This book explores Israel’s relations with its friends and foes, in the present and the past, by looking into news media outlets and their effect. There are several international political players involved in Israel’s tough neighborhood of the Middle East, and some of them are portrayed in this book through the dimension of media coverage. Along with this, the volume highlights some of Israel’s leading challenges in the sphere of international relations and public diplomacy. Hence, it integrates research in various topics—international relations, politics, media and Israel studies. With Israel at its center, the book brings together insights drawn from a wide range of scholarly inquiries into current global issues. Thus, a large scope and a uniquely wide perspective is established, enabling researchers to rely on this work. The book is bound to be of interest to specialists and to both advanced and undergraduate students in the field of Israel studies, Middle Eastern studies, scholars of international relations, and researchers of specific countries. However, though academic in nature, this book is also suitable for readers of popular social science who are interested in media and communication, Israel, or in the fascinating sociological forces that influence the regional geopolitics of the Middle East.

A 2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist "At the top of my reading list." —Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School "Reads like an international thriller, but it is actually a compelling factual day-by-day (and sometimes hour-by-hour) account of an incident of acute threat and decisive action by the Jewish state...". —Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal Review The never-before-told inside story of how Israel stopped Syria from becoming a global nuclear nightmare—and its far-reaching implications On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighters advanced on Deir ez-Zour in Syria. Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad. But this time, there was no warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation, with one goal: to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy in the Syrian desert. Shadow Strike tells, for the first time, the story of the espionage, political courage, military might and psychological warfare behind Israel’s daring operation to stop one of the greatest known acts of nuclear proliferation. It also brings Israel’s powerful military and diplomatic alliance with the United States to life, revealing the debates President Bush had with Vice President Cheney and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well as the diplomatic and military planning that took place in the Oval Office, the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, and inside the IDF’s underground war room beneath Tel Aviv. These two countries remain united in a battle to prevent nuclear proliferation, to defeat Islamic terror, and to curtail Iran’s attempts to spread its hegemony throughout the Middle East. Yaakov Katz's Shadow Strike explores how this operation continues to impact the world we live in today and if what happened in 2007 is a sign of what Israel will need to do one day to stop Iran's nuclear program. It also asks: had Israel not carried out this mission, what would the Middle East look like today?

A snapshot of Israel and the West Bank in the 1980s, through the voices of its inhabitants, from the National Jewish Book Award–winning author of Judas. Notebook in hand, renowned author and onetime kibbutznik Amos Oz traveled throughout his homeland to talk with people—workers, soldiers, religious zealots, aging pioneers, desperate Arabs, visionaries—asking them questions about Israel’s past, present, and future. Observant or secular, rich or poor, native-born or new immigrant, they shared their points of view, memories, hopes, and fears, and Oz recorded them. What emerges is a distinctive portrait of a changing nation and a complex society, supplemented by Oz’s own observations and reflections, that reflects an insider’s view of a country still forming its own identity. In the Land of Israel is “an exemplary instance of a writer using his craft to come to grips with what is happening politically and to illuminate certain aspects of Israeli society that have generally been concealed by polemical formulas” (The New York Times).

"Israel Finkelstein is perhaps the best-known Israeli archaeologist in the world [...] His work has greatly changed the face of archaeological and historical research of the biblical period. His unique ability to see the comprehensive big picture and formulate a broad framework has inspired countless scholars to reexamine long-established paradigms. His trail-blazing work covering every period from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age through the Hasmonean period, while sometimes controversial, has led to a creative new approach that connects archaeology with history, the social sciences, and the natural and life sciences [...] This volume, dedicated to Professor Finkelstein's accomplishments and contributions, features 36 articles written by his colleagues, friends, and students in honor of his decades of scholarship and leadership in the field of biblical archaeology"--back cover.

When David Horovitz emigrated from England to Israel in 1983, it was the fulfillment of a dream. But today, a husband and a father, he is torn between hope and despair, between the desire to make a difference and fear for his family's safety, between staying and going. In this candid and powerful book, Horovitz confronts the heart-wrenching question of whether to continue raising his three children amid the uncertainty and danger that is Israeli daily life. In answering that question he provides us with an often surprising, myth-shattering, and shockingly immediate view of a country perpetually at a crossroads, yet fundamentally different than it was a generation ago. The Israel that Horovitz describes is at once supremely satisfying and unremittingly harsh. It is a land of beauty and spirit, where the Jewish nation has undergone remarkable renewal and a vibrant society is constantly being reshaped. But Horovitz also describes how the unrelenting tension has produced a people that smokes too much, drives too fast, and spends far too much of its time arguing with itself. He makes clear the lasting effects of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination; the increasing incursions by the ultra-Orthodox into the domain of daily life; the anxieties that beset parents as their children approach the age of mandatory military service; and the constant fear of violent attack by fundamentalist extremists. (The book in fact opens, hauntingly, with a description of the aftermath of a bombing just outside a Jerusalem restaurant -- the very place where Horovitz had eaten lunch the day before.) As Americans wrestle with their feelings toward Israel, and as Israel struggles with the question of whether a Jewish state and the principles of democracy are truly compatible, Horovitz illuminates the myriad quotidian experiences -- both good and bad -- that define the country at this volatile time. Here is the moving, mordantly funny, and uncompromising account of one Israeli's life.

A major history of Zionism and the state of Israel—for anyone interested in deepening their knowledge of the Israel-Palestine conflict and Middle Eastern politics “[Ilan Pappé] is . . . one of the few Israeli students of the conflict who write about the Palestinian side with real knowledge and empathy.” —Guardian Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has drawn on Zionism, the movement behind its creation, to provide a sense of self and political direction. In this groundbreaking new work, Ilan Pappe looks at the continued role of Zionist ideology. The Idea of Israel considers the way Zionism operates outside of the government and military in areas such as the country’s education system, media, and cinema, and the uses that are made of the Holocaust in supporting the state’s ideological structure. In particular, Pappe examines the way successive generations of historians have framed the 1948 conflict as a liberation campaign, creating a foundation myth that went unquestioned in Israeli society until the 1990s. Pappe himself was part of the post-Zionist movement that arose then. He was attacked and received death threats as he exposed the truth about how Palestinians have been treated and the gruesome structure that links the production of knowledge to the exercise of power. The Idea of Israel is a powerful and urgent intervention in the war of ideas concerning the past, and the future, of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.

Born in Europe’s shadow, haunted by the Holocaust, and inspired by the Enlightenment, Israel has changed. Where is this diverse and self-absorbed country heading today? How do its citizens see themselves, globally and historically? Israel Has Moved is a profound and sometimes unsettling account of a country that is no longer where we might think.