Jerusalem 1913

The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

By: Amy Dockser Marcus

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Searching for the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, historians for years focused on the British Mandate period (1920-1948). Amy Dockser Marcus, however, demonstrates that the bloody struggle for power actually started much earlier, when Jerusalem was still part of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism laid the groundwork for the battles that would continue to rage nearly a century later.

1913 was the crucial year for these conflicts: the year that the Palestinians held the First Arab Congress and the first time that secret peace talks were held between Zionists and Palestinians. World War I, however, interrupted these peace efforts.

Dockser Marcus traces these dramatic times through the lives of a handful of the city's leading citizens as they struggle to survive. This is a current-events must listen in our ongoing efforts to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict.

©2007 Amy Dockser Marcus (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

Critic reviews

"Marcus masterfully brings a Jerusalem of almost a century ago to pungent life, and her political dissection of the era is lucid and well-meaning." (Publishers Weekly)

Apologies

I was critical after my first read but now see my thinking was flawed. Excellent read.

Disapointing and spotty natation

First the positive. This book largely achieved balance and an even handed approach to its subject. It fairly evaluates a little known and almost universally ignored piece of the back-story of the Arab-Israeli conflict, namely the late Ottoman period of 1898-1917. Maintaining neutrality in anything around Israel is a triumph in and of itself and the book can be celebrated for that alone.
The author sets out argue that 1913 was the turning point in history that made conflict between Arab and Jew nearly inevitable and that we can draw valuable lessons from 1913 Jerusalem. She more or less fails utterly to do this. More importantly, I ended the book without knowing what the “lessons of 1913” that she extolled actually were. It seems that she argues that Jews and Arabs can co-exist… when they are both oppressed minorities in a larger empire. I might not have been so disappointed had she not badly over hyped her thesis in the introduction. It created very unreasonable expectations.

The style was alright. It jumped around a bit and could be hard to follow at times and other times was rather dull, delving into the minutiae of personal details. Unfortunately the narrator mispronounced several common words -particularly "sepulcher". She put the emPHAsis on the wrong syLAble often. I can give her a pass on foreign words but there really was too much. She also seems to have ran over chapter breaks making it very hard to follow the flow.

While I do not recommend this book as an introduction to the subject, it fills a necessary gap in the historical narrative by shedding light on the Ottoman rule of Jerusalem which is generally totally neglected elsewhere. If Jerusalem has been your study then by all means read this book, just keep your expectations reasonable. (also make sure you start with O'Jerusalem and The Lemon Tree first)

Very nicely done, and nicely delivered

It certainly filled in some gaps that I had in the history of that time period. The narrative is very well written, and the reader is quite good.
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It is sad to think that the current mid-east crisis is now nearly 100 years old, and while she may be off by a year or two in either direction, the turning point in the incident seemed to be when both sides decided that to negotiate some kind of peace was not in their best interest. That that one point in the whole history, deciding they had nothing to talk to each other about could lead to so many deaths and so much suffering sort of points out the Buddhist belief that attachment leads to suffering. Both groups feel some kind of attachment to that particular land, and both groups now thoroughly hate each other.
This would be a good lesson for others to hear and learn from. That avoiding the painful issues when they are new is not always a good thing to do.
-----------------------I would like to add that the inability of Audible to have a decent review system is very disappointing, considering the parent company (Amazon) was one of the early leaders in web sales, and makes you wonder at the ineptitude of the current management.

a perspective I have never read before, out dated

my father thought in the war of independence, but I never had a perspective before got started in the late 1800s. pretty fascinating, I did notice that the facts are out of date. the population of Israel seems to be exploding with buy some accounts 8 million Jews living in Israel and close to a million in Jerusalem. the book commented that the Israelis were afraid to live in Jerusalem and that there was only four thousand, unless I read that wrong.

it is fascinating to think that 85% of the world's Jews live in either Israel or the United States. France is number two with 400,000. and Jews are leaving.

I wish the book would have covered the Irgun and their fight with the Haganah for Supremacy and who would represent the Israeli Army.

I now understand why blowing up the King David Hotel forced the Haganah to take the Irgun out of the war - for the terrorism a blowing up the King David Hotel.

Excellent historical perspective

I appreciated this scholarly explication of the history of the end of the Ottoman period in Jerusalem
The performance was excellent except for several words that are not English but significant in the text.

Not what the title claims

I have long been searching for a good book on the origins of the arab-israeli conflict, but this is not it. It seemed like a good premise: going back to the origins of the Zionist movement and studying the historical consequences. However, Marcus never rises above the historical insight of a grade school history text. Leaders show up on the scene, but we never understand how they achieved prominence or what their real significance was in creating the situation we have today. I suppose Marcus thought she was being neutral and objective. Maybe she lost sight of her original target as the pages piled up. The result reads like an extended encyclopedia article, devoid of insight, inference, analysis, or even informed speculation. There has to be a powerful story buried under all these dry historical facts. Maybe someday someone will write it.