Told mainly through a series of vignettes and interviews, this fine book builds toward one overarching conclusion, namely that Israel, as it currently stands (politically, socially and demographically), is a country living on borrowed time.
It is, at once, the idealistic, romantic story of Israel's 19th century beginnings, which ever so quickly folds into the initial conflicts with Palestinian neighbors, followed by conflicts ever more intense with each succeeding decade, and leading ultimately to the situation today in which a prosperous and powerful country of 6 million people is surrounded by 3 or 4 hundred million Arabs who, for the most part, wish they weren't there.
The author, Ari Shavit, a proud Israeli citizen, sees his country as a land careening toward disaster unless and until it threads the needle out of the vortex in which it now finds itself. In a certain sense, this is a 'Waiting for Godot' story in which it appears that no solution is anywhere in sight. For there is, for certain, a poison cup in this land from which both sides drunk deeply.
So profoundly distressing and so dangerous is the current situation that, at least to me, the only possible present path forward would seem to be a long series of moderating mini-steps that might, over time, ever so gradually dissipate the fear and hostility that today governs the multiple 'players and parties' who inhabit this troubled land.
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