Israel Awakened provides a riveting account of the war that erupted in September 2000 from the misnamed "peace process." Interweaving incisive commentary on daily events with a rich tapestry of 20^th century history and Biblical references, Eugene Narrett brings the situation to life, explains its gestation and likely outcome. Scholars comment that "his scintillating analysis is an invaluable resource" that "should be required reading."

Israel Awakened chronicles three intertwined developments of great urgency for Israel and the world. Firstly, it examines the strange and eventful election campaign of Ehud Barak vs. Ariel Sharon. Secondly, it examines the inevitable approach and violent methods of the Oslo War that set the terms for the campaign and that exposed the false premises and seductive promises of the "peace process." Thirdly, Israel Awakened analyzes the trouncing Israelis gave Barak at the polls on February 06, 2001 and the baffling results. Although they repudiated the policies of Oslo by an unprecedented margin, government policies were slow to change in response to steadily escalating Arab assaults. By Passover 2001, these attacks had become common on Israeli civilians and towns throughout Israel. Why the inertia, even from supposed hawk, Ariel Sharon?

Professor Narrett gathers the three narrative strands of this groundbreaking study to highlight the crises that have challenged Israel during its difficult resurrection over the past century. What kind of a State will it be? Will democracy and consumerism rule, or will its main emphasis be to affirm, practice, and celebrate Jewish identity? Divided, avoiding a definitive answer and drifting mainly with the first option, Israel’s chronic conflicts about its boundaries reflect not only the animosity of its neighbors and the designs of world powers but a crisis of identity and purpose.

Carefully, lovingly examining ongoing events in the light of history and Torah, Professor Narrett shows that peace results from knowing and insisting on who you are, not by signing treaties, staging photo opportunities, or receiving awards. By spring 2001, most Israelis had awakened to these truths and wanted their leaders to take-up and win the intensifying war of attrition against it. But its political and military leadership remained divided; many of them still trapped in the delusions of Camp David and Oslo. As Jeremiah said long ago, they continued to cry, "'peace, peace!’ but there was no peace."

"Insightful, scholarly and graced by literary style and originality," Israel Awakened examines these crises of identity and borders and points the way to dignity and joy for Israel and its proper relation to the world.

Eugene Narrett studied at Columbia University in New York City where he earned his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in Art History and Comparative Literature. He has taught at colleges, universities, and private high schools in the Boston area since 1978.

An experienced analyst of American culture and politics, Professor Narrett has contributed articles, columns, book and art reviews, and essays to publications including The Washington Times, Insight magazine, Chronicles, Art New England, and the Chicago Tribune. He has been Contributing Editor of the Freedom Express and the Prophetic Round Up. For five years he wrote a column for the MetroWest Daily News and the Culture of Death Watch feature for Culture Wars magazine. His writings on Israel appear in The Outpost, The Maccabbean, Freeman Strategic Center, Middle East Political Forum, and other lists and web sites. He is the author of Gathered Against Jerusalem: Essays on a False Peace (Writers Club Press, 2000), a prelude to this new groundbreaking study on Israel’s crises of identity and borders.

An erudite, impassioned, and dedicated writer and teacher, Professor Narrett lives in Massachusetts with his son, Gabriel.

This book chronicles three intertwined developments of great urgency for Israel. First is the strange and eventful election campaign of Ehud Barak vs. Ariel Sharon, a contest on which Israel’s existence seemed to hang in balance. Coincident with it was the ongoing Oslo war launched by the Arabs in late September 2000, the violent and inevitable result of the false premises of the "peace process." Thirdly, this study chronicles the overwhelming victory the citizens of Israel gave Ariel Sharon at the polls on February 06, 2001 and the disturbingly familiar ambivalence about national direction that soon settled upon his government. Pervading and generating these intertwined strands of events, people and ideas is the core fact of the re-born Israel’s national life: a crisis of identity and purpose, and a resulting chronic uncertainty about the nation’s borders and its relation to the Land. Examining the consequences and symptoms of this confusion enables one to identify what is needed for malaise to give way to assurance and genuine (as opposed to paper) peace. Peace results from knowing and insisting on who you are, not by signing codicils and amendments, not by posing for photographs or from receiving awards. Peace depends on distinguishing self from not-self, friend from enemy. By February 2001, most Israelis had awakened to these truths but their political class would not, or could not. They continued to cry for, "‘peace, peace!’ but there was no peace." Reacting piecemeal to chronic violence, they stumbled toward inescapable choices.

Indeed, as Passover approached, there was a steady escalation of violence, as if in horrid parody of commentaries on Isaiah 60:22 and Zechariah 9:9 regarding the painfully slow approach of Messiah, "like a pauper riding a donkey’s foal." The Arabs shot mortar shells at Israelis within the pre-1967 borders (March 18 and April 05). These were acts of war outright. Retaliation was limited. Officers, like Brig. Gen. Yair Naveh who called for sustained deterrent action were silenced and IDF coffers and morale exhausted by a back and forth ‘zipper policy’ (04-18-01). With the intention (or in the guise) of instructing Arafat and his top militia commanders face-to-face that violence had to stop, Sharon and his security officials met with them in Tel Aviv and Ramallah, a form of the very negotiation he was promising would not proceed while there was shooting. On their way back to Gaza, the bodyguards of these militia leaders shot at Israeli border patrols (April 05). When the Israelis returned fire, the BBC and CNN blamed Israel. It seemed like a divine punishment for meeting with terrorists like Amin al Hindi and Mohammed Dahlan. The former routinely used his Israeli-issued VIP pass (part of the Oslo legacy of legitimizing the PLO) to stake out the houses of Israeli officers. The latter planned numerous bombing attacks on Israeli civilians, including one on a school bus November 20 that left two dead, 11 injured, and three children with amputated limbs.

The fact that the new government continued to speak of achieving "security and genuine peace on the basis of stable peace agreements" suggested at best a desire to placate the Labor Party. And indeed, Shimon Peres continued to meet with Arafat at European venues as if conducting foreign policy opposed to that of his Prime Minister, as he had done to Yitzchak Shamir in the 1980s. This was predictable, and raised questions about Sharon’s relationship with Peres. Sharon, too, was always a politician of the left, despite being a great General. In any case, well before Sharon settled into office, it had become clear that the "Genuine peace and security" promised by his governing platform will arise only through Israeli victory and clarification of defensible boundaries rooted in its history and heritage. Retreat from them projects confusion and invites attack.

If it does not identify itself and its legitimacy with its divine covenant, Israel will have neither peace nor life. It must take itself seriously. It must live its heritage rather than consign it to museums, study halls or lecture rooms. That truth is the upshot and subtext of these essays. The "peace process" and renewed War of attrition that was its inevitable consequence embodied a continuing identity crisis reflected in chaotic politics and uncertainty about borders. This crisis can be resolved in a way that leads to life and strength for Israel only if it takes its character and goals from the Books of Moses. Regardless of their degree of observance, Israelis (and all Jews) must recognize that Israel’s claim to its Land rests in its Holy Scriptures and in their Sovereign Authority. Israel is not a nation that can flourish or even live by being agnostic, much less, atheist or secular. If it turns its back on the Torah of the Land, there will be increasing violence and then another exile. Conversely, when Israel is Jeshurun, the "upright ones," forthright and brave in living its heritage, God will "ride across the heavens to help them." If they debase their singular inheritance into a series of bargaining chips they will suffer the fulfillment of the verse, of being afflicted "by a non-nation and a vile people," that violent historical fiction, the living and deadly lie that is the "Palestinians" (Deuteronomy 32:21). This verse has been painfully, instructively fulfilled since Israel failed to complete its victory in June 1967. The pain seems meant to awaken and lead it into the path of victory and life. As one disillusioned proponent of Oslo admitted, Israel "needs a spiritual revolution and a generation of leaders that acts out of concern for the nation and country. The youth [and not only the youth] must re-discover their Judaism. Otherwise, Israel will disintegrate because of its loss of identity" (journalist Dan Margalit, excerpts of interview by Hatzofeh, Israelnationalnews.com, 04-19-01).

During the first decades of the re-born nation, and especially after the miraculous victory of 1967, it became clear that Israel (at least its ruling classes) perceived themselves much as the first king of Israel did: small, weak and apologetic to enemies. After Saul won what should have been his greatest and most decisive victory, the prophet Samuel had to rebuke him for sparing the hostile king of the defeated Amalekites. "Is it not so? Though you are small in your own eyes, yet God has appointed you as head of the armies of Israel" (1 Samuel 15). The kingship had to be torn from Saul and given to another generation and tribe who understood that Israel had been commanded to destroy its enemies, not to conciliate or treat with them. One would think that the experience of the past decades had proved this point. By Passover 5761 (April 07, 2001) most Israelis had awakened to this truth. But much of the government seemed committed to sleepwalking its way through a problem that would not go away. The Jordan remained to be crossed. The Land had yet to be fully and lovingly embraced.

Jacob who became Israel was blessed with the patrimony and covenant of his forefathers Abraham and Isaac because he cherished and eagerly besought their birthright, despite the dangers and pain foretold for it (Genesis 15:12-14). His embrace of this heritage must be the pattern for the Jewish people and Israel as a nation. When Israel espouses its Land and heritage, confusion and surrender will yield to clarity of purpose and strength. Then and only then will there be peace.

These essays were written in the midst of rapidly developing events that will determine the status of Israel and Judaism, and their relation to other peoples of the world for centuries to come. The identity of Israel is and probably always will be (no religious person can doubt it) of central importance to the world events and human expectations. Nothing more shows the power and persuasiveness of the Hebrew Scriptures than the continuing focus of major world powers and organizations on Jerusalem and on the Land God promised to the Children of Israel. A record of these events in their daily and weekly genesis necessarily is more than news and analysis. It illuminates how Israel and all those nations and individuals concerned with it define themselves in relation to first and last things, and with whether they are more concerned to supplant, bury or honor Israel.

Generations yet to be born will want to examine the trail of blood and tears by which the chicanery and seductive promises of the "peace process" were exposed and sweated out. They will be astonished and edified by the degree to which those who built their reputation and identity on fantasies (or lies) will cling to them, regardless of cost and evidence. Everyone can learn from the tragic events, eloquent statements, public debates and sacrifices it took for a people to awaken to the fact that peace cannot be wished into existence, and cannot be bought, not by money, not by unilateral concession and not by party politics or "social welfare" policies. These lessons are so important that they should not be reduced to a few broad strokes in an official history that inevitably transmute into half-truths or lies. Names must be named, specific individuals remembered for it is individuals, formed by and reacting to the assumptions and habits of their day who choose blessing or curse. Who define themselves in relation to (or by denying) eternal truths.

A chronicle of the events by which Israelis burst from the Oslo trance is by nature polemical and impassioned for it commemorates the pain of those caught in a trap woven of wishful thinking, often by others, not themselves. Bleaching the human passion and urgency out of these events is neither objective nor true. There is august precedent as well as spiritual necessity for including them. Nothing is more thrilling than the drama that arose long ago in Egypt, when God sent Moses to challenge not only the arrogance of Pharaoh but the exhausted spirit (literally, "shortness of breath") felt by the Children of Israel at the end of their long exile (Exodus 6:9). That history remains formative. Israel’s long exile and its many forms of servitude, climaxing in the shoah, also bequeathed a shortness of spirit that continued even after the victory of 1967, a second exodus. The failure to fully liberate and espouse the Land in that war’s aftermath was the failure of the ten cowardly spies yet again (Numbers 14). Eighteen centuries of pain after the defeat of the Great Revolt, many Jews had misplaced a genuine, living, breathing urgent desire for a nation. Friend of Israel, novelist George Eliot wrote in 1883, "the world needs some new Ezra, some modern Maccabees to triumph over the indifference of their fellows and the scorn of their foes." Commenting on the aftermath of the British-assisted Arab riots of 19201, Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote on March 21, 1921 of the struggle for Israel to be reborn, "this war is not only against external enemies, it is a war against our own weakness. The Jewish people has barely begun to do its duty" (Die Tribune [Yiddish], London). Considering the increase in means from that time to Passover 2001, the assessment remained true. For Israel to live, an entire generation of nation-smothering leaders may need to drop their carcasses in the wilderness.

When mortal dangers compel a nation to draw upon its powers of faith and remembrance, the highest drama results. At the beginning of 2001, Israel found itself in a howling wilderness to which it had strayed by following the blandishments of the Oslo process. The resulting events were Israel’s attempts to awaken and remember what it is, to ascend and "ride on the heights of the Land, and eat the ripe fruits of its fields." We will be wrestling with the imperatives and consequences of this effort for years to come.

As in my previous book, Gathered Against Jerusalem, companion to this volume, I use the Hebrew word meaning "the Name" (Hashem) to indicate the tetragrammaton, the ineffable Name of God in His attribute of mercy, usually rendered in English as "L-ord," or LORD. Yesha is the acronym made of the Hebrew letters for the areas of Judah (Yehuda), Samaria (the Shomron) and Gaza (Azza). Other terms are defined within, explicitly or by context.