Eugene Narrett’s Israel Awakened, by L. R. Beres
16 August 2001
Eugene Narrett’s second book promises to be as good as his first [Gathered against Jerusalem: Essays on a False Peace]. Israel Awakened is written with rare erudition and insight reflecting the author’s remarkable fusion of thought and feeling. I read the manuscript eagerly with both profit and admiration. Combining elegant prose with substantial knowledge of relevant particulars, Narrett understands that Israel cannot afford business as usual and that the Oslo War has potentially existential consequences for the increasingly imperiled Jewish State. Aware of the inherent limitations of law and agreements, especially with Arab ‘partners,’ he recognizes the barbarism of clichéd ‘wisdom’ and the terrible harms that come from self-delusion.
Narrett’s book is particularly timely because it underscores the importance of Israel’s ‘Self,’ its national identity. Not knowing what it is or what it can become, Israel still flails about from crisis to crisis, led by men without vision and even without honor. Until Israel can decide on its true identity and destiny, we learn from Narrett, all solutions to critical problems will be temporary and ineffectual.
“When Israel espouses its Land and heritage, confusion and surrender will yield to clarity of purpose and strength. Then and only then will there be peace,” he writes. Narrett’s new book is deeply disturbing but this is a distinct asset for those who would help Israel survive the unrelieved Arab war of attrition and annihilation. The book deserves the widest possible audience. I commend it to all friends of Israel.
Louis Rene Beres, Professor of International Law, Purdue University; comments for quotation and citation
[Note by Dr. Narrett]: the focus of Israel Awakened was that by the ‘second intifada’ beginning in late September 2000 with Ariel Sharon’s scripted visit to the Temple Mount, was that the people of Israel had awakened to their peril and betrayal but that the government had not. A major theme of the book, with its extensive survey of Israeli politics and personalities was that Likud under Sharon was betraying both its campaign promises to “destroy the PLO” and its charter; that in fact Sharon was saving the disintegrating Labor party by making them, badly trounced in the February 01, 2001 elections, equal partners in the government, Cabinet and “mini-Cabinet” or “Security Cabinet.” How far this betrayal was to go was writ large in the expulsions from Gush Katif and Shomron, the preparation for the fission of Likud, the pogrom at Amona and the humiliation of Israel under Kadima, the overtly Labor majority of Likud bosses. This in betrayal and disheartening of an awakened nation was the political backdrop to the Road Map and Israel’s continuing slide to the abyss covered in Dr. Narrett’s Israel and the Endtimes and WW III: the War on the Jews. See the books page on this site.