Son of the Cypresses: Memories, Reflections, and Regrets from a Political Life Hardcover - 2007

From the rear cover

"Whether Benvenisti takes up the issues of Jerusalem or the Oslo Agreements, whether people believe him to be marginal, heretical, or a contradictory critic of Israeli and Palestinian societies and politics, there is real force in his arguments and interpretations. His writing is so compelling and disturbing that his positions must be taken seriously."--Richard D. Hecht, Professor of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Wading into the white-hot cauldron of Israeli-Palestinian cultural politics, the independent-minded Benvenisti crowns his long career as politician, author, and scholar-journalist with this fearless, highly personal history of and engagement with his nation's dreams and trials. Part autobiography, part painful cultural history, part polemical argument with a host of equally strong-willed countrymen and intellectuals, Jerusalem's former deputy mayor provides readers with one veteran insider's search for an ethical place to stand in what may be the most intractable, complex and dangerous dilemma of our times. This book is an impossibly lonely, courageous effort to make the basic case to both his own ancestors and fellow Israelis that only surrender of the demand for full sovereignty for both Jews and Palestinians in favor of some yet-to-be-created shared polity will save his beloved land of Israeli cypresses and Palestinian orchards. A stunningly brave and urgent achievement, and an intensely rewarding experience for all readers concerned about the fate of the Middle East."--Peter Nabokov, author of A Forest of Time and Where the Lightening Strikes

Media reviews

Citations

• New York Review of Books, 02/14/2008, Page 23