My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today.
Not since Thomas Friedman's groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land. In this riveting narrative, Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family's story, to illuminate the pivotal moments of the Zionist century. In doing so, he also sheds new light on the problems and threats that Israel is currently facing.
Beginning with his great-grandfather - a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people - Shavit recounts and analyses the diverse experiences of Israeli people, past and present- the idealist young farmer who first grew the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine's booming economy; the immigrant orphans of Europe's Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; and today's architects of Israel's foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms over the tiny country.
As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions- Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Provocative, heartfelt, and powerfully compelling, this is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today's global political landscape.
'Israel is not a proposition, it is a country. Its facticity is one of the great accomplishments of the Jews' history ... It is one of the achievements of Ari Shavit's important and powerful book to recover that feeling.'
-Leon Wieseltier, New York Times Book Review
' A gale of conversation, of feeling, of foreboding, of ratiocination ... takes a wide-angle and often personal view of Israel's past and present, and frequently reads like a love story and a thriller at once. That it ultimately becomes a book of lamentation, a moral cri de coeur and a ghost story tightens its hold on your imagination.'
-Dwight Garner, The New York Times
'I can think of no better time for a good book about Israel - the real Israel, not the fantasy, do-no-wrong Israel peddled by its most besotted supporters or the do-no-right colonial monster portrayed by its most savage critics. Ari Shavit, the popular Haaretz columnist, has come out with just such a book ... The uniqueness of Shavit's book is that when you're done with it you can understand, respect or love Israel - but not in a dogmatic or unthinking way, and not a fake or contrived Israel. Shavit celebrates the Zionist man-made miracle - from its start-ups to its gay bars - while remaining affectionate, critical, realistic and morally anchored ... It's why his book is a real contribution to changing the conversation about Israel and building a healthier relationship with it. Before their next 90-minute phone call, both Barack and Bibi should read it.'
-Thomas Friedman, New York Times