Published 2024
It’s all about Ukraine vs Russia and Israel vs Hamas. This is much more in depth than any news program that I’ve heard since the start of either war. Lots of info on munitions for Ukraine and their fight against Russian forces invading. Also, many details of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and how surprised the Israelis were. It’s interesting to note that many, many of the Arab leaders adjacent to Israel said that they had told Netanyahu not to deal with Hamas from the very beginning, that they were treacherous. Privately many did not support them but because of the religious differences they can’t do so publicly. You don’t hear in the news that Netanyahu has been funding Hamas for years, I guess as an alternative to Abbas’ group. Personally, I’ve given up on a solution to the MidEast problem, the two-state solution that both sides agreed to now seems to be something Israel is adamantly opposed to, even though they continue to dangle the prize in front of the Palestinians we’ve gotten no further than talk in decades.
Although this was a very interesting book, with many details about the diplomats trying to resolve the Israeli/Hamas war I found it difficult to follow. I can see the journalist’s touch here, going more by date than by the story itself. So I would read several pages about Ukraine and then be plunged into Israel and Hamas because of the timeline. Towards the end of the book, some pages were devoted to what might be called the war on the southern border of the US. I don’t really consider that a war as such but who knows what might happen going forward.
Bob Woodward is always amazing in who he is able to access and his questions are the ones I would want to ask. He is never bombastic like so many reporters today who seem to try to make their interviewees angry. He remains respectful and I think that’s important and shows the difference between true journalism and social media attention grabbers.