Review: Enemies and Neighbors
I was hoping that Ian Black’s Enemies and Neighbors would enlighten me about the Israeli/Palestine conflict and give me some hope about the future. Well, I understand it better.
That’s not an indictment of Black’s work. He’s done a fine job digging through more than 150 years of historical records to hear the voices of the people in the middle of this ongoing storm. I believe everyone has biases when they look at the world and when they tell others what they think. Situations like this conflict bring out strong opinions and biases. As far as I can tell, injustices abound here and that angries up the blood. Outsiders like me do want to find out what those injustices are, and less biased writing helps.
Fortunately Black does great service. He’s not without bias – of course – but he does cast a wide net for facts and presents them fairly even-handedly. His biases are detectable if your antenna is up, but mostly he presents facts and evidence. He does come out and say that he believes that both major parties have completely incompatible stories of the conflict. Sad and sobering.
As with most quality education, it made me smarter bur not happier.
The work covers the situation well and as fairly as possible. It’s important to understand. Strongly recommended.