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Rating: 
Summary: Overly Polemic
Review: Ezrahi's book is a testament to the openness of Israeli society. While he fails to mention that fact, I believe it is crucial to the context of the work. Anywhere else in the Middle East, any citizen who wrote such a critical work would be quickly jailed or worse.My problem with Ezrahi's book is that, though well written, he fails to deal with the complex issues of conflict within the Israeli national consciousness. Israel, as state that has spent its entire history under constant siege by its neighbors, struggles with the twin Herculean tasks of building a pluralistic democratic society, while at the same time defending their borders from a sea of nations bent on their destruction. This dichotomy has caused great stress in Israeli culture and that stress is worthy of academic attention. Rather than recognizing this conflict and the toll it takes on the Israeli soul, Ezrahi takes the easy route, simply cataloging and bemoaning the things Israel is forced to do to defend itself. That is an unfortunate tack to take, since it leaves little room for discussion, but instead amounts to little more than a litany of "sins." To Israel's credit, few if any other democracies have been able to survive under the same level of stress. Moreover, even absent such stresses, few democratic nations are able to integrate such a large minority population as Israel has with the Israeli-Arab community that enjoy all the rights of citizenship of the Jewish majority. I will say that there is the potential for a fascinating book on the topic this book tries to address. This just is not it.
Rating:
Summary: Overly Polemic
Review: Ezrahi's book is a testament to the openness of Israeli society. While he fails to mention that fact, I believe it is crucial to the context of the work. Anywhere else in the Middle East, any citizen who wrote such a critical work would be quickly jailed or worse. My problem with Ezrahi's book is that, though well written, he fails to deal with the complex issues of conflict within the Israeli national consciousness. Israel, as state that has spent its entire history under constant siege by its neighbors, struggles with the twin Herculean tasks of building a pluralistic democratic society, while at the same time defending their borders from a sea of nations bent on their destruction. This dichotomy has caused great stress in Israeli culture and that stress is worthy of academic attention. Rather than recognizing this conflict and the toll it takes on the Israeli soul, Ezrahi takes the easy route, simply cataloging and bemoaning the things Israel is forced to do to defend itself. That is an unfortunate tack to take, since it leaves little room for discussion, but instead amounts to little more than a litany of "sins." To Israel's credit, few if any other democracies have been able to survive under the same level of stress. Moreover, even absent such stresses, few democratic nations are able to integrate such a large minority population as Israel has with the Israeli-Arab community that enjoy all the rights of citizenship of the Jewish majority. I will say that there is the potential for a fascinating book on the topic this book tries to address. This just is not it.
Rating: 
Summary: Yaron Ezrahi Exhibits His Own Power and Conscience
Review: I found this book to be a highly illuminating one about modern Israel from a sociocultural, Historical perspective. One need not agree with the analysis completely to appreciate the thoughtfulness and conviction that went into it or to learn from one man's compelling study of the dichotomy between individualism and communal values in contemporary Israel. Similarly it is a fine insider's view of the author's thinking about the pluralistic nature of Israli society today, contrary to the belief that Israel is a homogenous society, held by so many outsiders. The moral dilemma for Jewish Israeli citizens posed by the distinction between a deliberate show of military force in defense of survival versus the extention of unnecessary militarism beyond that to an illigetimate use of power, is one of the central themes of the book. The title, "Rubber Bullets" is intended as a symbol of Israel's moral compromise between the alternatives of shooting real bullets at stone throwing Plesinian youths or doing nothing in the face of such hostility and ensuing danger. Ezrahi does not argue that the compromise was particularly effective on a practical level, hence the characterization of it as symbolic. In my view, the author is a loyal Israeli who wishes to minimize military force to that which is necessary and to maximize the search for new ways of establishing peace amongst the parties involved. Because he does not subscribe totally to the communal values of collectivism and solidarity at the expense of the type of indiviualism and a subjective voice that is necessary for a liberal democracy to thrive, he will undoubtedly incur the wrath of those who will not tolerate any critical commentary about Israel. One quarrel I do have with Ezrahi is based more on omission than commission. Perhaps it can be remedied through an updated and expanded version of the book yet to come. That is, I would like to read the author's recent analysis and proposed solutions to the ethical dilemmas that the Israelis are facing because of the repeated lethal barrage of suicide bombers in their state by terrorists.
Rating:
Summary: Useless and out-of-context
Review: Israel is not perfect. But few other nations can legitimately claim to be more perfect. That an Israeli penned this book only proves that Israelis are often their own worst enemies.
The book lacks perspective, least of all Israel's continued isolation in a sea of largely hostile Arab nations armed to the teeth. It therefore exploits a Jewish propensity to feel guilt even when none is required.
What perspective? By comparison to the United Nations, Israel is moral, kind--and far less brutal. In 1993, for example, the UN killed more than 750 demonstrating Somalis with AC-130 helicopter gunships and tanks within five months--including more than 60 in June, 20 shot by Pakistani troops, 73 in July, 100 in September and 500 in a 14-hour battle on October 3. Thousands were wounded. UN troops were far more violent than Israel in similar circumstances, yet blamed insurgents for the lethal results-just like British UN troops who fired plastic bullets and used tanks in Mitrovica to quell riots of stone- and bomb-throwing ethnic Albanians.
One would expect Ezrahi to compare Israel's actions to those of the UN and Western troops. But one finds no such comparison here; readers must turn to others like Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) for accounts of the Somali and other episodes.
Ezrahi doesn't even put the Israeli response to Arab violence into the context of other surrounding nations, which are also far more brutal. In the Sudan, a Muslim government enslaves some 15,000 Christians and animists and murders 1,000 weekly in a jihad genocide that has already taken more than 2 million lives. Why does Ezrahi single out Israel, without noting the actions of other far-more-egregious governments in the same region?
Ezrahi could also have juxtaposed Israel's actions with those of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In 1987 Saudi officials marred the annual hajj by killing more than 275 unarmed Iranian pilgrims who had hoped to take over Mecca's Grand Mosque and force clerics to declare Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini the leader of all Muslims. (Iran claimed the death toll was 600.) And in 1970, Jordan's King Husein ordered an assault on the Palestine Liberation Organization that razed the al-Wahdat and Husayni refugee camps near Amman nearly to the ground. In 10 days, at least 3,400 were slaughtered, a number Arafat put at 20,000.
Had Ezrahi compared Israel's "brutishness" to that of other nations, he could have reached legitimate conclusions. But this book considers Israeli responses to violent demonstrations in a vacuum. Therefore, the book tells us nothing of import at all.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
Rating:
Summary: Intolerant in the extreme
Review: This book was very hard to take, since the author can't even stand Israelis who love nature if their politics are not his own. He couldn't take a walking tour with someone he observed to be "right wing." Good Lord, what is the world coming to? Nature is a universal language, it is not political. I find this to be intolerant in the extreme.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book
Review: Yaron Ezrahi is a very smart political observer. He feeds many other writers with his original insights. I liked the personal feeling at the beginning of the book, the story of almost losing his manuscript, the scene with his father and son watching TV. Those kind of images brought me into Israel and a relation with the author. Maybe I'm not as interested in theory as others. Or maybe the writing in "Rubber Bullets" becomes too dense, but the second 2/3r's of the book were more theoretical, less effective for this reader. But an important scholar and this reader hopes his next book will be more personal.
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