Reddit mentions of A History of Modern Israel

My favorite book was a Norwegian one by Sidsel Wold - "The country that promised everything". https://spartacus.no/boker/landet-som-lovet-alt-104 Not available in English I believe.


Basically a journalist who was a huge Israel fangirl for decades (leader of Norwegian friends of Israel, went to several kibbutzes etc) and later it soured when she realized the amount of groupthink involved.


A lot of colorful detail about the various ethnicities internally in Israel and the various protopolitics from the first settlers to Russian jews "invading" Israel at the fall of the Soviet Union, as well as constant sideglances to the implications for Palestinians.

This one is pretty unbiased, albeit maybe a bit overly academic: https://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Israel-Colin-Shindler/dp/1107671779

I've followed Noam Chomskys talks and writings on Israel as well, although that is, of course, politically charged through and through. He doesn't lie though..

You could also read a book? Complaining that you know nothing and want to know more, then asking for Youtube videos on the subject is like saying you're starving then choosing to feast on a whole M&M.

Shindler's History of Modern Israel is a little dry (feel free to skim the intricacies of Israeli cabinet politics), but it covers the internal but public Israeli debates really well and explains why the Israelis continue to occupy the West Bank and Gaza as truthfully and even-handed as you can get in this subject. Joe Sacco's Palestine remains not just a landmark in comics twenty years after it was written but also the definitive account of the Palestinian experience under occupation, and the drudgery and oppression that go with being unfree in your own land. Both books will help you empathise, in different ways.