Rene Backmann

If you want a detailed look at the impact of the Israeli wall (or "security barrier", depending on who's talking about it), this book is good. Rene Backmann is a reporter at Le Nouvel Observateur. It was published in France in 2006, then translated into English last year, but was obviously updated at the same time. It really could have done with a good editing and an outline of the book's structure. I felt like a blindfolded donkey being led by the nose, but kept going and learnt a lot about the wall and Israeli politics. Some good maps help. If this is your very first book about Israel, you might struggle with the detail. There's a chronology at the end, but if you've never heard of the Green Line and don't know roughly what happened with the British Mandate, the 1948 war and the 1967 war then it will be a slow read.

There's a lot of discussion in the book about the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Backmann's main point is that, even if the Israeli government had legitimately wanted to build a security barrier because of terrorism, they broke a heck of a lot of laws by plonking it away from the Green Line and caused immense suffering. The barrier has had a massive impact on the lives of the Palestinians, especially those whose land has ended up on the other side. Since I finished the book I've found it much easier to understand detailed newspaper coverage of what's going on at the moment with the US and Israel's fight over the extension of settlements.… (more)