as if the authors had daily news bulletins spread out before them, and then give us a synopsis. There is no analysis of significance and import of the events, or background explanation of Israeli and Palestinian personalities, politics or issues. What commentary that is given is by way of quotations (or paraphrases) of recognized authorities in the field, and often this material is without source attribution. Unless the reader has some significant prior understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian situation, much of the book will be confusing and of low informative value.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Great Disappointment
Review: To truly understand the conflict that rages in the Middle East you have to first understand the players and no player is more complicated than Ariel Sharon. Known across the globe as a hawk and hard liner - Prime Minister Sharon began as a farmer in his often ostracized family and rose through the ranks in an undisciplined quasi-military before the formation of the Israeli Defense Forces ("IDF"). His tenure at the IDF was controversial and turbulent, but highly effective. Sharon entered politics after being forced out of the military and ultimately became the Prime Minister of Israel after the disappointing tenure of Ehud Barak. Sharon: Israel's Warrior-Politician captures the life of this most complicated man in a manner consistently balanced and fair. As a Zionist myself I am suspicious any time a group of academics gather to write about any member of Likud or other right leaning political group in Israel, but as I read this book, I was pleasantly surprised at just how balanced and fair the authors were. As debates rage over whether or not college students should read about Islam - one thing that should be added to every curriculum is a study of the man who has been instrumental at just about every twist and turn of Israeli history. From the first war in Israel to the current conflict - no figure captures the essence of Israel like Ariel Sharon and no book has ever captured the man behind the hawkish right leaning persona. A must read.

...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Don't listen to the critics - their agendas are obvious
Review: To truly understand the conflict that rages in the Middle East you have to first understand the players and no player is more complicated than Ariel Sharon. Known across the globe as a hawk and hard liner - Prime Minister Sharon began as a farmer in his often ostracized family and rose through the ranks in an undisciplined quasi-military before the formation of the Israeli Defense Forces ("IDF"). His tenure at the IDF was controversial and turbulent, but highly effective. Sharon entered politics after being forced out of the military and ultimately became the Prime Minister of Israel after the disappointing tenure of Ehud Barak. Sharon: Israel's Warrior-Politician captures the life of this most complicated man in a manner consistently balanced and fair. As a Zionist myself I am suspicious any time a group of academics gather to write about any member of Likud or other right leaning political group in Israel, but as I read this book, I was pleasantly surprised at just how balanced and fair the authors were. As debates rage over whether or not college students should read about Islam - one thing that should be added to every curriculum is a study of the man who has been instrumental at just about every twist and turn of Israeli history. From the first war in Israel to the current conflict - no figure captures the essence of Israel like Ariel Sharon and no book has ever captured the man behind the hawkish right leaning persona. A must read.

...


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