Cavalry: The History Of Mounted Warfare Book

According to one cynical goodreads reviewer, From Beirut to Jerusalem offers some insight into "two sets of idiots killing each other over a piece of dirt." My instinctive reaction when I read this was to feel sorry for this reviewer who clearly doesn't know what it means to have a homeland, and to be so deeply invested in it as to be willing to die for it. My husband pointed out that the reviewer may actually know what it's like to have a homeland. What the reviewer doesn't know is what it's like to have it taken away - a defining experience to which both Israelis and Palestinians lay claim.

This is but one of many divides between American culture and what's going on in the Middle East, which is why Americans may never truly understand what's happening there. I feel that this book is an excellent attempt at bridging that gap. Friedman writes clearly, and you come away from the book feeling like your understanding of Middle Eastern history and politics has both deepened and broadened greatly. For that alone, it's a great book.

I admit that my feelings toward Israel as a Zionistic Jew currently living here in Israel tend to be emotional and irrational, and I'm aware that it was with no small measure of hypersensitivity and defensiveness that I read Friedman's criticisms of Israeli behavior. I do applaud Friedman's efforts to put his Jewish origins aside and report objectively on what goes on in the region. Objectivity and accuracy are important in journalism, even if this means that I won't always like what the writer has to say.

I wonder, though, whether Friedman goes too far in the other direction. I believe that he has succeeded in overcoming feelings for Israel that would lead him to see Israel's actions through rose-colored glasses and to report the news in a way that attempts to justify them. Instead, his reaction is frequently one of anger when Israel disappoints him and makes him ashamed of his Jewish identity - an equally personal and emotional reaction, and no less biased.

Friedman writes the following about his exclusive interview with Major General Amir Drori, the Israeli commander in Lebanon, following the Phalangist massacres at Sabra and Shatila which took place under the Israeli army's watch:

"I must admit I was not professionally detached in this interview. I banged the table with my fist and shouted at Drori, 'How could you do this? How could you not see? How could you not know?' But what I was really saying, in a very selfish way, was 'How could you do this to me, you bastards? I always thought you were different. I always thought we were different. I'm the only Jew in West Beirut. What do I tell people now? What do I tell myself?

"…So the next morning I buried Amir Drori on the front page of the New York Times, and along with him every illusion I ever held about the Jewish state." (p. 166)

I'm not trying to justify what happened in Sabra and Shatila. Drori arguably deserved to be buried. But there was clearly a personal agenda here for Friedman, just as personal as a pro-Zionist agenda would have been.

Friedman writes with plain disgust about the indignities suffered by the Palestinians under Israeli occupation, an occupation which, incidentally, began after Israel won the territories in a war fought for self-defense. The chapter where Friedman describes this is replete with anecdotes and quotes from victimized Palestinians and bullying Israelis.

In contrast, Friedman compares the Palestinian challenge to Israel to a "poke in the ribs." He goes on in the very next sentence to say:
"Palestinians planted bombs in Israeli supermarkets, on their airplanes, under the seats of their buses, and even in an old refrigerator in the heart of Jerusalem. They hijacked their airplanes, murdered their Olympic team, and shot up their embassies." (p. 347)

Some poke in the ribs! Ever ridden on a bus where a suspicious "package" is discovered? I have. So have my children. But that experience doesn't compare to riding a bus where the suspicious package remains undiscovered. It goes way beyond a poke in the ribs, I can tell you. Interviews with people who have lost arms, legs, or children to this poke in the ribs were woefully missing from Friedman's account, as was a fair effort to place oppressive Israeli behavior in context.

For example, in one particularly painful anecdote Friedman describes a Palestinian man interrupted during an intimate moment with his wife by Israeli soldiers who have come to arrest him. The soldier telling the story admits to wolfishly eying the wife as the husband dresses to accompany them. What Friedman doesn't tell us is what the Palestinian man had done to deserve his arrest. Would the anecdote read the same way if we were also informed that this man was directly involved in innocent civilian murders? I don't know what the man's charges were or whether they were justified, but the complete omission of the context surrounding his arrest makes the story seem very one-sided.

Israeli arrests of Palestinians were generally painted by Friedman with a broad brush as largely unwarranted, paranoid behavior by Israelis. I'm not saying this is never the case. But I do think it's more complicated than Friedman makes it sound. In contrast, behavior by various Lebanese groups in Beirut which might seem unfathomable to a Westerner was carefully explained by Friedman and rendered almost understandable, if not sympathetic.

I don't want to overstate my case. Friedman does discuss Western hyper-scrutiny and quick judgment of Israel, and factors which go into over-reporting by the media of Israeli mistakes. He defends Israeli behavior occasionally, or at least explains it. And I'm sure that if I could get hold of Edward Said's review of this book, I would get some perspective on Friedman's possible unfairness in the other direction as well. Finally, as I said, I know that my objectivity when it comes to this issue is sharply limited.

Overall, I'm glad I read the book. "From Beirut to Jerusalem" both expanded and deepened my knowledge of what's going on around me, and I think it's important for me to start gathering the facts and not just the experiences. My understanding of my position as a Jew here in Israel is far more complex now than it was before I read the book. And the book is readable as well as informative - I whipped through its 500+ pages pretty quickly. My husband, who is better-informed than I am on these issues, summed it up well when he told me that he feels Friedman's perspective is a legitimate one - but it's one of many legitimate perspectives out there. And now, I want to read some others. My increasing desire to read further on the subject may be the greatest testimony to the book's worth.