The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977
by Gershom Gorenberg
On This Page
Description
The untold story, based on groundbreaking original research, of the actions and inactions that created the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories After Israeli troops defeated the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in June 1967, the Jewish state seemed to have reached the pinnacle of success. But far from being a happy ending, the Six-Day War proved to be the opening act of a complex political drama, in which the central issue became: Should Jews build settlements in the territories show more taken in that war? The Accidental Empire is Gershom Gorenberg's masterful and gripping account of the strange birth of the settler movement, which was the child of both Labor Party socialism and religious extremism. It is a dramatic story featuring the giants of Israeli history-Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, Yigal Allon-as well as more contemporary figures like Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. Gorenberg also shows how the Johnson, Nixon, and Ford administrations turned a blind eye to what was happening in the territories, and reveals their strategic reasons for doing so. Drawing on newly opened archives and extensive interviews, Gorenberg reconstructs what the top officials knew and when they knew it, while weaving in the dramatic first-person accounts of the settlers themselves. Fast-moving and penetrating, The Accidental Empire casts the entire enterprise in a new and controversial light, calling into question much of what we think we know about this issue that continues to haunt the Middle East. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
The Emergence of the Modern Middle East
289 works; 13 members
Author Information
9 Works 610 Members
Gershom Gorenberg has written for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and, in Hebrew, Ha'aretz. He is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and blogs at SouthJerusalem.com. Gorenberg is the author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 and The End of Days: show more Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and their three children. show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Important places
- Israel
- Important events
- Six-Day War (1967-06-05 | 1967-06-10)
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Politics and Government
- DDC/MDS
- 956.9405 — History & geography History of Asia Middle East Asia: Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan The Levant Israel and Palestine
- LCC
- HD850.5 .Z63 .G67 — Social sciences Industries. Land use. Labor Industries. Land use. Labor Land use
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 203
- Popularity
- 160,546
- Rating
- (4.08)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 3
