The author does a good job of summarizing the books referenced and presenting an overall view. This quote from one of the books "It is well described by Sylvain Cypel, a French observer and editor of Le Monde, who spent many years in Israel, in his insightful book Walled: Israeli Society at an Impasse. He writes, "The occupation automatically reinforced the most ethnicist tendencies." is a quote that could be applied to all occupations. I did find this contradiction in the writing; "The settlement fever first spread among young men and women who believed they were following in the footsteps of the early Zionist pioneers, the fabled "beggars with dreams" who between 1892 and 1948 had settled on land owned by Jews." and "Perhaps ... More »

Elon is a respected Israeli writer; his views need to be taken seriously. I don't question his facts here. - The area where I might question is on the initial years after the 67 war - at the time I believe Israel thought it could trade captured land for peace treatiies, but the surrounding states refused. He also does not mention the problem of Israelis who used to live in the Arab countries but were expelled in the same wars that created the Palestinian refugees. But overall this is a calm, balanced presentation of a tragically tangled set of issues. I believe it also reflects recent polling which says that a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians would be satisfied with a two state solution.