Grasshoppers in Zion: Israel and the Paradox of Modernity

For far too long we have been telling ourselves the wrong story about Israel, the Arab Muslim world and modernity. Western democracies think the Arab Muslim world is full of people just like us, never understanding that the normal conduct of business in that part of the globe is totally different from what we expect at home. The Jews, in and outside Israel, besides being good moderns and good democrats, continue to act as a family trying to outsmart God. The combination is lethal, Israel is vilified. The Arab Muslim world is allowed to get away with murder. And no one seems to have learned from experience what modern society really is and how to defend it. Grasshoppers in Zion takes the reader on a journey through the workings of modernity, Zionist history, the Hebrew Bible and everyday life in Israel. Evocative, lucid, at times poetic, the book is informed by the writer's sojourn in the Promised Land in the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011 no less than by his unique sociological perspective. To clean up the mess the Middle East has become, the author asserts, Israel will have to flex its political and military muscle. But will the Jews be able to overcome their millennial refusal to act as a sovereign nation? Will democracies overcome their blind spots and hold their enemies accountable?