War Without End: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land (Paperback)

That said, La Guardia has produced an excellent one volume history of the conflict. He sets the stage by explianing the origins of Zionism and of the European anti-Semetism that caused it to gain force. He then gives an overview the history of the Ottoman and British rule over Palestine, the 1948 UN Mandate and Israeli War for Independence, and the subsequent Arab-Israeli conflicts. After this, the rest of the book is devoted to the many conflicts between the Israelis and the Palenstinians as well as the internal conflicts between various factions within Israel and of the ineptitude of the PLO leadership. La Guardia gives a balanced account, and is critical of the excesses and mistakes committed by both parties.

One comes away from the book with a clearer understanding of recent conflict. Though chronologically disjointed, the narrative covers events all the way up until early 2002. The odd structuring of the book is most likely due to the numerous rewrites La Guardia admits in the preface to doing as events continued to unfold. His most valuable service is that, like with Friedman's book, he cuts through the ideological and religious issues to give readers a relatively clear picture of just what lies behind the world's most intractable conflict.

Overall, a well written and readable book that works a tad better as a work of history than as a work of journalism.

Why do the Arabs and Jews feel entitled to the land? Who is the aggressor? Who is the victim? Who is being stubborn? How can the conflict get more divided over time, with no benefit to either side? Each side is guilty and innocent. No simple answers are given, only context. Not much optimism, just the facts.

The book does jump around, but not in haphazard way. The chapters are groups of stories, with a common thread. If you want to read one book to understand the conflict in Israel/Palestine, buy this one!

Discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become so heated that it is surely impossible to write a book that would satisfy even a plurality of readers, much less most of them. La Guardia is not impartial: on the whole, his sympathies tend to lie with the plight of the Palestinians (and part of this bias may well be unavoidable, considering the disadvantaged David vs. well-armed Goliath nature of the conflict). Yet he also understands the motives, emotions, and events that supported both Zionism and the formation of a Jewish state early in the first half of the twentieth century.

His blunt criticisms are equally harsh, directed at the international blindness that seemingly pretended that Palestine was an empty territory before and especially after World War 2, the incendiary Israeli policy of permitting settlements amidst Palestinian territory, the anti-Semitism tainting the Palestinian cause, the intractable religious fanaticism that infects both sides. Furthermore, he is scathing in his criticism of both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. For example, he excoriates Arafat's cynical manipulations, his administration of "a fiefdom in his own image," and his "laissez-faire attitude" to Palestinian violence. Similarly, he disparages Sharon for his role in the Phalangist massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Although extremists of either stripe will undoubtedly disagree, La Guardia's biases inform rather than contaminate his reporting.

The journalistic aspects of the book yield its one major shortcoming. Instead of presenting the history of Palestine/Israel in some linear fashion, his chapters divide his materials, very loosely, into a potpourri of overlapping topics: religious background, the early immigrations and kibbutzim, a history of twentieth century events, the shadow of the Holocaust and the creation of the Palestinian diaspora (provocatively titled "Victims of Victims"), the assorted native and immigrant Jewish communities, and recent political events. La Guardia mixes interviews, historical narration, and flashbacks; since he occasionally refers to people and events before he's introduced them, the result may well be confusing to those who don't already have a general historical background.

Written by a foreign observer with an impressive understanding of the Middle East, "War without End" is, for the most part, factually reliable--and the opinionated presentation of those facts will enlighten rather than prejudice. The reader closes the book, however, with a sinking pessimism reinforced by the book's title: that this morass really has no solution that we can expect to see in our lifetimes.