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Can We Talk about Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted
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A clear-headed, even-handed, plain-spoken primer on the state of Israel, Can We Talk About Israel? A Guide for the Curious, Confused and Conflicted is what happens when you make a book you wish existed. Written by my dear friend Daniel Sokatch with illustrations, graphs and maps by me, it’s an incisive overview of the history and political dynamics in Israel and a must for anyone who wants to understand what’s happening over there without the posturing or heavy-handed polemics.
“Can’t you just explain the Israel situation to me? In, like, 10 minutes or less?” This is the question Daniel is used to answering on an almost daily basis as the head of the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis, not just Jews.
Can We Talk About Israel? is the story of that conflict, and of why so many people feel so strongly about it without actually understanding it very well at all. It is an attempt to grapple with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as (and indeed are) victims. And it’s an attempt to explain why Israel (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) inspires such extreme feelings-why it seems like Israel is the answer to “what is wrong with the world” for half the people in it, and “what is right with the world” for the other half. Is there any other topic about which so many intelligent, educated and sophisticated people express such strongly and passionately held convictions, and about which they actually know so little?
• “If you fall into the camp of the “curious, confused, and conflicted,” then this book is for you. [Sokatch] promises the reader that “after you’ve read it, you’ll be able to hold your own in any Israel conversation, at any dinner party.” He delivers on this promise, providing an engaging and evenhanded … history of the conflict, from its 19th-century origins to the most recent mini-war between Israel and Hamas in May 2021.” -The New York Times Book Review
• “We live in an age diseased with certainty, but Daniel Sokatch has the bravery to come along with an antidote that suggests that there is always so much more than one truth. Sokatch embraces the Whitmanesque notion that we are large and we contain multitudes. He allows us to understand that it is more difficult-but exceedingly more rewarding-to think kaleidoscopically about others. He disrupts and therefore re-nuances the accepted narratives, and he does this with great generosity of style and spirit. This is an important book, exceedingly well written, full of insight and empathy and even humor in the face of all available evidence.” ―Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN and APEIROGON
• “Everything that so often seems lacking in our thoughts, feelings, and arguments about Israel and Palestine-clarity, fair-mindedness, and universal compassion-can be found in this elegantly written and surprisingly entertaining book.” ―Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman
