A Durable Peace

Benjamin Netanyahu's primer on pro-Israel politics is an updated version of an earlier book, A Place Among the Nations. There's a good reason for the revision, of course: in the years since the first book was published, Netanyahu has served as the prime minister of Israel. Yet A Durable Peace is not a stale politician's memoir. It's a resounding plea for Israel's acceptance as a full member of the world community, as well as a call for understanding its unique security needs.
Netanyahu displays his knack--perfect for the television era but also helpful on these pages--for channeling complex ideas into pithy statements. Here's Netanyahu on the importance of Israel to the Jewish people: "If there had been a Jewish state in the first half of the [20th] century, there would have been no Holocaust. And if there had not been a Jewish state after the Holocaust, there would have been no Jewish future." On the need for Arab concessions in the peace process: "For the sake of peace, [the Arab states] must renounce their claims to part of the four ten-thousandths--.0004--of the lands they desire, which constitute the very heart of the Jewish homeland and the protective wall of the Jewish state." These are the statements of a skilled debater, and they represent a one-sided view of Middle Eastern politics. Yet Netanyahu also provides an excellent introduction to Zionism and the need to protect a small country against neighbors who have waged war against it. --John J. Miller