“Israel on the Brink : Eight Steps for a Better Future” by Ilan Pappe
Book post that I received from the publisher. Interestingly enough, it came along with Yossi Cohen’s The Sword of Freedom. Both the books (published by HarperCollins India) are filled with details about Israel and Palestine. It is challenging for a lay reader to make sense of it beyond gleaning what lies on the surface. Dialogue is urgently required. If books can help achieve it, then why not? Perhaps each side will pick up books about the opposite side and read it in quiet and come to their own conclusions. Hopefully, constructive dialogue rather than othering will be the positive impact.
Book blurb
Israel can’t go on like this.
7 October and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza laid bare the cracks in its foundations. It was unveiled as a country unable to protect its citizens, divided between messianic theocrats and selective liberals, resented by its neighbours and losing the support of Jews worldwide. While its leaders justify bombing campaigns exceeding the worst atrocities of World War 2 and a spiralling humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, Israel is becoming a pariah state. Its worst enemy is not Hamas, but itself.
Ilan Pappe paves a path out of the Jewish state, rooted in restorative justice and decolonisation, including the return of refugees, the end of illegal settlements, and building bridges with the Arab world. The future can be one of reconciliation, not endless war.
Ilan Pappe is Professor of History at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author of over a dozen books, including the bestselling The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic. In 2017, he received the Middle East Monitor’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the Palestine Book Awards.
19 Oct 2025
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