Looking at ‘A Lasting Peace’ in the Middle East

Terrorism is on the rise again in Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently uncovered three attack tunnels leading from Lebanon into Israel. Hezbollah boasts that its rockets can reach all of Israel. In November, Hamas engaged Israel with hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza in just two days.

In the past few weeks, terrorists stabbed an IDF soldier and shot and killed two soldiers in the West Bank. Terrorists also sprayed bullets into a crowd of civilians waiting at a bus stop. The drive-by attack seriously injured a pregnant woman along with six others. While the young mother fought for her life, doctors delivered her baby boy nine weeks premature. He hung on for only a few days before he died.

Will the violence never end – and is there hope we’ll see peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and her Arab neighbors?

These are challenging questions to be sure, and they seem only to lead to more: How did this conflict start, and when did the struggle begin? Who are Israel’s leading enemies, and why do they despise the tiny Jewish state so much?

The Middle East conflict is complicated, but it’s critical to be able to sort the facts from misinformation and propaganda. Many people are subjected to false conceptions about the strife in the Middle East, embracing – often passionately – uninformed views of Israel and the Palestinians.

Unfounded and misguided animosity toward Israel contributes to anti-Semitism throughout the world, and recent years have shown a dramatic increase. It’s vital to know the truth.

Jonathan Bernis’ new book, A Lasting Peace, provides an easy-to-understand overview of the Middle East conflict. It outlines Israel’s biblical and modern history to give you the full picture of how the seemingly insurmountable impasse in the Middle East today came to be.

In A Lasting Peace, you’ll discover answers to these and many more of your questions:

• Who owns the Land? Did Israel steal it from Arabs, creating the Palestinian refugee crisis?
• Who are the various terrorist groups targeting Israel and where are they based?
• The United Nations, which once granted Israel the right to exist, now seems to vigorously oppose her. When did the tide shift, and how?
• Would peace permeate the Middle East, as Arab narratives claim if only Israel would go away?
• How has the U.S. Embassy’s move to Jerusalem benefited the pursuit of peace?
• How does strife in the Middle East affect me? What can I possibly do?

A Lasting Peace pulls back the curtain of confusion and misinformation to reveal the facts about the Middle East conflict. Understanding this cauldron of contention is more important now than ever. As anti-Israel ideologies sprout and grow on college campuses and anti-Semitic motives put Jewish people at risk around the world, we must do all we can to combat the misunderstandings that give rise to them. We start by gaining a clear understanding of the truth.