Rating: 
Summary: Still coping with life in Israel
Review: "I've lived in Israel for half my life now... and while there have been very few periods since [1983] when the living was easy, nothing could compare to the hell we've been forced to endure since the outbreak of this round of conflict," writes Jerusalem Report editor David Horovitz, in his new book, "Still Life With Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism."With daily suicide bombing attacks and roadside shootings, leaving one's home in the morning was to "enter a kind of grisly lottery - going out into a world in which there was no certainty that we, our children and all the other people we loved would make it home safely again at the end of the day." So why, some of his friends from abroad asked, were Horovitz and his family staying in Israel? In this chronicle of living in Israel during the latest Intifada, Horovitz bravely states that his "personal commitment to Israel, in fact, has been anything but weakened by the new round of conflict." As in his previous book, "A Little Too Close to God : The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel," Horovitz deftly weaves personal concerns with astute political analysis. He provides examples of daily life in Israel, and of the close encounters he, and the other members of his family, have had with the deadly face of Palestinian terrorism. Yet this is not an account of the Horovitz's family life in the age of terrorism. Horovitz, the journalist, seeks answers to two important questions: How did we get into this mess? And, how do we get out of the deadlock? Looking back at the Camp David talks and former prime minister Ehud Barak's efforts to quickly reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians, Horovitz writes, "I have this powerful belief, founded on what I believe to be firm evidence, that we did genuinely try to make peace with the Palestinians, and essentially offered the right terms for coexistence." With his position and press card as passport, Horovitz has been able to talk with Barak and other Israeli, Palestinian and American officials, lending his perceptions the weight of direct involvement with the participants of a failed diplomatic process. Horovitz doesn't spare words in his criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's failure to allow a moderate Palestinian leadership to arise. "We were desperately trying to keep our families safe, while our political masters, maddeningly, were promising us only more of the same, or worse," Horovitz writes. The author also criticizes the possibility of Israel making unilateral withdrawals from Palestinian territory, once a platform of failed Labor leader Amram Mitzna and today the standard being promoted by Sharon. So what does Horovitz offer as hope for the future? "There is only one avenue, then, to maintaining Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic one: finding the negotiated terms for territorial separation from Palestinians; and we can do that only when they have a leadership in place that honestly seeks coexistence, encouraged by the knowledge that we are again ready to offer viable terms. Their future depends on it. So, too, does ours." In his book, Horovitz, a frequent commentator on Israeli current affairs for BBC, CNN and NPR, also reports on his personal efforts on the "second battlefield" - the portrayal of Israel's side in the international media. Israel's public relations efforts, when spokesmen who don't even speak proper English are thrown in front of the camera, are taken to task by someone who knows how to present Israel's case in the proper light. Horovitz's chronicle includes an honest attempt to portray "the other side" as well, correctly reporting that life for the Palestinians during this conflict has been horrific and hellish. Yet, Horovitz's efforts to meet the family of a Palestinian girl who received a transplated kidney from Scottish terror victim Yoni Jesner seem almost comic, and a bit unprofessional for someone of Horovitz's standing. With reports of Israelis' resilience to the ongoing violence appearing occasionally, both in the media and in print, Horovitz's book stands out for offering what author Samuel G. Freedman labels a "vital dose of painful wisdom and realistic, tempered hope."
Rating: 
Summary: Shows how Israelis are coping with terror
Review: After the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000, Arabs launched a wave of terrorist attacks on Israel. And while some people in faraway nations may have failed to see just who the aggressors were, those who lived in Israel could not avoid noticing.
Horovitz does a superb job of describing living with the threat of terrorist attacks. We see how both Jews and Arabs react to all the fighting. And he also explains the extent to which the conflict is misdescribed by many in the media. I was shocked to discover that several star reporters were under the misimpression that the West Bank and Gaza had been some sort of independent sovereign territory prior to 1967. Other disturbing signs were the reluctance of reporters to believe Israelis who disagreed with Arab lies, the eagerness of reporters to believe that Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was some sort of wicked war criminal, and the "conventional wisdom" that Israel was to blame for the conflict since it was holding territory that it did not stake a sovereign claim to. In addition, I was puzzled by the fact that a reporter insisted that Israel had to be held to a "higher standard."
The author explains how the Big Lie technique was used to accuse Israel of war crimes at, of all places, Jenin (where Israel went in with ground troops, dramatically sacrificing the lives of many soldiers to reduce Arab civilian casualties). And he quotes Kofi Annan, who maliciously asked "Can the whole world be wrong (in condemning Israel)?" Horovitz has a one-word answer. Yes. Any reasonable person would, if shown the facts that European Union officials were demanding to punish Israel for trying to thwart terrorist bombings and simultaneously shown that the EU was supporting the bombers financially, letting them buy explosives with its money, would see that the EU is wrong. His point is that a misinformed world will indeed be wrong.
For me, the mangling of truth by the media stood out in this book as the most serious aspect of the fighting. It is sad that Arabs are attacking Israeli civilians. It is good that the media are positioned to report on this. I think even vaguely honest reporting would bring enough political pressure to bear so that the attacks would stop. That is why it is such a pity that we are seeing nothing of the sort.
There are many other regions in the world where there is plenty of violence. They don't have anything like the media coverage we see in the Levant. If the media are failing so utterly in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, one has to doubt their ability to get anything right.
I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Centrist Manifesto
Review: As an Israeli resident whose heart is on the left but whose head is somewhere else, I found David Horovitz's book a superb narrative of what happened to those of us who thought we had found a formula for peace. The disillusionment I and others like me feel has led us to a new place on the Israeli political spectrum, one that never really existed before -- the Center. David Horovitz explains why and gives a voice to the sensible, rational, middle-of-the-road Israel that is rarely depicted on television. He explains how it is possible to distrust Arafat and the rest of the Arab leadership without sounding like a rabid, drooling, racist "settler." While he describes what it is like to live close to the scene of repeated terrorist attacks, he does not rely on the reader's sympathy to persuade; rather, he uses sound, fundamental and highly articulate factual argument to substantiate his views. Anyone who considers himself well-versed on the situation in Israel MUST read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Vital Dose of Common Sense
Review: As Israelis and Palestinians battle to persuade the world that right is on their side in their terrible conflict, David Horovitz cuts through the propaganda and tells it like it is: Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians are suffering because Yaser Arafat does not want to make peace. As Horovitz writes, Arafat does not want to be remembered as the Muslim leader who accepted the Jewish right to sovereignty in the Middle East. The strength of this book, though, is that it is not merely a well-argued political analysis. It is life from the civilian battle zone -- harrowing daily life, as described by a father, who like all Israeli parents, worries that every day he is sending his family out into the "grim lottery," where suicide bombers, indoctrinated by vicious Islamic extremists, lurk and have struck in almost every city -- not just in the West Bank and Gaza, but all over sovereign Israel as well. As both a journalist and an ordinary father, Horovitz is able to write as an analyst and an everyday citizen -- providing the personal anecdotes that give his text such power and credibility. I imagine there will be those on the Israeli right who will dislike this book for its commonsense insistence, now belatedly recognized by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, that Israel must separate from the Palestinians if it is to remain Jewish and democratic. I am sure that the Palestinian propagandists will loathe it, for so effectively puncturing their assertion that Israel has not been serious about wanting to partner them in co-existence. But this is a persuasive narrative from the middle ground, passionately argued, ringing true. And its critics will not be able to shrug it off lightly.
Rating:
Summary: Still Life with Bombers
Review: David Horovitz continues to bring the readers' hearts and minds directly to Israel with his newest book. He describes the situation with clarity as a journalist and with emotion as the father of young children being raised in this life with bombers. For anyone who has an interest or connection to Israel this book is a must read!
Rating:
Summary: Telling it like it is
Review: Horovitzes book accurately portrays the struggle of trying to lead a normal life in Israel. We choose restaraunts or cafes by deciding which are less likely to be blown up. We avoid sending our kids on buses at all costs. We get nervous when a car driven by a Palestinian pulls up next to us. Horovitz goes to great lengths to describe how on the one hand we deal with terror, yet on the other we worry about our careers and doing right by the kids. He describes our frustration at often being painted the bad guys, or oppressors by a seemingly biased (and often ignorant or anti-semitic) world opinion. On the other hand, he really tries to show the Palestinian point of view, and describes the misery of their lives. The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is tragic. The author explains why it turned out like this and how possibly it could be resolved. The book gives a fascinating insight and is brilliantly written. A must read for anyone interested in Middle East affairs.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for Middle-East Pundits
Review: Thank you David Horovitz. Thank you for telling it like it is.
Your honest and accurate account of the past 3 1/2 years attempts to make sense of the mayhem and insanity that we have been living since this Second Intifada erupted. A madness where the most simple things in life such as riding a bus or going for a coffee can no longer be taken for granted. This book has 253 pages of unembellished facts that cannot be refuted. Horovitz simply tells it as is. He is brutally fair in his efforts to let every side to this conflict have their say. While he makes no effort to sugar-coat the mistakes made by
Israelis, he reminds the dishonest critics of Israel who feel they are even-handed in their coverage of this century-old conflict that Jewish People have right to exist in their homeland. And perhaps most importantly, he tells the Palestinans that there are many Israelis like himself who recognize their rights to a viable Palestinan state living peacefully side by side, once the culture of death and fanaticsm perpetrated by the suicide bombers and those who sent them disappear from the face of the earth. I look forward to
David Horovitz's next book telling the world how and what made this happen.
Rating:
Summary: What's really happening in Israel
Review: The "politically correct" view nowadays seems to be to regard Israel as the oppressor in the current conflict. Things aren't so simple, as this book makes clear. The author is no right-winger, and he presents a clear and highly-readable description of what's going on today in Israel and the territories, and some poignant pictures of ordinary people on both sides, caught in the crossfire. There's plenty of blame to go around: the Israeli authorities are depicted as arrogant, all too often incompetent, and given to cronyism, but most of the trouble, the author convincingly shows, is to be laid at the feet of Arafat. Is a peaceful solution possible while he's around? I'm not optimistic.
Rating:
Summary: What's really happening in Israel
Review: The "politically correct" view nowadays seems to be to regard Israel as the oppressor in the current conflict. Things aren't so simple, as this book makes clear. The author is no right-winger, and he presents a clear and highly-readable description of what's going on today in Israel and the territories, and some poignant pictures of ordinary people on both sides, caught in the crossfire. There's plenty of blame to go around: the Israeli authorities are depicted as arrogant, all too often incompetent, and given to cronyism, but most of the trouble, the author convincingly shows, is to be laid at the feet of Arafat. Is a peaceful solution possible while he's around? I'm not optimistic.
Rating:
Summary: What's really happening in Israel
Review: The "politically correct" view nowadays seems to be to regard Israel as the oppressor in the current conflict. Things aren't so simple, as this book makes clear. The author is no right-winger, and he presents a clear and highly-readable description of what's going on today in Israel and the territories, and some poignant pictures of ordinary people on both sides, caught in the crossfire. There's plenty of blame to go around: the Israeli authorities are depicted as arrogant, all too often incompetent, and given to cronyism, but most of the trouble, the author convincingly shows, is to be laid at the feet of Arafat. Is a peaceful solution possible while he's around? I'm not optimistic.
| 
