Sprinzak paints a disturbing portrait of the dark side of Israeli politics, exposing the shift from ideological dissent to violence and terrorism, culminating in the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. His book is a remarkable analysis of the violence by Jews against Jews in Israel and the sense of restraint among the conflicting parties.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Israel never has been free of violence, but for many years the country was widely believed immune to the virus of religious extremism that has characterized several of its neighbors. That perception changed, however, after 1994's Hebron massacre, in which 29 praying Muslims were slaughtered by a machine-gun toting Jewish doctor, and the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a young orthodox Jewish student. While there are many books studying Muslim extremism, this is the first to focus on Jewish extremism within Israel. Ehud Sprinzak, a noted Israeli political scientist, shows that these elements have been present within his nation from its founding; right-wing violence has accelerated in recent years thanks to the Oslo peace accords and nonstop Palestinian terrorism. He is hopeful, but not a Pollyanna. Sprinzak admits his biases: he's a strong supporter of the peace process--which means that some readers may think he doesn't adequately appreciate Israel's national-security needs. Yet this is a fine book, full of keen historical observations and modern political analyses. Anybody who wants a full understanding of Israeli politics at the end of the 20th century will want to read it. --John J. Miller
From Kirkus Reviews
The 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin didn't happen ``out of tire blue,'' according to this extremely well researched and written study. Sprinzhak (political Sscience/Hebrew Univ.; The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right, 1991) touches on other pockets of violence in Israels history, but his primary focus, is on violence by the political extreme right, beginning with the underground groups known as Irgun and the Stern Gang during the 5-year-long revolt against British rule (1944-48) and continuing to the present day. He shows how, after the 1967 Six Day War and in such figures as the late Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein (the 1994 murderer of more than 29 Arabs praying at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron), and Yigal Amir (Rabie's assassin), an uncompromising nationalism was fused with a religious orthodoxy that dehumanized Arabs while also delegitimizing and demonizing Israel's leaders. Some rabbis spoke of Rabin according to the traditional heinous halakhic (Jewish legal) categories or rodef and moser (respectively, a person who pursu es another with intent to kill, and a Jew who Informs on other Jews to the gentile authorities). Yet despite the sharp rise in political violence, Sprinzhak feels that, given the foreign and domestic pressures Israel experiences, things could be far worse. He argues that Israeli political life is in fact marked by relative restraint and that a violent civil war remains only a remote possibility, a major reason for this being ``the stiff Halakhic prohibitions against domestic violence and even more so, the powerful psychosocial system of self-control and fear of civil war developed and experienced in the Diaspora.'' Sprinzak's guarded optimism about the durability of Israel's parliamentary democracy is well earned, coming as it does after a clear, thoughtful historical and phenomenological look at the prevalence of rhetorical and behavioral extremism In Israeli political life. (On this same subject, see also Michael Karpin and Ina Friedman, Murder in the Name of God: The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin, p. 1436.) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Israeli writes about politics; avoids emotional attachment?!,
By Another Bookworm (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination (Hardcover)
Sprinzak does an excellent job at both presenting and analysing the history of political extremism in Israel. This is helped considerably by the fact that Israel as a modern state has such a relatively short history, so the project is not as epic as it might be if if one was going to attempt a similar catalogue/anthology of the political violence and extremism in France, for instance. Add to that that Sprinzak was one of Israel's pre-eminent scholars and as such, was given tremendous access in terms of what he could see and what information he was privy to.The book is quite thorough; it gives background on the pre-state militias (Haganah, Irgun, Lehi), as well as discusses their feuds- it opens with the Altalena affair and goes on to examine "The Hunting Season". It then moves forward to describe, in turn, violence and extremism from the ultra-orthodox, the political left, the nationalist-religious right, and Israel's famed quasi-fascist, Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was expelled from the Knesset for having a racist platform. The book culminates in examining the Rabin Assassination. This book is very interesting as it not only gives much-needed background and context on the extreme right, who dominate much of the current attention given to Israeli politics, but also points out the history and extremism of OTHER camps and ideologies, such as the ultra-orthodox and the left. Not only is this interesting, it is typical of Sprinzak's sense of "fair play". While a fair amount of the book focuses on the misdeeds of the right, Sprinzak is not a name caller, nor a finger-wagger- he is merely a chronicler. And as such, he feels compelled to point out the violence of ALL members of Israeli society. Impressively, Sprinzak is able to do all this while maintaining an objective professionalism. While he clearly identifies himself as a Laborite, he soundly condemns all political violence, AND simultaneously seems to give the impression that he sympathizes with many of the people he describes- not because he approves of what they do, but rather, he understands the frustration that drives them to their actions. The result is very powerful, and very balanced. Best of all, like any good academic, Sprinzak is thorough enough to give us SOURCES! I must admit, it was quite refreshing to be able to learn about a part of Israel's history that is often referenced but rarely directly spoken about, for fear it will be exploited. The fact that Sprinzak chose to isolate INTERNAL Israeli violence from the continuous Middle East conflict was another crucial and excellent choice; to muddle up his research with background on the PLO, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad would have done nothing but distract readers from the main purpose of the book: taking an honest look at both examing and understanding the roots of ISRAELI political violence and extremism. For many non-Israeli readers, this may be the first time you realize that the Middle East conflict is not just about Israelis vs. Palestinians. It's not just "who gets a state", but also "what kind of state will we have"? This book goes a long way to giving people an inside view into the political history of Israel- and how far some people have been willing to go. The book's one drawback is that the epilogue, in which Sprinzak describes various scenarios that might result in the short-term aftermath of Rabin's killing now seem outdated. It is a shame he was not able to publish a second edition before his death. In short, the book gets points for being easy to read (Sprinzak apparently learned from his earlier book, "The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right", which in some places, was painful to read), having a lot of interesting (and for many, NEW) information, and for being able to maintain a good sense of balance. It's only negative mark (perhaps worthy of a half or quater-point deduction) is that it was written in 1996, rather than 2003; it would have been nice to get Sprinzak's take on the current goings-on in Israel. A fitting capstone to this great man's legacy. I look forward to the day when a similar project (in both scope and honesty) is completed by a Palestinian scholar.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sprinzak the Extra-parliement Expert of Israeli Politics,
By Samuel-C "Small Sam" (Jaffa Israel) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination (Hardcover)
I have this book. Ehud was one of my Proffessers at the Hebrew University Political Science Dept. in the 70's and this is an excelent book about Israeli Violent Politics. It is a unique study. It covers a long period. Although the book is New, it reflects the situation before Ehud Barak got elected. But the first Chapters about the Altalena are also very interesting. Ehud told us then that from 1948 till 1967 extra-parliementary Politics was getting less. Since the Idelogical Problem of what to do with the territories taken in 1967 there has been a rise in Politics outside the Knesset. The book also covers Kahanism and the background to the Tragic murder of Rabin.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sprinzak explains Israeli extremism to the world,
By
This review is from: Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination (Hardcover)
Political violence roiled the Jewish state from its beginning, and Ehud Sprinzak gives context to today's turmoil in Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination. Sprinzak is a partisan who believes in Labor's two-state solution to the Palestinian question. Nonetheless, his portraits of the Right's early leaders, particularly Begin, often are quite flattering. Even Rabin's assassin is examined in an objective, even-handed way; the portrayal is similar to the treatment of Timothy McVeigh in American Terrorist. Sprinzak gives a lot of insight into the early struggle for the Jewish state and the excesses that fed the Palestinian hatred that continues to fester. Massacres of Arab villagers at the hands of Jews, and other atrocities committed by Israel's founders, are laid bare. Sprinzak makes the case that the 1967 War both united the country and helped seal the political divide between those who seek accomodation with the Arabs and those who view peace as illusory. Rabin's assassination is seen not as an aberration but a predictable response by the opposition. Like many of his countrymen, the author exudes a combination of pride and angst over the history and future of Israel. The Altalena incident, in which the Right's attempt to arm its supporters was foiled by violence at the hands of the Laborites, sets the stage and never seems far removed from what is happening 50 years later. This is a tremendous, instructive book that never becomes a diatribe despite the author's political leanings.
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