Middle East/North African Lit discussion

I think several of us have finished this book by now -- who wants to discuss?

I'm interested to hear what others thought of the book, and I'd really like to try playing that Peacemaker on-line game he mentions. If anyone can find it and post a link, let me know :-)

I found the game but did not play it and i am not sure if i will play it as i am really trying to make peace every day through my work so i have enough disapointment on that track so far:-P. I also looked into second life in a harry it looked complecated but not sure.
I will post the links once i get the chance to get into my laptop

Wendy,
I wasn't impressed with the book. It didn't say anything new and just seemed more of a book for entertaining than anything else. The message of the book at the end was pretty negative: don't even bother trying to make peace in the middle east; stay away if you want to have peace in your own life. I gave it three stars but I'm not sure it deserves that.

Anne, I agree that there were not any earth shaking solutions that were offered, but for me, I found it interesting and helpful to gain a better understanding of where AIPAC, J Street and the JDL fall on the political spectrum. I didn't know that much about the nuances of each group, so from that standpoint, for me anyway, I felt like I learned a little bit. It is definitely written more for entertainment than for any serious or scholarly reason.

I was disappointed that he didn't give more information from the Palestinian perspcetive. That would have made the book feel a bit more balanced. But, I think he was relatively up front about where he was coming from in terms of his background and bias so at least I think he was honest about it.

Wendy wrote: "Anne, I agree that there were not any earth shaking solutions that were offered, but for me, I found it interesting and helpful to gain a better understanding of where AIPAC, J Street and the JDL f..."

I see what you liked about it. I'm not sure that I trust him completely on the differences between AIPAC, J Street and the JDL. His style wasn't exactly scholarly. Like you, I thought he would be more involved on the Palestinian side (no wonder his wife "made peace" with the game first try and he never did.) I love to laugh and love a good joke, but the same joke over and over about his underwear just lost it's humor for me and became annoying.

One other thing thas struck me about this book was how the reactions of so many of the people he spoke with was to be completely dismissive about the views of others' as being uninformed, inconsequential and not really a factor in the situation. I couldn't help thinking that maybe each of these various factions might have had a piece of the solution (well, except not the ones who were whacko militants, but hopefully you get my drift), and that if all were a bit more willing to listen in a thoughtful and respectful manner, trying to remove as much of the emotional charge as possible, they might have found a bit of common ground. The intractability of the various positions seemed to only serve to exacerbate the problem.

This is what I find all the time, in the U.S. and in Israel. People already have their positions and they are sticking to them.