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

Amazon.com
In 1905, an Arab journalist and Ottoman official observed that two important phenomena were rising in the corners of the Turkish Empire: the awakening of Arab nationalism and efforts by European immigrants to found a Jewish state in Palestine. "Both of these movements are destined to fight each other continually," he concluded, "until one of them wins." So it has seemed, and the title of British journalist Anton La Guardia's book speaks volumes: for the last century, when the children of the Diaspora began to return in numbers to Palestine, two visions of that "promised land" have battled for supremacy, with no apparent resolution in sight--as witness the daily headlines. La Guardia charts the origins and course of the long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, remarking that much of it owes to all-too-human causes (the humiliation of the Arabs over having been defeated so often and so decisively in five decades of warfare; the mutual hatred of Arafat and Sharon) and offering thoughts from both sides on how peace might be reached, short of the annihilation of one or the other combatant. Those who themselves struggle to comprehend the news from the Middle East will find La Guardia to be a reliable, illuminating guide. --Gregory McNamee


From Publishers Weekly
British journalist Anton La Guardia, diplomatic editor for the Daily Telegraph and for eight years its Middle East correspondent, offers an informed and objective history of the Middle East battles in War Without End: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land. Tracing the Zionist movement back to its 19th-century roots, as well as the birth of national identity of the Palestinians among whom the Zionists settled, La Guardia offers general readers a balanced background to what many fear may well be a war without end. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The ongoing slaughter in the holy "land between the river and the sea" has at least crystallized the core conflict; it is no longer a dispute between Israel and the surrounding Arab states. It is now a struggle between Israelis and Palestinians for the same cherished but blood-soaked real estate. Although La Guardia, currently the diplomatic editor for the Daily Telegraph and Middle East correspondent from 1990 to 1998, does delve into the history of the conflicting national aspirations, this is fundamentally an examination of two wounded peoples, neither of whom seems capable of surmounting national myths and past hatreds to forge a new future. La Guardia is even-handed in his criticism of both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, but he does not spare ordinary people, attacking them for their inability to give up unrealistic and destructive goals. As for solutions, he seems to feel that some form of international coercion applied to both sides offers the best hope, but he recognizes that even that road has major pitfalls. This is an absorbing but heartbreaking examination of a seemingly endless tragedy that continues to unfold before our eyes. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
The struggles of the Israelis and Palestinians - with their terrible histories of disaster and redemption - command the obsessive attention of the world. Statesmen tinker with peace plans for the Middle East and generals worry about future wars there. Religious leaders stoke the violent passions of the devout while pilgrims flock to find God and archaeologists dig to find the origins of His revelations. All this goes on under the watchful eye of an army of reporters, observers, diplomatic envoys, and aid workers.

Between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, dreams and ideals collide with the reality of violent nationalist struggle, and God's name is invoked in defense of the jealousies of men. With the experienced journalist's eye for irony, anecdote, and telling detail, Anton La Guardia offers an intimate look into the Israelis as they come to terms with the "post-Zionist" demolition of national myths, and the Palestinians as they try to build their own state. A classic in the making, War Without End is the definitive book on Israel and her people.



About the Author
Anton La Guardia was Middle East correspondent for the Daily Telegraph from 1990 to 1998 and is now Diplomatic Editor. He lives in London and this is his first book.



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An excellent, balanced survey of the troubled relations between Middle East neighbors over the last half-century. Scanning the news of the latest intifada, La Guardia, a correspondent and editor for London's Daily Telegraph, pointedly wonders, "How did it all go so wrong? How did the hope engendered by that handshake between Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the South Lawn of the White House turn to despair?" He gives a protracted, thoughtful answer that finds fault on many sides of the long struggle between Israel and Palestine-many sides, for there are not just two, as he takes pains to show. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian community is in any way monolithic, and neighboring countries have occasionally attempted to find advantage in their endless troubles and sometimes been caught up in the mess. For example, La Guardia writes, the Palestinian Black September terrorist movement, responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, originally devoted itself to waging war on Jordan, whose army had massacred thousands of Palestinians during an uprising two years earlier. Mixing historical narrative with on-the-ground reportage, the author addresses such issues as the Israeli right's campaign of expansion into Palestinian territories, the virulent anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial of the Arab press, the conflict between Zionists and Jewish fundamentalists, power struggles within the Palestinian Authority (one Palestinian leader observes that the latest intifada is a rebellion against both Israel and Arafat), and the baffling bonds that keep Israelis and Palestinians at such close quarters despite all the hatred. None of what La Guardia turns up is hopeful, and none of itinspires much confidence in the leadership on either side of the battle. Regrettably timely reading that also makes a welcome contribution to the literature of strife.


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