Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Nueva York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014).

In The Iron Wall, Avi Shlaim traces the evolution of the “iron wall” strategy and unpacks its political consequences in Israel’s policy toward the Arab World throughout its history. The original idea, developed in an article by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in 1923, implied that Israel needed to build an iron wall—understood as a conceptual separation, not as a physical barrier—in order to negotiate peace with the Arabs from a position of strength, and not impose their presence unilaterally. Yet the idea of the existence of Israel as a matter of strength permeated and survived in the Israeli policy spheres for decades, without room for negotiation or diplomacy. Shlaim charts the explicit and implicit reemergence of the iron wall strategy, which became a recipe for violence. In the words of the author,

The trouble with unilateral action is that it holds out no hope of real or lasting peace because of its denial of justice to the other party. On te contrary, it is a recipe for never-ending strife, violence, and bloodshed—in short, for permanent conflict.

The idea of the iron wall thus played a fundamental role in the Israeli state-building process, but prompted eternal conflict. As part of the “new historiography”, and based on a wide array of primary and secondary sources, the updated edition of the book offers bold interpretations of the convoluted and contradictory processes of state-building. Shlaim masterfully challenges many of the foundational myths of the Israeli State and its architects. In his account, the making of Israel looks more like an aggressive political project that merely failed than a heroic defensive battle of a harmless people. Moreover, by paying special attention to their contradictions, inner doubts, setbacks and triumphs, the author renders a series of compelling portraits of the flawed (inherently human) characters that crafted statehood and policy. Some were brave, strong, and scared. Others were weak, fragile, but stubborn—and all took risks, some of them unnecessary.

Shlaim constantly reminds the reader of the overarching tension between the politics of history-writing and the political uses of history. Readers who wish to understand the relevance of the extremely complex Arab-Israeli conflict, and the importance of how we write about it, will profit immensely from The Iron Wall, an accurate and well-informed version of an ever-changing, contested story.