A detailed comparison of Lebanon and Israel/Palestine, two expanded states which have experienced conflict and stability domestically and in their mutual relations.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first comprehensive account of the epoch-making Six-Day War, from the author of Ally—now featuring a fiftieth-anniversary retrospective Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’s grasp of fact and motive, Michael B. Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed—in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation. Praise for Six Days of War “Powerful . . . A highly readable, even gripping account of the 1967 conflict . . . [Oren] has woven a seamless narrative out of a staggering variety of diplomatic and military strands.”—The New York Times “With a remarkably assured style, Oren elucidates nearly every aspect of the conflict. . . . Oren’s [book] will remain the authoritative chronicle of the war. His achievement as a writer and a historian is awesome.”—The Atlantic Monthly “This is not only the best book so far written on the six-day war, it is likely to remain the best.”—The Washington Post Book World “Phenomenal . . . breathtaking history . . . a profoundly talented writer. . . . This book is not only one of the best books on this critical episode in Middle East history; it’s one of the best-written books I’ve read this year, in any genre.”—The Jerusalem Post “[In] Michael Oren’s richly detailed and lucid account, the familiar story is thrilling once again. . . . What makes this book important is the breadth and depth of the research.”—The New York Times Book Review “A first-rate new account of the conflict.”—The Washington Post “The definitive history of the Six-Day War . . . [Oren’s] narrative is precise but written with great literary flair. In no one else’s study is there more understanding or more surprise.”—Martin Peretz, Publisher, The New Republic “Compelling, perhaps even vital, reading.”—San Jose Mercury News
For the last thirty years, Dr. Ilana Oren was honored to work with patients who trusted her with their secrets and were willing to heal the emotion of shame engulfing their lives. The experience of shame keeps one in a state of perpetual wonder: Am I good enough? In this book, she is willing to look at the skeletons in her own closet. Her experience as a child of survivors of the Holocaust, the last remnant of the Polish Jews, who immigrated to Israel in 1957; her grief of losing friends in the Six-Day War; and her proud experience of serving in the Israeli Defense Force. Throughout her life, she was perplexed by the myth of the "chosen people." If we were the chosen people, what were we chosen for? Her search for meaning led her to trust her higher power, Emanuel- the Lord. Her story forms a fabric of a gripping new chapter in the history of the Jewish people. COVER DESIGN BY KAREEN IRIS BALSAM www.DrIlanaOren.com
For Oren Yiftachel, the notion of ethnocracy suggests a political regime that facilitates expansion and control by a dominant ethnicity in contested lands. It is neither democratic nor authoritarian, with rights and capabilities depending primarily on ethnic origin and geographic location. In Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine, he presents a new critical theory and comparative framework to account for the political geography of ethnocratic societies. According to Yiftachel, the primary manifestation of ethnocracy in Israel/Palestine has been a concerted strategy by the state of "Judaization." Yiftachel's book argues that ethnic relations—both between Jews and Palestinians, and among ethno-classes within each nation—have been shaped by the diverse aspects of the Judaization project and by resistance to that dynamic. Special place is devoted to the analysis of ethnically mixed cities and to the impact of Jewish immigration and settlement on collective identities. Tracing the dynamics of territorial and ethnic conflicts between Jews and Palestinians, Yiftachel examines the consequences of settlement, land, development, and planning policies. He assesses Israel's recent partial liberalization and the emergence of what he deems a "creeping apartheid" whereby increasingly impregnable ethnic, geographic, and economic barriers develop between groups vying for recognition, power, and resources. The book ends with an exploration of future scenarios, including the introduction of new agendas, such as binationalism and multiculturalism.
There is a lack of quiet in Sylvia that craves for action.... She knows that she is special and that she possesses unusual and varied abilities." -- From the Mossad's psychological evaluation of Sylvia Rafael When Moti Kfir, head of the Academy for Special Operations of the Mossad, first interviewed Sylvia Rafael in a coffee shop, he knew she would make a great combatant for Israel's intelligence agency. She was outgoing, resourceful, brilliant, and had a talent for bonding with others. When Kfir warned her that the mysterious job they'd met to discuss could be dangerous, she simply sat back comfortably in her chair and smiled. Sylvia Rafael is the page-turning account of a young, dedicated agent as told by the man who trained her. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, authors Ram Oren and Moti Kfir tell the story of Rafael's rise to prominence within the Mossad and her intelligence work trying to locate Ali Hassan Salameh -- the leader of Palestine's Black September organization and the mastermind behind the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Her team's misidentification of their mark would eventually lead to her arrest and imprisonment for murder and espionage. Now available in English for the first time, Sylvia Rafael offers new insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its history, and its human cost. It is a gripping, authentic spy story about a fearless defender of the Jewish people.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes a new afterword about the Iran nuclear agreement, the 2016 presidential race, and the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance Michael B. Oren’s memoir of his time as Israel’s ambassador to the United States—a period of transformative change for America and a time of violent upheaval throughout the Middle East—provides a frank, fascinating look inside the special relationship between America and its closest ally in the region. Michael Oren served as the Israeli ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013. An American by birth and a historian by training, Oren arrived at his diplomatic post just as Benjamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton assumed office. During Oren’s tenure in office, Israel and America grappled with the Palestinian peace process, the Arab Spring, and existential threats to Israel posed by international terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program. Forged in the Truman administration, America’s alliance with Israel was subjected to enormous strains, and its future was questioned by commentators in both countries. On more than one occasion, the friendship’s very fabric seemed close to unraveling. Ally is the story of that enduring alliance—and of its divides—written from the perspective of a man who treasures his American identity while proudly serving the Jewish State he has come to call home. No one could have been better suited to strengthen bridges between the United States and Israel than Michael Oren—a man equally at home jumping out of a plane as an Israeli paratrooper and discussing Middle East history on TV’s Sunday morning political shows. In the pages of this fast-paced book, Oren interweaves the story of his personal journey with behind-the-scenes accounts of fateful meetings between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, high-stakes summits with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and diplomatic crises that intensified the controversy surrounding the world’s most contested strip of land. A quintessentially American story of a young man who refused to relinquish a dream—irrespective of the obstacles—and an inherently Israeli story about assuming onerous responsibilities, Ally is at once a record, a chronicle, and a confession. And it is a story about love—about someone fortunate enough to love two countries and to represent one to the other. But, above all, this memoir is a testament to an alliance that was and will remain vital for Americans, Israelis, and the world.
“Will shape our thinking about America and the Middle East for years.”—Christopher Dickey, Newsweek Power, Faith, and Fantasytells the remarkable story of America's 230-year relationship with the Middle East. Drawing on a vast range of government documents, personal correspondence, and the memoirs of merchants, missionaries, and travelers, Michael B. Oren narrates the unknown story of how the United States has interacted with this vibrant and turbulent region.
Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and particularly after the Israeli-Arab War of 1967, a highly informal but simultaneously potent security network has influenced Israel's domestic sphere. Composed of acting and former security personnel and their partners in the state's various civilian spheres, this security network has affected Israeli culture, politics, society, economy, public discourse and foreign relations. This book discusses this major sociopolitical phenomenon and its effects in a comparative and theoretical perspective. First, it defines Israel's security network in a broad theoretical and comparative perspective. Second, it explains how Israel's security network emerged and acquired a hegemonic position in the area of national security and foreign policy. Third, it describes the security network and identifies its members. Fourth, it discusses and explains the multitude of roles that Israel's security network has come to play both domestically and externally. Fifth, it discusses similar phenomena in other relevant cases. Finally, it presents general analytical and theoretical conclusions.
This book represents the first scholarly examination of the origins of the 1956 Sinai campaign between Egypt and Israel. Utilising a wide range of primary sources, the study analyses the reasons for the breakdown of the Armistice Agreement between Egypt and Israel and the failure of efforts to mediate a peace accord.
Unsettled examines the role of young American Jews in the Palestine solidarity movement and argues that their activism and commitment to ending the occupation and Israeli apartheid is a Jewish value, which is a necessary response to the changing conditions of American Jewish life in the twenty-first century"--
Globalisation and increased cultural heterogeneity have had a major impact on states whose identity has been defined in terms of a single, often socially constructed, allegiance to the state and a single hegemonic ideology. Nowhere are changing notions of identity more prevalent than in Israel, a country whose dominant (Western-Jewish) society has been subject to understanding their past and present in terms of a single ideology of state formation -- Zionism. This book challenges some of the traditional analytical paradigms prevalent in Israeli social science for the past fifty years.
The purpose of this book is to communicate basic knowledge about two species of amphibians of the Urodela order, the fire salamander and the banded newt, along the southern border of their distribution in Israel in an area of especially extreme conditions, and to present to the reader the fascinating world of these species. The book is based on theoretical material from the academic literature that has been published in journals in t he English language over the past 40 years.
2009 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Oren Barak sheds new light on the major political and social developments in Lebanon since its independence by focusing on the emergence of the Lebanese Army, its paralysis during the civil war from 1975 to 1990, and its reconstruction after the war. He discusses the remarkable transformation of a military dominated by one sector of society—the Christian communities, and particularly the Maronites—into one that is characterized by power sharing among Lebanon's various communities, large families, and regions. The book develops a new approach to the study of the role of the military in divided societies by examining military institutions from three intertwined angles: first, as major arenas for social coexistence and conflict; second, as actors that are involved in politics but are also affected by political processes; and third, as actors that promote the process of state formation. This comprehensive look at Lebanon will inform the discussion of other divided societies, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, that face the dual challenge of restoring the political system and the security sector after state failure and intrastate conflict.
What does a country's television programming say about its deep character, beliefs, dreams and fears? Here, Tasha G. Oren recounts the volatile history of Israeli television and aiming to reveal the history of the nation itself. television became the object of fantasies and anxieties that went to the heart of Israel's most pressing concerns: Arab-Israeli relations, immigration and the forging of a modern Israeli. Television broadcasting was aimed toward external relations - the flow of messages across borders, Arab-Israeli conflict, and the shaping of public opinion worldwide - as much as it was toward internal needs and interests. Through archival research and analysis of public scandals and early programmes, Oren traces Israeli television's transformation from a feared agent of decadence to a powerful national communication tool, and eventally, to a vastly popular entertainment medium.
Mass communication has long been recognized as an important contributor to national identity and nation building. This book examines the relationship between media and nationalism in Israel, arguing that, in comparison to other countries, the Israeli case is unique. It explores the roots and evolution of newspapers, journalism, radio, television, and the debut of the Internet on both the cultural and the institutional levels, and examines milestones in the socio-political development of Hebrew and Israeli mass communication. In evaluating the technological changes in the media, the book shows how such shifts contribute to segmentation and fragmentation in the age of globalization.
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