O Jerusalem!
I finally got around to cracking Larry Collins' and Dominique Lapierre's classic 1972 book O Jerusalem!, an exhaustively researched, "day by day and minute by minute" account of Israel's War of Independence and the creation of the State of Israel. It's fascinating in its detail and its modern relevance in helping to understand the genesis of the current fractured state of affairs in the Middle East--particularly with regard to the British legacy and their principled role as post-WWI occupiers of Palestine. It's riveting.
An Amazon reviewer said it nicely:
"Most people who have not made it their specific study are relatively unaware of the creation of the state of Israel. Fortunately, there is this excellent account of the birth of Israel and the war that followed. This book does have a number of flaws, but despite this should be read by anyone looking for a fair account of the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict."
Sure, it's pro-Zionist for the most part, perhaps consciously or unconsciously in terms of telling the story of the founding of Israel--but thankfully, it falls well short of "good Jew, bad Arab" stereotypes. It includes accounts of both the Hadassah medical convoy massacre and the the Deir Yassin massacre, the latter off which I haven't read yet, but I know it's a controversial issue and the Israeli Foreign Ministry denies such a killing occurred. Including this incident, I think, at least shows good faith in intentions by the book's authors to be even-handed...
Of course, this book only scratches the surface of the conflict... I've spent some time with Wikipedia's Palestine pages (as I seem to have lived in a geopolitical cave for most of my life) and I'm researching other books on the subject. If you have a good recommendation, let me know.
As for the movie version (whose US release date is this month, and which I have not seen) -- not a lot of great reviews. The Jerusalem Post's Jonathan Tobin seems to sum it up in a 10/29 article: "The good news is that O Jerusalem's sheer unwatchability will minimize any damage it does with its muddle-headed even-handedness."
Here's the trailer.
And I would be remiss if I did not include the song going non-stop in my head:
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