52 pages • 1 hour read
Ari ShavitMy Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Existential Challenge, 2013”
Shavit noticed Iran as a threat to Israel in 2002, during the second intifada. The United States was preparing to invade Iraq, but Shavit believed Iran was the real threat to world order. He laments that for most of a decade, his warnings were ignored. He warns that a nuclear-capable Iran will cause nuclear globalization that will eliminate nuclear non-proliferation, lead to the destruction of Israel, and establish Iran as the dominant power in the Middle East—turning the region against the West. If Iran gains nuclear weapons capability, it will force Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey to do so as well, surrounding Israel with nuclear powers that seek its destruction.
After its failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States was not eager to enter a conflict with Iran; neither were other Western powers. As President Obama assumed office, a nuclear Iran was a distant possibility, not a pressing matter, so the United States procrastinated. Israel, too, chose to focus on more immediate concerns. Twice in Israel’s history, it prevented neighboring states from obtaining nuclear weapons. In 1981 an Israeli pilot bombed an Iraqi facility in Baghdad, and in 2007 Israeli planes bombed a Syrian facility. Preventing Iran is more difficult, though. Iran is more careful than Iraq or Syria. It operates many separate facilities, and their destruction is impossible without inciting a war.
Iran began enriching uranium in 2006. By 2013 it possessed 15,000 highly sophisticated centrifuges. In 2007 the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reported there was no conclusive evidence Iran was attempting to build a weapon, but four Israeli analysis teams asserted Iran was moving towards nuclear weapons capability. When Netanyahu assumed Israeli Prime Ministership in 2009, he brought with him a belief that Iran was the 21st-century Nazi Germany and an existential threat to Israel. He would do whatever necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability.
However, Netanyahu refused to make occupation-related concessions necessary to gain the trust and support of the Obama administration. He did not act as a statesman compelling necessary support from ally nation. Shavit explains, “he did not lay out the big picture as he should have. Under his leadership, it was not Tehran that was perceived as the threat to world peace, but Jerusalem” (380). Without United States support, Netanyahu could not counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Between 2011 and 2013, the United States and Europe began to act against Iran’s nuclear ambitions by imposing sanctions that crippled Iran’s economy. In 2015 the international community presented the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the “P5+1” (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China) and Iran, purporting to diplomatically resolve the crisis of a nuclear-capable Iran. Shavit isn’t impressed with the agreement. In it, Iran commits to abstaining from developing or purchasing nuclear arms, reducing its centrifuges and enriched uranium, terminating its current nuclear program, and strict international monitoring. However, Shavit objects to the agreement’s elimination of all sanctions against Iran, its failure to institute monitoring of as-yet-unknown nuclear facilities, its recognition of Iran’s right to develop sophisticated centrifuges for non-weapons purposes, and its effect of allowing Iran to exchange an outdated, anachronistic, and illegal program for an innovative, powerful, legitimate, and internationally approved program. The JCPOA gives Israel and the West five to 10 years of security in exchange for an eternity of insecurity.
Shavit reasons that President Obama had no other course of action available. Because of the failed Iraq War and the economic recession, Obama could not wage a war with Iran. He argues that the JCPOA is the unfortunate result of President Bush’s war with Iraq. He states, “America had the capability to stop Iran, but not the will. Israel had the will to stop Iran, but not the capability” (384).
Chapter 17 Summary: “The Millennial Challenge”
In 2013 Shavit tours the United States and discovers the impressive Jewish American success story. He observes that in the United States, “Jewish Yanks” have created the perfect diaspora in which they’ve carved an enormous public space for themselves and built a civic entity that voluntarily and communally preserves Jewish culture. Shavit also observes Jews’ outsized contributions to the United States: Since 1950, although only 2% of the population is Jewish, 106 of the United States’ 315 Nobel laureates have been Jewish, more than a third of the leading philanthropists are Jewish, Jewish students compose an oversized proportion of enrollees at top universities, three present Supreme Court justices are Jewish, and every chair of the Federal Reserve since 1987 has been Jewish. Jews are prominent and overwhelmingly accepted in American life.
Something, however, is wrong with American Jewish life: It lacks young people. American Jews under 30 are very secular and uninterested in Israel. American Jewry is important to Shavit because the United States and Israel have always been close allies: In 1948 the United States was the first nation to recognize Israel; in 1964 President Lyndon Johnson established a “special relationship” with Israel; and in 1969 President Nixon formed a strategic alliance with Israel that has left Israel diplomatically, defensively, and strategically dependent on the United States. Israel’s future depends on its relationship with the United States, and Shavit fears the growing secularization of America’s Jews jeopardizes that relationship. So, in 2015 Shavit embarked on a two-year journey to meet young Jewish America.
In United States universities, Shavit encounters a range of peoples with various opinions on their religion and Israel. In the most extreme universities, he encounters politically left-oriented anti-Semitism and extreme anti-Israeli activity. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is popular among left-leaning pro-Palestinian students. Shavit explains, “For them, the problem is no longer occupation or not-occupation, peace or not-peace. The problem is the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state” (399). The atmosphere is one of intolerance and hate. It ignores misdeeds of other global bad actors and focuses solely on Israel—the only Jewish state. Anti-Israeli activists make the lives of many Jewish students intolerable—silencing them, bringing them to tears, and forcing them to choose between their culture and peer acceptance. Jewish students at these universities complain that they are under siege: attacked, scorned, and ridiculed. Jews are accused of all three major transgressions in American universities: privilege, power, and particularism.
Shavit meets Jewish students who oppose Israel for their own reasons. These students want to support Israel, but Israel’s behavior towards its neighbors prevents them. Apathy worries Shavit more than anger. In many American universities, Shavit finds Jewish communities uninterested in Israel, uninterested in religion, and uninterested in defining themselves as Jewish. At these universities Israel is not debated or even discussed. Shavit complains that these students are more interested in football and Greek life than their history and religious culture: “They represent a second and third generation that is utterly lacking Jewish content” (405).
American Jewry faces five issues: (1) Israel’s policies conflict with enlightened American values; (2) non-Orthodox Jewish identity is disappearing with Americans’ broad turn from religion; (3) the younger generation isn’t interested in old communal conventions; (4) many young liberals feel guilty about Jewish success in the United States that other ethnic groups have not achieved; (5) it lacks an inspiring narrative.
Israel has turned its back on progressive America and jeopardized its strategic alliance. It has abandoned the peace process and lost its moral superiority. It has formed alliances with reactionary right-wing American politicians and, in doing so, endangered itself and complicated life for young Jews supportive of Israel. Ultra-Orthodox American Jews do not need Israel to survive, maintain their heritage, and pass their values to younger generations. They do not face the dangerous pogroms of 19th- and 20th-century Eastern Europe or a reduced status. Their Jewish culture can survive and thrive in the religious melting pot of the United States. Non-Orthodox American Jews need Israel to prevent their Jewishness from fading as a defining personal and cultural characteristic. Mainstream America is rejecting Israel, and Israel may not survive without it.
Chapter 18 Summary: “By the Sea”
Demography is now the biggest threat to the Jewish people. Jews in North America and Europe are becoming increasingly secularized and losing their bonds to religion, Hebrew culture, and Israel. As non-religious Jews are accepted by and assimilate into Western culture, most shed their Judaism. Shavit laments that non-Orthodox Judaism cannot survive in modern secular Western civilization. He claims that by 2025 the majority of the world’s Jews will live in Israel and reasons that there may be no other way to preserve Judaism than to congregate its adherents in one place. Israel is essential to the continuing existence of Judaism and the Hebrew people. It is dangerous—another historic disaster could be Judaism’s last. Zionism is not a well-structured and organized endeavor. It has been “an unruly process of improvising imperfect solutions to acute challenges, addressing new needs, adjusting to new conditions and creating new realities” (425). It is not perfect, but it is Judaism’s only hope for survival.
Even in Israel, demography is Judaism’s downfall. Palestinians are expected to comprise 55% of Greater Israel by 2040. A democratic Jewish state cannot survive if a majority of its inhabitants are not Jewish. Israel has four potential paths: “Israel as a criminal state that carries out ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories; Israel as an apartheid state; Israel as a binational state; or Israel as a Jewish democratic state retreating with much anguish to a border dividing the land” (430). Israel is surrounded by 1.5 billion Muslims. The state has no easy choices. Israel can grant Palestinians political rights, cease being a Jewish state, and face the frightening consequences, or Israel can continue denying Palestinians rights, cease being a democracy, and suffer international repercussions.
Disorder is becoming the new world order, both in the Middle East and globally. As Middle Eastern and Northern African nations fall into disarray, the economically and politically stable Israel risks becoming the region’s scapegoat. Shavit worries that Jews will once again suffer because of others’ misfortunes and that the West is becoming too weak to protect them. There will be no peace, no quiet, and no security in Israel—only intensity, danger, and the “spectacular spectacle” of life (451).
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
Israel’s challenges increase with time. Dimona and Israel’s military capabilities have ensured a safe and secure state for half a century, but its neighbors are catching up. If they do, they will threaten Israel’s safety and stability. Israel has a fractured and dysfunctional society that is struggling to address external and internal issues as it did during its founding years. Warring factions within Israel prevent a unifying vision and stifle the national effort required to grow the state and shepherd it through the tumult ahead. Israel’s internal divisions and misdeeds have forfeited its regional moral superiority and dissuaded allies from supporting the state as they have in the past. If not for Israel’s unwillingness to retreat from its occupying Palestinian settlements, it may have secured the Obama administration’s support in more forcefully addressing the Iranian nuclear crisis. Because Israel refused to relinquish its colonialist enterprise, it may someday cease to exist.
In the probable future, several Middle Eastern countries hostile to Israel and the West possess nuclear weapons, a fractured and divided Israel is too weak to defend itself, and a progressive secular West no longer allies itself with the small state because of its naturally weakening allegiance and Israel’s misdeeds. Israel must act quickly to repair its society and course-correct to improve its internal stability, international standing, and relationships with its neighbors, or, before long, there may be no Israel.
