David Shipler has now expanded, revised and up-dated what was already the most considered and compassionate account in print of how Israelis and Palestinians (Arabs and Jews, as Shipler more contentiously puts it) think about each other, their shared pasts and their unclear future apart and together. Arab and Jew was published in 1986, revised in 2002, and now worked over once more. Shipler has decided to eschew the pessimistic advice of an Israeli friend, who recommended that he “simply insert a sentence at the beginning: Everything is the same, just worse”.
I first met David Shipler during the five years when he served as bureau chief for The New York Times in Jerusalem. I value him as a friend, and greatly respect the integrity, the meticulously honest and accurate research, the moral force and drive in argument which he has brought to all his books, and now to his blog as well. Even, however, those who have never met Shipler should find Arab and Jew a remarkably cogent, hard-headed, clear-eyed assessment of the Middle East dispute.
What they will find first of all is evidence of a first-rate reporter in action, sifting and checking evidence meticulously, fairly ensuring that all voices are listened to, not taking anything on trust, analysing the context and the connotations of everything said to him. Those with no interest in the Middle East could still profit from scrutinising a master-writer at work.
Read the full review by T.H. Seal in the Sydney Morning Herald.
ARAB AND JEW: WOUNDED SPIRITS IN A PROMISED LAND by David Shipler. Broadway Books. . $39.95