JRB review, Fall 2016

A Cedar of Lebanon

Jewish Review of Books, Fall 2016

Amy Newman Smith

Matti Friedman came home from Outpost Pumpkin, where he was based during his tour of duty in Lebanon, not long before Israel made the decision to withdraw from the “security zone.” “When the army pulled out of Lebanon, I was happy. I thought that the problem was resolved by the withdrawal,” he recently told an interviewerBut within months the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had fallen apart and Hezbollah, in control of the area Israel held between 1985 and 2000, crossed the border, capturing and killing three IDF soldiers. “I started to understand that things don’t work the way we want them to work, and that the Middle East does not respond to our dictates or desires.”

(The full review here.)