Israel
A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth
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4.3 • 121 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A “fascinating and very moving” (Aaron Sorkin, award-winning screenwriter of The West Wing and The Social Network) chronological timeline spanning from Biblical times to today that explores one of the most interesting countries in the world—Israel.
Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts?
Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby. But “this is not your Bubbie’s history book” (Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher). Instead, offering a fresh, 360-degree view, Tishby brings her “passion, humor, and deep intimacy” (Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor) to the subject, creating an accessible and dynamic portrait of a tiny country of outsized relevance. Through bite-sized chunks of history and deeply personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland’s evolution, beginning in Biblical times and moving forward to cover everything from WWI to Israel’s creation to the disputes dividing the country today. Tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance of facts, Tishby provides critical context around headline-generating controversies and offers a clear, intimate account of the richly cultured country of Israel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Israeli actor and political activist Tishby combines memoir and advocacy in this one-sided portrait of her native country. Sketching her journey from the daughter of a politically well-connected family (her grandmother was a cofounder of the country's first kibbutz) to the star of a hit Israeli TV show in the 1990s and a Hollywood producer, Tishby recounts her dismay at how little the rest of the world actually knew about Israel, despite its status as a "hot-button issue." She began to take an active role in countering social media "misinformation" when Israeli soldiers were accused of killing nine Turkish peace activists in 2010 (the group of 700 activists actually included 40 "hard-core Islamists with ties to terrorism," according to Tishby), and founded the online advocacy group Act for Israel in 2011. In her brisk rundown of Israeli history, Tishby points out that it was the British and the French who betrayed the Arabs after they fought against the Ottoman Empire in WWI, and accuses Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders of "prefer to dance with the right wing of Israel than to be a true partner to the peace camp." Tishby is a brisk and informative narrator, though her approach is more likely to confirm biases than change minds. This history makes its agenda plain.
Customer Reviews
A great read, a must for young college students
Noa skillfully captured the essence of what Israel is and how it came to be, with all the complexity explained. This book is reader-friendly and filled with insights backed by facts that everyone should know. I strongly recommend it to whoever wants to know what is really going on in the Middle East.
Feh!
I read Noa Tishby’s book. I am underwhelmed, to put it mildly. Infuriated, is more appropriate. She writes like an overly-privileged SJW who happens to be Jewish. She spends too much of her time apologizing for the Arab Palestinians, and no time discussing the true history of the radical Islamic right.
She all but ignores the Hitlerian connection to the Husseini and Khomeni families, says nothing of the Khartoum Resolution, and is amazingly quiet on UNRWA schooling- as in teaching that Israel does not exist, and children should pray to be martyrs. She does not delve into the sheer hatred Islamists have for the Jewish people, and merely tips her kipah to the anti-Jewish Hadiths.
She does not address the overwhelming acceptance of Hamas’ actions, current and prior, by Arab Palestinians, and spends little to no time discussing exactly why they appear poor as dirt- while many have money, markets, jewels and designer clothes.
In my world she does little good outside of condemning - again- as if we have not had much more powerful women and men condemning much more loudly, the treatment of Israeli women by the terror groups.
Israel
A must read read for folks like me who have always championed Israel but never really knew her.