Friendly Fire: How Israel Became Its Own Worst Enemy and the Hope for Its Future
Ami Ayalon, Anthony David, Dennis Ross (foreword)Researching & writing Friendly Fire, he came to understand that his patriotic life had blinded him to the self-defeating nature of policies that have undermined Israel's civil society while heaping humiliation upon its Palestinian neighbors. "If Israel becomes an Orwellian dystopia," Ayalon writes, "it won't be thanks to a handful of theologians dragging us into the dark past. The secular majority will lead us there motivated by fear & propelled by silence."
Ayalon is a realist, not an idealist, & many who consider themselves Zionists will regard as radical his conclusions about what Israel must do to achieve relative peace & security & to sustain itself as a Jewish homeland & a liberal democracy.
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Admiral (Ret.) Ami Ayalon is a former Flotilla 13 (Israel’s navy SEALs) commando, commander of the navy, director of the Shin Bet security agency, cabinet minister, Knesset member & a recipient of the Medal of Valor, Israel’s highest military decoration. With Sari Nusseibeh, he established the People’s Voice peace initiative in 2002. He is a member of Commanders for Israel’s Security, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Haifa Research Center for Maritime & Strategy & chairman of AKIM Israel (the National Association for children & adults with Intellectual Disabilities). He organized & was featured in the Academy Award-nominated documentary, The Gatekeepers.
Anthony David, historian & biographer, teaches creative writing at the University of New England’s campus i