Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years After Oslo

Rating:
Summary: An Important Book
Review: Full of empathy, insight and a necessary dose of incredulousness, Grossman is one of the most important writers on this tragic subject. Death as a Way of Life is also particularly relevant for Americans who want to know what life under terror feels like.

Rating:
Summary: Everyone Should Read before forming an Opinion
Review: I had to read this book for a college class, but ended up enjoying it anyway. While he does not reach any conclusions, I do not think that is his intention. Rather, he offers an emotional first-hand look at the complex situation that has developed in the Middle East. The reader experiances the highs and lows of the recent peace efforts, from the hope of Oslo to the tragedy of assassination. There is also an excellent essay on the Holocaust and the effects on Germany and Israel. No matter one's views on the Middle East conflict, this is a book worth reading. Grossman is moderate and rational, a viewpoint that is too often lost in the emotion and horror of the violent cycle that has taken hold in the region.

Rating:
Summary: Everyone Should Read before forming an Opinion
Review: I had to read this book for a college class, but ended up enjoying it anyway. While he does not reach any conclusions, I do not think that is his intention. Rather, he offers an emotional first-hand look at the complex situation that has developed in the Middle East. The reader experiances the highs and lows of the recent peace efforts, from the hope of Oslo to the tragedy of assassination. There is also an excellent essay on the Holocaust and the effects on Germany and Israel. No matter one's views on the Middle East conflict, this is a book worth reading. Grossman is moderate and rational, a viewpoint that is too often lost in the emotion and horror of the violent cycle that has taken hold in the region.

Rating:
Summary: Correction
Review: I'd just like to point out to Bryon 72 above that Israel actually did fight a war for independence in 1948. The U.S. did not create Israel "out of pity," as he claims. After the British were driven out by the Israelis, the U.N. devised a partition plan, in which most of what is Israel today would have been given to the Arabs. The Arabs refused to accept the plan and instead declared war on the Jews. The Jews won the war, founded the state, and have been dealing with Arab aggression ever since. As far as Bryon 72's cheap irony goes: when North Americans are willing to die happily in suicide-bombings done by Indians and Mexicans, and Russians are willing to give their land back to the Czar, and the Australians finally decide to go back to England and grant the Aborigines a right of return, and Europeans turn everything back over to the Hapsburgs, then he might have a point or two to make. In the meantime, maybe Grossman is only half right about Israeli paranoia: after all, even paranoiacs sometimes actually have real enemies.

Rating:
Summary: THE NEVERENDING STORY
Review: In an April 1995 essay entitled "Yes, Prime Minister", included in this collection David Grossman wrote that the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians was "reversible", meaning it could be destroyed. He then went on to lay out the 3 the things that could destroy it:

1.Arafat becomes inactive or irrelevant.
2.The Likud party comes to power.
3.The peace process is constantly interrupted by violence.

As we know now, all these things have come to pass. How prophetic this collection of essays becomes. They have been collected from publications all over the world dating from the September 1993 hopes of the Oslo Summit to the most recent, an article from September 2002 and the almost hopelessness of the 10 year old Intifada.

Grossman's essays cover different topics but they all come down to the ongoing conflict in Israel between the paranoid Israelis and the downtrodden and vengeful Palestinians. Well, he doesn't exactly stereotype them this way but he comes close. He paints Israel as a country of Jews that has suffered hostility and persecution over so many centuries that has bred in them a fear of being exterminated or of being caught up in a new diaspora where they are cast off their land. So any time they feel threatened they respond with overwhelming brutality. A sort of post-trauma of a whole nation. Ironically, the Palestinians find themselves in the same situation as the Jews once did. They are persecuted for their race, for their beliefs, for their wanting of a homeland.

One of the big points in the book that I wondered about also was that where are the MODERATE representatives of both sides? Why do we always see these gun toting [people] and fat cat politicians raving up violence and venegence? Are the sane people in this conflict simply cowards? I know they exist! Where is a great leader on either side who could step up and unite their people??? It's like Hitler vs. Stalin all over again. Why doesn't the Likud and Hamas just join forces and declare war against the rest of the Jews and Palestinians?It just seems the people in power are simply there to draw more blood.

Another point that Grossman makes in his essays is that both peoples need to realize that their survival depends on the peace they make between each other. Decades more war will only lead to their children becoming bloodthirsty savages who know how to make war and kill but know nothing of living together...

I think everyone should read this book because even though it is written by an Israeli it tries to keep a balance and look at both sides of the conflict. He understands that there can be no peace without the absence of oppression. Grossman shows his fear of a future of war but never loses sight of a possible peace.

The only negative aspect of his culture that he shows is in an essay called "Point of No Return" in which he argues against the right of return of the Palestians who were thrown off their land when Israel was first constituted back in the 40s. He beleives that there cannot be a single state for both peoples. He believes that they can only be proper states if they are culturally pure. Meaning only Jews can rule Jews and Palestinians can rule Palestinians. We must not pollute the fatherland with the impure. There are certain racists who would agree with him who think that way. In the end, Grossman's enlightened viewpoint can only go so far. We are all a prisoner in the end to our culture.

After reading this book, and hearing about the continued idiocy of the conflict on the news every single day, I wish the state of Israel had never been formed, I mean at least after World War II. They never fought for their independence. It was given to them by the United States in what would seem to be the Last Crusade. Freeing the holy land and all that. It was formed in an act of pity and we have been paying for it as Americans ever since by acts of terrorism and ill will from Arab countries and will continue to suffer for our wrongheaded alliance with them. I really don't think we would have a terrorism problem or be hated with such vehemence if Israel didn't exist. If you look back over time, most muslim rulers were very tolerant of the Jews and Christians who came to the holy land. Because really, in the end we worship the same God. It's only the details we kill each other for. Perhaps, that is the saddest thing about the whole deal. That they all kill each other in the name of the same God.

Rating:
Summary: Another Correction
Review: It should be stated that the Jews didn't "run the British" out of the country like jskibel said. It was far more complicated then that.

It is unfortunate that jskibel, obviously someone who is proud of his heritage, as am I (my father's family escaped what is now known as Lithuania during the holocaust), has let that pride cloud his judgement.

While he is obviously quick to point out Palestinian aggression he does so while seemingly boasting that Israelis drove the British out. I hope that jskibel knows that the Jews, in a quest for a homeland, were doing the same exact thing that the Palestinian militants are doing and that is carrying out terrorist attacks. I guess the main difference now is you have Arabs who resort to blowing themselves up because the guns and rocks that were their original weapon of choice did not work against the tanks of the Israeli Governement.

This book is an extremely balanced view of the current situation. While quick to point out his pride as a Jew and Israeli, David Grossman never once seems to justify the acts of agression that our fellow hebrew brothers carry out. It's unfortunate that such a great book does not create more worthwhile discussion in these reviews instead of the typical finger pointing.

David Grossman seemingly also got what most people don't get... and that is how sad it is that Palestinians have become so desperate that they are willing to kill themselves for their cause. When men and women, some who aren't even old enough to Vote here in the States, carry out suicide attacks we do ourselves no favors by dismissing it as just terrorism, but also finding out what has caused some people to become so desperate as to resort to that type of terrorism.

Great book.

Rating:
Summary: Blessed Are The Peacemakers
Review: Perhaps the greatest insight I got from this collection of essays from David Grossman is that the peacemakers and people who strive for a peaceful solution are truly the greatest heros. It takes courage to overcome base human instincts and seek a fair peace. Mr Grossman does an admirable job of conveying this. This is not so much a book for the Mideast history scholar as it is for the person who wants to get a feel for what it's like to be caught in the maelstrom that envelops Israel and the Palestinian lands today.

Rating:
Summary: Compassionate, yet frustrating & incomplete.
Review: The very real suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians permeate the pages of this book and for that it is to be commended. Comprising some 34 articles surrounding the ongoing conflict, this study approaches the issue from a left-wing and a solely, secular stance which clearly hopes for a man-made, peaceful co-existence between the two sides.

However, I found the book to be considerably frustrating at times as I discovered an extremely inaccurate perception of both "Palestinian" and Israeli history where little relevance or importance is placed upon the Jewish heritage to the Land as outlined in the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures, as well as what fundamental Islam has declared in relation to the conflict and the land concerned. Others might disagree.

Without such an understanding & appreciation I personally find that this study is incomplete, despite the noteworthy references to the political process and the failings of those involved amidst the mistrust and despair of the ordinary people on the ground.

The book, whilst recognising the minuscule size of Israel and it's surrounding by numerous, larger, hostile countries drenched in a wave of fundamentalist Islamism, I can but feel uncomfortable with how the source has "legitimatised" the "Palestinian" claim to the disputed territories amidst such a distorted perception of history.

The book correctly describes the conflict as extremely complex and places blame on both sides for the present situation on the ground. This whilst recognising what is depicted as the dread and despair upon the Israeli side where the fingers of an "outstretched hand" of friendship as having been transformed through such anguish into a clenched fist. Indeed, the detail attached to the political aspects of this issue is noteworthy on it's own merits.

Many controversial opinions are outlined in this work and they are recognised by the source as being just that. One opinion is that the Palestinian side has brought about an "intolerable escalation" through the weapon of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians which is cited as "irrational, insane and inhuman" from any perspective.

Would I recommend this book ? - As a complete study on this particular issue...definitely not! For a secular, compassionate reference to the suffering and complexity of the conflict and it's affect upon both sides ...yes it is worthy of that.

However, for a necessary secular grounding in this subject I would highly recommend Joan Peter's epic work entitled "From Time Immemorial; The Origins Of The Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine" as well as Samuel Katz's work entitled "Battleground; Fact & Fantasy In Palestine".

I would also recommend two books which approach the issue from the perspective outlined in the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures, (without which, in my opinion, any context surrounding this matter is incomplete) - Randall Price's "Unholy War; America, Israel and Radical Islam" and Hal Lindsey's "The Everlasting Hatred; The Roots Of Jihad". Thank you for your time.