Diary of a Crisis

Description

Searching reflections on the crisis in Israel and Gaza by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the HolocaustDiary of a Crisis explores the past tumultuous and traumatic year in Israel-Palestine. The eminent historian Saul Friedländer began a diary of Israeli politics in January 2023 as the country was convulsed by protests against Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul the judiciary. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against this threat to democracy. But the protests said nothing about the Palestinian question—the "elephant in the room," according to Friedländer, who resumed his diary after Hamas’s 7 October assault on southern Israel. Israel was facing one of the worst crises in its history, he observes, under the worst possible internal conditions.Friedländer weaves together profound reflections on a national history in which he has been an active participant. He describes how Prime Minister Golda Meir once...