Barrier: The Seam of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict [Hardcover]

Isabel Kershner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 29, 2005

In this moving account of the barriers between Israelis and Palestinians, leading Israeli journalist Isabel Kershner traces the route of the wall Israel is building and reports its profound effects on people living on both sides. Kershner provides rich and insightful portraits of Israeli settlers feeling abandoned on the wrong side of the fence; Palestinian farmers angry at being cut off from their lands and groves; Arab families split up in a town now divided by the barrier; and Israelis protesting that it is an obstacle to peace. Exploring the reasons for the barrier and its political and moral implications, Kershner focuses on the people committed to their causes. As the future relationship between Israelis and Palestinians is being determined, this important book addresses one of the most controversial solutions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One of the effects of the highly controversial barrier being erected by Israel between itself and Occupied Palestine has been the creation of a weird nether-world dubbed "the Seam Zone," which Jerusalem Report editor Kerchner describes with both compassion and coherence. Using numerous interviews and impressive legwork, Kerchner conveys both the tragic necessity of a physical separation to shield Israelis from terrorism, as well as the bureaucratic nightmare of Kafkaesque proportions the arbitrary divide represents for the Palestinians caught on the wrong side as they are subjected to a barrage of hardships, humiliations and expropriations. Kerchner follows a plethora of protagonists, including academics, military fence planners, disillusioned kibbutzniks, Arab farmers cut off from their olive groves, Israeli antiwall activists and the parents of Arab "martyrs" who applaud their murderous progeny but crave peace with their Jewish neighbors. Her diligence pays off, and the rigorous in-the-field reporting and simple human empathy of this engrossing study more than makes up for a few easy generalizations on one or two contentious issues. Her volume provides stunning insights into the latest, and perhaps most potent, symbol of the impasse the Arab-Israeli peace process has lumbered into since the promising Oslo Accords over a decade ago. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Isabel Kershner turns a complicated issue into a gripping story without sacrificing the nuances or the complexities. Barrier is an elegantly written and eloquent page turner."
-- Bob Simon, 60 Minutes Correspondent

"Isabel Kershner has provided a distinctly human perspective on the Israeli security barrier. She weaves a compelling story, wonderfully written and told largely through the eyes of individual Israelis and Palestinians. But this is more than only the story of the barrier and how it is seen; it is also an explanation of the conflict and the pain it continues to impose on both sides. The Israeli quest for security and acceptance and the Palestinian yearning for dignity and freedom emerge unmistakably in this very moving book."
-- Dennis Ross, chief Middle East peace negotiator for Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, author of The Missing Peace

"Nothing expresses the folly of the two peoples as this thing does. When viewed close-up, the barrier turns into a tall hideous curtain, still ugly even if made from cement rather than iron, swallowing cities and hopes. As with most walls in history, fear may have created the impulse to build it; but greed and other human faults determine its path. Isabel Kershner's book is not about the concrete and wire fences; it is about those who created them, the bombers as well as the mighty occupiers; but most importantly, it is about those victimized by its unwelcome and destructive presence. We hear their voices and feel their pain. More than that, Kershner's storytelling digs deeper into the strategic implications, making her book useful to experts as well as all concerned with the Middle East"
-- Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah

"Barrier is superb. Extraordinarily balanced and perceptive, it is a sympathetic but unflinchingly honest portrayal of two peoples irreversibly entangled in their own historic tragedies. Veteran journalist Isabel Kershner portrays their conflict from the bottom up--through the eyes and voices of Palestinians and Israelis on both sides of the barrier. If you can only read one book about this conflict, this is it: It is brilliant and unique."
-- Samuel Lewis, U.S. Ambassador to Israel under Presidents Carter and Reagan, and former President, United States Institute of Peace

"Kershner carefully and humanely shows how the wall built by Ariel Sharon's government has not only exposed divisions but also created them--physically, politically and psychologically."--Washington Post Book World

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (November 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403968012
• ISBN-13: 978-1403968012
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,218,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exposing the fabric, April 28, 2006

By 

C. Brown (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barrier: The Seam of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Hardcover)

I picture the Israeli-Palestinian conflict like the graphic computer simulations of a black hole in space-time. What you see is a neat mesh of lines that, near the black hole, becomes wildly distorted. So, too, is there a similarity with Einstein's thought-experiment of travel near the speed of light...what the traveler experiences and what the "stationary" observer of that traveler sees appear unreconcilable, yet both the traveler and the observer could claim truth is on their side.

This book follows the strands of human life, the mesh of those lives near the black hole, the "holy land". The author lets us see different perspectives while easing us through the background of events and people that have created the situation and live with it.

Less than a year old (published late 2005), this book takes us up past the death of Arafat but ends before Sharon's stroke. We meet farmers and townspeople, the highly placed and the low, the wealthy and the poor, the bitter, the outraged and the complacent, the victims on both sides. You begin to understand the tragedy of the whole situation, of the dreams that end in nightmare, of the horrors that some wish to make reality, of those who are determined beyond the reach of reason, of those who work to destroy all hope while claiming to preserve it.

I am 55 years old and have lived through a good portion of the episodes of this tragic region, though at a far remove. I know reasonable people who, when this subject arises, become unrecognizable in their thinking. I expect my last breath will be drawn with it still unresolved. It is the place where the rock meets the hard place, where for every one who would make a concession, there is another who will give none and this book portrays it revealingly.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Barrier to peace?, February 18, 2006

By 

Dr Adam Weiss (Buffalo Grove,IL.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Barrier: The Seam of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Hardcover)

I always wanted to know more about this "Barrier" and it's affects it would have in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I was not disappointed.The author shows both view points and it's relationship to the people lives on a daily basis. A must read for anyone interested in learning more about the middle east and the people who live there.

5 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting book, December 17, 2005

By 

Jill Malter ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barrier: The Seam of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Hardcover)

Isabel Kershner does tell us quite a bit about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But she owes it to us to put it in better perspective. It's not "balance" to tell the truth some of the time and repeat lies some of the time. Israeli desires for peace are simply not analogous to Arab demands for war. If Arab aggression against Israel ceases, there will be peace between Arabs and Israelis. If Israel ceases to defend itself, not only will there be a catastrophe, but there still will not be peace.

Yes, it is true that many Arabs sincerely desire a return to the, um, good old days (if indeed they were all that good) when Jews had no rights. Some people want to return to the days in the antebellum South when Blacks were slaves. But society needs to put that behind it, not in front of it.

To Kershner's credit, she does explain that the Israeli security barrier is "less an expression of choice than a measure of last resort." Suicide bombers had killed and maimed plenty of Israelis and "posed an existential threat to the Israeli way of life." In addition, the suicide bombings precluded peace negotiations. So Israel came up with a barrier. She mentions that only 5 or 6 per cent of the barrier is a wall, with the rest being a fence. She interviews both Arabs and Jews, and we get plenty of information about what some of them think. And we see that for most people, the conflict is not about land. It is indeed about rights.

Also to Kershner's credit, she tells us that in general, Israelis do see the United Nations and the International Court of Justice as seriously biased. And that Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory, not occupied territory.

One can write books that describe the attitudes of terrorists and racists and their supporters. But I think that Kershner ought to have made it even clearer that it is not a mere opinion of a few Israel-lovers that Levantine Jews ought to have a right to life. It is an absolute requirement for them to have such a right if we are to support human rights for all. The barrier is not pleasant for the Jews and Arabs, but the way to get it removed is to stop the Arab aggression.

This book reminded me that we really need to oppose lies. Do we wink when a public figure states that two plus two is ten, take him aside and reprimand him privately when he says it is a hundred, and scream with outrage when he says it is a thousand? Of course not. These days, there is genuine outrage when public figures say that the Holocaust never happened, that the Jews of Israel must be moved to some other continent, and that those Jews who stay in Israel must be eradicated. But there's only a private reprimand for those who say that the Jewish temples never existed, that there was never a connection between the Jews and Jerusalem, that Jesus was an Arab, that Jews did not write the Old Testament, or that the Israelis poison Arab wells. And there's often just a wink of implied agreement when folks say that Israel is a colonialist, greedy, peace-hating and racist state whose birth was an international crime, or that Jewish land in the Levant was all stolen from the real owners.

This won't work. Lies need to be opposed. And perhaps the most insidious lie is that the very idea of Levantine Jews being allowed to have human rights is the ultimate in immorality and that Mankind owes all racists an apology for permitting such a thing to ever have happened.

Society will always have some tyrannical opponents. We ought not be shocked to find that it has some today. Nor ought we be shocked to realize that this battle is not about territory but about human rights. I think it is a very big mistake to regard the battle over Israel as simply one over territory, with the only people supporting Israel being those who are infatuated with this little state (as if all those who opposed Germany or Japan in World War Two were infatuated with Czechoslovakia).

Kershner does show that many of those who live in the region can't see a wall as a reasonable long-term solution. I think they are right. For global society to function, people will eventually need to have the right to live pretty much wherever they please. And in return, people will need to support the right of the nations they live in to exist and to carry out their charters. Yes, there may not be a way to get there from here right now. But we need to remind ourselves that this is the proper goal as well as one which is likely to be achieved (even if only in the distant future). And that reducing the solution to this conflict to the theft of a couple of hundred square miles of land from a land-poor Jewish state is improper, arbitrary, anti-strategic, immoral, totally absurd in the long term, and antithetical to peace.