“There are no dispassionate accounts of the conflict that racks the Holy Land, nor should there be.  As this intelligent and important book makes clear, it is hard to be dispassionate when you believe that you are fighting for your life; and both the authors remind us that no less than this is what is felt to be at stake.  But conflict is always intensified by ignorance.  What this book does is to test how far we can go in mapping out a common history and exactly where and how this common history comes to be read differently.  It offers no magical solution to this most persistent and harrowing conflict of our times, but it refuses to settle down with slogans, and models the possibility of a painful, honest – even angry – dialogue that does not simply freeze into mutual uncomprehending hatred.”