My Promised Land by Ari Shavit

My Promised Land has been called a memoir, a history, an analysis, a meditation. It is all of those. Shavit, a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has deep roots in Israel. Two of his great grandfathers were of the 1890's founding generation of Zionism. His grandfather was one of the developers of Israel's education system. His father was a scientist in the program that developed Israel's nuclear capability.

Instead of developing the history of Israel in a step-by-step narrative, Shavit dives deeply into the experience of several seminal developments in its history. The first is the founding and development of the first excitingly successful kibbutz, Ein Harod, now deteriorating.. He is able to dive deeply because he has long family connections with it, because he has read, in the kibbutz archive, the journals of the 20-something year olds who were its first members. Shavit gives his readers a sense of what it must have been like to share in the creation of something so new and promising.

Shavit does not shy away from recognizing and narrating the wrongs that Israelis have done to the Arab, Palestinian population. One prominent example is the conquering of Lydda during the 1948 War of Independence, with the consequent expulsion of the Arabs of Lydda by forcing them (men, women, children) to march the 17 kilometers to the Arab Legion lines during one of the hottest days of the year. Many marchers died of exhaustion and dehydration.

The chapter on the development of lsrael's nuclear capability is fascinating. First of all, Israel has never acknowledged that it has a nuclear capability, yet Shavit gives his readers the background for Ben Gurion's disputed decision to build "the bomb" and a fairly detailed history of that development at Dimona in the Negev Desert. He also writes that he "cleared this chapter with the Israeli censor." The accuracy and authenticity of his narration derives from an extensive interview with "the director general of Dimona."

Other chapters narrate the conscious development of Masada into a guiding metaphor for what Zionism must be and do, the clever establishment of the first settlement, the occupation of the West Bank, , and more. In all of this Shavit celebrates the strength, determination, intelligence, endurance of the Jews of lsrael. He also recognizes that Israel is flawed-by its failure to "see" the Palestinians, by its occupying the West Bank, by its building of The Wall. The combination of these things he calls "tragic."

In all of it, Shavit renders the multi-faceted, difficult history of lsrael as an epic achievement. He ends this personal and public journey through the history of lsrael with faith that Israel will be true to its better self and find peace with the Palestinians.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly.