Review of The Other Side of Israel by Susan Nathan
The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish/Arab Divide by Susan Nathan My rating: 5 of 5 stars I picked up this book as it looked like it would be very interesting to read. Insider-stories such as this one usually give an account of life-on-the-ground that is not always portrayed in the mainstream media, and I was interested in this new viewpoint. My fascination with the Middle-East has a lot to do with its religious history, and a lot to do with its people. This means *all* people, which is why this book appealed to me. The writer, Susan Nathan is a Jew and a former ardent Zionist who moved to Israel in 1999. She writes (p.39), "The object of my desire was to make aliya, the Hebrew word for 'ascent', an idea that in returning to Israel a Jew is fulfilling a divinely ordained mission." She then realised that there was a large non-Jewish population living inside Israel - mostly Palestinian Arabs who had lost their homes and lands yet gained citizenship ...
