"How are things here, you ask. Things here are past insane."
In The End of Israel, acclaimed journalist Bradley Burston's dispatches for Haaretz newspaper trace the deep roots of the horrific Israel-Hamas war, exploring how the country could have chosen a different path, and possible options for its future.
The columns detail the decline and sudden fall of a failed nation, which - even before the war erupted - had begun to question whether this year's Independence Day would be its last. An Israel where the delusional and the fanatic were sovereign. A land which, the biblical book of Numbers warns us, eats its inhabitants alive.
Praise for The End of Israel:
"Heschel wrote that the prophet's word is a scream in the night.
While the world is at ease and asleep, the prophet feels the blast
from Heaven.
"It's not just that Bradley Burston saw what only few others could
see, it's that he found the courage to share it-urgently, honestly,
relentlessly.
"Burston has been a voice of moral clarity for decades. If only
more had listened... we might not be where we are today. And even
still, he wouldn't stand for us giving up hope-and so the struggle
goes on."
-Rabbi Sharon Brous
Author of the forthcoming The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to
Mend Our Broken Hearts and World
"Bradley Burston has warned for years that Israeli Jews would
never be truly safe until Palestinians are free. Now Jewish safety and
Palestinian freedom look further away than ever.
"Still, his essays don't counsel despair. They model wisdom,
decency, and hope."
-Peter Beinart
Author, The Crisis of Zionism
"Bradley Burston is 'the kind of person who loves Israel and hates
occupation, ' in his own words about another Israeli. On every issue
Burston touches, his passion for Israel, its beauty and potential and
tragedy, bursts out of these pages.
"His writing reflects his fierce and intimate devotion to Israel,
alongside unflinching observations about what's going wrong, and
how it could be better.
"Burston's collected works represent an essential warning cry, a
fine and complex tableau, and a roadmap to a better Israel."
-Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin
Political scientist and author of The Crooked Timber of
Democracy in Israel (2023).