Publishers Weekly
09/02/2019
Lawyer Dershowitz (The Case Against BDS: Why Singling Out Israel for Boycott Is Anti-Semitic and Anti-Peace) clunkily combines memoir and advocacy for the state of Israel in this look at his decades as a highly visible defender of the country. He starts in 1948, when he was 10 and the modern state of Israel declared its independence, and continues through the April 2019 Israeli elections. While he doesn’t shy away from criticizing Israeli policies, such as the building of settlements in the West Bank, he acidly rebuts criticisms of the Jewish state, noting that, contrary to accusations, Israel has made repeated and rejected peace proposals that would have returned most of the occupied territories to the Palestinians. The other strain of the book recounts personal experience, much of it with big names; Dershowitz recounts being asked by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if O.J. Simpson was really guilty, answering his cellphone while meeting with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, and playing basketball with Ralph Lauren. He sometimes assumes knowledge about Israel’s history that not all readers will have, and those who do have it may be put off by the focus on anecdotes about famous people. To achieve Dershowitz’s advocacy goals, an update of his 2003 book The Case for Israel might have been more effective. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Dershowitz has always liked a good argument, and he has found plenty of fodder in Israeli policies over the decades…In fighting for Israel on the public stage, the author has often condemned the legitimization, by some elements of the political left, of Palestinian aggression—yet he also defends ‘the right of those who demonized Israel…to express their hateful views.’ Unbowed and proud, Dershowitz leaves readers with a singing endorsement of ‘the most successful new nation that has been born—really reborn—during the past century.’” —Kirkus Review
“[Dershowitz] accepts the mantle of Israel’s public defender, and his new book can be seen as a kind of trial brief…At the same time, Defending Israel is a memoir, both sentimental and poignant…There is a certain solemnity and gravity to his latest book, which serves as a charge to his fellow Americans and his fellow Jews: ‘We must determine our destiny, write our future history, and assure the survival of the Jewish people and their nation-state forever.’” —Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal
“Defending Israel is an important and timely addition to the current history of the Middle East and Israel. It is an authoritative account of Israel’s dependence on the popular support in the West. Dershowitz explores Israel’s security issues in the light of rising anti-Semitism and diminishing support for Israel among Western youth.” —The Washington Book Review
