Growing up in Beirut, politics and religion were frequent subjects of conversation at the table, while the news played endlessly in the background. Life felt strangely routine as we went about our day-to-day activities despite the turbulence around us.

I left Beirut around the age of 12 and have faint memories of the Hariri/Samir Kassir/Gebran Tueni assassinations and the 2006 war.

When I set out to find a book about the Israeli-Lebanese conflict, I had one important criterion: the author had to have experienced the situation firsthand. I chose this book because Friedman didn’t write it from the comfort of a far-off city like Minneapolis or Washington, DC. Instead, he was on the ground in Lebanon during the civil war and later during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. His account is shaped by the experiences of journalists, politicians, businessmen, soldiers, and civilians from both sides of the conflict, providing a  personal and grounded perspective. While one can never be fully objective when covering such a conflict, I found that Friedman, an American-Jewish journalist, grew critical of Israel with time and noted his internal conflict.

I appreciated the author's writing style, and found the book easy to read. However, I would have preferred fewer shifts in dates, years, and events. A more chronological approach to the storytelling would have improved the overall reading experience.
I've also found parts of the book to be redundant, making it seem like he had to hit a specific word count.

I would certainly recommend this book to western readers interested in learning about the Middle East.

This book was written in 1989 and so much and so little has changed since then. The same variation of stories, the same level of violence, and the endless cycle of abuse perpetrated by different figures on the same borrowed land.

I learned so much! About the Middle East certainly but also about tribalism and political motivation and religion. Friedman is a very capable writer and from my point of view is strongest when he is telling stories of individuals that show the human impact and express the messiness of human emotions and reactions. If I had to guess, I’d say that he prefers Beirut. Maybe it’s because it’s where he started the story, but the way he wrote about the people, the city and what he saw there made me feel present. While I enjoyed and learned from the Jerusalem part of the story, I didn’t get as strong of a feeling or impression of place. Or maybe it’s me because I’ve read so much more about Israel and the conflict with Palestinians than about Lebanon. In any event, please read if you are interested in humanity and all of its complexities.

If you switch out "Beirut" for "Damascus", most of the stories would still apply. The sentence I liked the most was "Arabs constantly live under an IBM protocol: Inshallah, Bokra, Ma3lesh"

I used to follow and read Thomas Friedman’s columns regularly. Thought he was a pretty interesting guy even if I didn’t subscribe to his politics. But he became a bloated, pompous caricature of a journalist as he turned out junk like The World is Flat, The Sky is Blue, The Sea is Salty (well maybe the last two aren’t real but he has a bunch of similar-sounding books). I decided to go back to his first book From Beirut to Jerusalem to see how he got his start. I figured it would be a less slanted, more unbiased, open-eyed look at the world before he got sucked up into the “collective” that is the current NYT. I was wrong. He freely admits his intention to slant his stories about Israel’s Lebanon invasion because he was so “betrayed” in his “Israel on a pedestal” views. This book is not what I expected and hoped for, a history of the region and why it is in conflict. This is a “Tom’s excellent adventure” in Beirut and Jerusalem, mainly about him and his travels. It is also very focused on the personalities of the day, which is understandable because he was the reporter on the scene. The book does not travel the span of time well.

I give props to Friedman, he has some cojones going to report on the Lebanese civil war as his first big assignment. A Jew in Beirut, he figures no one would suspect him of being jewish there. Pretty ballsy. But he quickly disabuses me of the idea he is an honest reporter. Short version of his reporting: the PLO is good-hearted but amateurish and unsophisticated in an appealing way; the Maronite Christians are Beirut’s corrupt version of the mafia, evil and untrustworthy; the Sunni Muslims are mysterious and vaguely honorable; the Shia are somewhat naïve and trusting but rising up in justified anger; and the Israelis are lying devils invading poor, innocent Lebanon. I found him cold; his unemotional description of the death of his employee’s wife and daughter who were babysitting his Beirut apartment during a particularly dangerous time and were blown up by warring factions struck me; his tossing off of the gassing of Iraqi Kurds by Saddam as just how strong leaders dealt with uppity tribes; the “Hama rules” of Hafez al-Assad. His treatment of the PLO and Arafat in Lebanon was very sympathetic. His treatment of Lebanese society seemed like caricatures.

He moves to Jerusalem and reports on Israel. Again I found his writing very slanted. He describes one incident where a Jewish man is pelted by stones as he is driving. The man stops to get revenge on the Palestinian boys who could have killed him. Friedman witnesses the event but says the reason the man was so upset was because he would have to pay $250 to repair his windshield…? Are you freakin’ kidding me?

The book does give a more nuanced view of the society with its warring factions over how to deal with the West Bank and Gaza. Also the friction between the secular and the religious populations is decent. I found his explanation of the first intifada interesting as he brings out the impacts on both sides. This part of the book was ok.
Finally, Friedman can’t resist putting up his own solution to end the conflict. What is needed is an Israeli “bastard for peace” who will take the chance and give the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians so they can have a “home” of their own. Working out really well in the case of Gaza now, isn’t it Tom? The “river to the sea” is not an empty slogan, the Palestinians will never be satisfied until the entire state of Israel is gone. For a better history and assessment of the region, read The High Cost of Peace: How Washington's Middle East Policy Left America Vulnerable to Terrorism.

2 Stars in recognition of Friedman’s guts to live and report in the region.

احتمالا بهترین کتابی است که درباره مناقشه فلسطین- اسرائیل و ایضا جنگ داخلی لبنان خوانده ام. شفاف، دقیق، روشن کننده و از متن حوادث
کتاب سه بخش دارد. بیروت. قدس و واشنگتن.
بخش بیروت را بدون زمین گذاشتن خواندم. چون اصلا نمی‌شد زمین گذاشت. بخش قدس (اسرائیل) را با فاصله و به تفاریق. ولی بخش واشنگتن را اصلا نخواندم. گمانم در دو بخش به استغنا رسیدم.

I really enjoyed this book, but more so when I realized it was memoir rather than history. Friedman is writing about his time as a journalist in Beirut and Jerusalem roughly between 1979 and 1989. He was in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war and the Israeli invasion, intended to drive out Arafat and the PLO, and moved on to Jerusalem in time for the first intifada, beginning in 1987.

I enjoyed the first half of the book more and feel that he did a better job in it of simply reporting the circumstances with sufficient historical background for it all to make sense. He lived in Beirut while there and although he conducted interviews with leaders and individuals from all the different factions, this portion of the book seemed to include more personal observations and, as another reviewer noted, fewer analogies. But when he got to the portion of the book when he was living in Jerusalem there seems to be more emphasis on the philosophies of various groups.

I appreciated learning about the different perspectives of various groups of Zionists, there was a wider range than I realized, but by the end the interviews seemed excessive. Perhaps, this is because Friedman is Jewish and wanted to avoid interjecting his personal opinion, so he gave many others a voice. I wouldn't say as some others do that he was overwhelmingly biased in favor of Israel. He takes everyone to task at some point - the Israelis, the Arab countries, the PLO, and the Americans. However, it did seem that the Israeli position received more of a platform than that of the Palestinians. This could be because of whom he had access to.

Overall, even though the book is dated, I'm glad I read it. It had been on my shelf for years, but if you are interested I would suggest trying to pick up a used copy since it doesn't have any up to date information.

The Beirut portion is a compelling mixture of historical fact, personal anecdote, and shrewd analysis. It interweaves psychology and politics. I learned a lot. The Jerusalem part turns a bit toward proselytizing (perhaps because he has more skin in the game?).

Nevertheless, this book does a great job of outlining the what, who, when, where, why, and how of the conflict in the Middle East. He does a good job of explaining the mindset of tribal conflict, of reminding us that our “Western/modern” way of thinking isn’t prevalent everywhere.

This conflict revolves around the idea of ownership of land, of belonging, of stolen land. It is too easy to think that we can analyze this from an outside, “impartial” perspective. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We, as Americans, do not have any sort of moral high ground on which to stand here; we are living on stolen land. We took it from Native Americans, often violently, and I think that until we recognize that more often and more explicitly, we are no better than the zionists. Do we, as Americans, have license to proffer judgement about an illegal occupation of land? It is very very thorny.

The Epilogue update was written around 1990. Much has happened since, and I would love another update the state of affairs then to now.

The last 100 pages were interminable.

Although a bit dated now Friedman's reporting from Beirut during the civil war and Jerusalem during the entifada is pertinent and illuminating. His analyses are cogent and clear and he actually presumes to propose solutions to the Israeli - Palestinian conflict! The writing is entertaining and the narrative unfolds coherently, more than can be said about the events he is reporting - especially in Beirut. It is odd how today's journalism can become tomorrow's historicl writings.

This is a great book. I like the writing style and I learned a lot. Friedman is extremely well-informed and his first-hand experiences are truly interesting. Just be aware that it covers a limited period of time, and is very much an exposition of Friedman's own perspective.

If you're sick and tired of what a pedantic wind-bag Thomas Friedman has become since his stupid 'lexus & olive-tree' epiphany, take a trip back to when he was less pedantic, less wind-baggish, and could make a point without the use of a dozen unnecessary, self-aggrandizing anecdotes.

From Beirut to Jerusalem is entertaining, well-written, poignant, and a great primer to middle-eastern/Israeli-Palestinian affairs. The Beirut section of the book is a bit better than the Jerusalem section (I get the feeling he had different editors for each), but overall it remains indispensable reading.

Thomas Friedman's books & his tenure at the New York Times have invited all manner of invective as well as substantial praise, a National Book Award & 3 Pulitzer Prizes. While From Beirut to Jerusalem is now 30 years old & some things have altered in Israel & the Middle East, the subject areas & diplomatic problems over which Friedman attempts to hold court have merely undergone mutations, a condition far distant from resolution.


What this book does is to present the historical background & views of a longtime foreign correspondent, a gifted journalist and not the sort of an academic essaying of the Middle East for a scholarly journal or even one aimed at a broader market, Foreign Affairs as an example. And with that, Friedman offers a distinctive but well-reasoned & critical point of view, quite different than an area report done for the U.S. Department of State.

Some of the commentary is a bit glib at times, as when Friedman declares:

In some ways, the Lexus & the olive tree were symbols of the post-Cold War era. Some countries want to build a better Lexus, others want to renew ethnic & tribal feuds over who owned which olive tree.

Yes, the concept of the Lexus & the olive tree was later fashioned into another book of its own vintage, one that receives less praise at G/R than From Beirut to Jerusalem. However, this seems to me just a form of literary recycling, particularly since new material has been added to later books by the author.


Friedman tells the reader that Israel is over-reported both for good & bad because of the strong identification with the biblical landscapes, particularly in the United States, with astronaut Neil Armstrong declaring that "walking on the streets where Christ walked was a bigger thrill than walking on the moon."

There is a reference to perennial "tribe-like conflicts" in the Middle East, with many people, including Israeli Jews, unable to break from "their primordial identities". even though they dwell in what appear to be modern nation-states.

And, there is reference to "moral double bookkeeping",

All the players in the Middle East do it. They keep one set of moral books, which proclaim how righteous they are, to show the outside world and another set of moral books, to proclaim how ruthless they are, to show each other.

Amidst the hostility there is occasional humor in From Beirut to Jerusalem as when Friedman relays how a group of Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews attempted to steal the Torah from a group of Reform Jews in the middle of their service.


The catastrophic death toll in Beirut when a suicide bomber attacked a U.S. Army barracks may seem a long time ago but it would appear that as always, the United States has been slow to learn that with power, arrogance often follows:

What America learned in Beirut, maybe more than in Vietnam, was the degree to which the world has undergone a democratization of the means of destruction. For its first 200 years, America lived in glorious isolation from the rest of the world, protected by 2 vast oceans.

Later, with the arrival of the 20th Century, America developed overwhelming power & weight that often compensated for lack of guile & cunning. When you have battleships that fire shells as big as Chevrolets, who needs cunning? However, today an illiterate peasant with a shoulder-held Stinger can shoot down a $50 million fighter aircraft. The world had changed & America was not ready when it did.

I found this book very insightful & while written before the 9/11 attacks, there was a prescient warning that "grotesque acts of terrorism" might be on the horizon, thus turning "passive majorities for peace into passive majorities for confrontation".


One of the many aspect that I liked within From Beirut to Jerusalem is that Friedman seemed as neutral as possible in detailing the many problems in the Middle East, charting excess on both sides in Israel/Palestine & on multiple sides in a country like Lebanon, while also offering possible solutions. And, so many years after this book first appeared, Thomas Friedman is still in favor of some form of a Two-State Solution.

In preparation for a 3 week study-tour of Israel & the Palestinian Territories, this book by Thomas Friedman and another book, Arab & Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land, by David Shipler were especially helpful.

During our time there, we met with many Muslim & Christian Palestinians, Jews of many varieties including settlers & a dwindling group of Samaritans along the Golan Heights and with Druze. In spite of the hostility & fear that many in the area bear for one another, it was fascinating to hear their individual survival stories & to be welcomed into their midst.

*Within my review are images of author, Thomas Friedman; Palestinians tending olive trees on the West Bank, though many trees have been destroyed; Banksy's artful graffiti on the "Separation Wall" between Israel & the Palestinian Territories; and Israeli security forces protecting Jews who were protesting at the Islamic holy site in Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, also called the Temple Mount.

Friedman's life, work and impressions of the two places when he was stationed there during the eighties, the work is informative in detail in more ways than one - horrors such as Hama and confusion of Lebanon are not this well known to those not of the nations involved, for example - and very worth reading.

Even as one reads these accounts one wonders at the cry against the comparatively smaller details of events elsewhere due to the democratic nature of the nations and culture in the said elsewhere places, while almost no sound is made about the Hama massacre of 38,000 Islamic fundamentalists and the neighbourhood they lived in by their own regime in an Islamic nation, just as very little noise is heard above the bare mention of the massacre of Armenian million and more by the Turkish government a century or so ago. But then, so very little noise or mention exists about the massacre of millions of Tibetans in Tibet by China, while billions were spent to arm the Afghans against - comparatively - an almost benign, benefic Soviet occupation (women will never be so free again as under the Soviet occupation according to the prophecy by the father of the protagonist in The Kite Runner, and it seems to be all too true even until now what with the neighbouring regime supporting Taliban to wage their war in a supposedly free Afghanistan, supposedly free from not only other other repressive regimes but from Taliban chiefly).

But then, it ought to be clear to anyone looking dispassionately, or with a passion for humanity, that the misplaced war on Soviet regime to the exclusion of ignoring massacres in Tibet, Hama, and elsewhere by Islamic fundamentalist regimes using weapons of terror across their own borders and within too (massacre prior to independance of Bangladesh by the military of west Pakistan of what they thought were their own people in the eastern part, including the horrendous use of women of Bangladesh, kept naked and chained so they could not run away, half a million women - or was it only fifty thousand? - so treated in inhumane way for sexual needs of the occupying west Pakistan military soldiers, a la nazi treatment of their own - read German, misnamed "Aryan", the real meaning of the world Aryan from Sanskrt having nothing to do with the usage made by nazi regime or their predecessor racists in any part of Europe - women kept for sexual use of their soldiers) being one example. The only difference was the German women were probably allowed to wear clothes when they were not being used.

And yet none of these various atrocities are mentioned a fraction as much as the happenings in a couple of places, easy targets for being not only democratic regimes of modern nations that believe in education and cultures of certain faiths that do not go about converting with aggressive fervour and hence targeted.
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One reads about the two nations and two cultures in this work - with people of diverse agenda and more than one nations in each of the two - and one is overwhelmed with the information unless one is extensively familiar with all this, which a general reader is not quite likely to be, not so much.

The diversity of Lebanon in the citizenry of not only including Christianity among the nation but remote and elsewhere not so well known branches of both Islam and Christianity is as much a new fact for most of generic readers as the description of almost claustrophobic nature of orthodox variation of faith in Israel that is so very a mirror image of Islam in its fundamental robe.
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Informative although not exhaustively so - for instance, details of the terrorism are missing with their effects, and the few mentions include a branding of a people but refrains from mentioning if such branding was justified by their sympathy and covert help for those that did commit acts of terror - this is an account of the author's life in the two places and his perception, understanding, and information about the people and nations of the two places - the number being a lot more than two.

Also, it explains a lot about acts of terror committed elsewhere that are linked to the topic of this work, by the tide of the movements, and successes perceived thereof by various others who sought to copy those successes including what counts as martyrdom, but more relevantly the expansion of a people connected by what is misnamed faith via methods tested and proved effective - high rates of reproduction, induction of small children in acts of terror and war (and subsequent howling against the same children being caught in crossfire or affected as result of the encouragement by the adults towards taking part in the war), occupation of lands and hypocrisy of howling protests against others either being part of the same lands or copying the occupation tactics, flat out declaration of not tolerating others among themselves and howling against similar reluctance by others to tolerate their own selves, using their own intolerance and democratic tolerance of others to their own benefits of expansion and take over towards a final aim of converting humanity with a clear agenda of clearing the world of any other faiths or systems, .... it is all eerily familiar across spaces and time.
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Interestingly another analogy is that about settling of US, Australia, and so forth, generally the continent(s) of the so called New World, by migrants from Europe; "settling" (they were none of them empty, to begin with!) those continents by every possible tactic including massacres and denigrations of real inhabitants of the places, including misnomers such as Indian (for a variety of people that had nothing to do with India - but then again, the very name India was given by people outside India to the land once so known) - or Aborigines, rather than retaining names they have for themselves.

Is settling of Palestine - by an original people driven out of it by Rome two millennia ago - against the unwillingness of the more recent inhabitants of the land (bought by the settlers from owners who were of the same ilk as the unwilling recent inhabitants, only they were rich landowners and couldn't care less for the tenants' opinions, feelings, or lives - unless they simply knew they were taking the money for a land they intended to drive away or massacre the new settler from anyway) - is this worse than the massacres, and worse, of original people of continents of Australia and America, by weapons and infected blankets and deliberate "whitewashing" of races by using European male settlers' usage of women of the land (it would be called rape if the males involved saw those women as human, but in all likelihood they saw them as objects of use, and this is worse than rape) and taking the resulting children away by force, causing disruption of families and trauma very like that of slavery of people kidnapped from Africa and sold in US - well, one doubts Israeli occupation of Palestine, including the post '67 territories, could even begin to compare, all the more so since it was a much persecuted people flocking to their homeland they had been driven away from by Rome then occupying Judea, and never allowed to live in peace anywhere else in the world with the exception of two places, two nations (one since expanded, one severely divided and a victim of terrorism of expansion by a colonising and conversionist people or two).

Those two places through history of the two millennia when Jews were driven out of their homeland and dispersed, seeking to live elsewhere and never allowed to feel at home or have rights, were India and China.
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In the land and culture that India was before the forced partitions (due to some that required supremacy of their faith as a national character), Jews lived in peace, were free to follow their own faith and culture or assimilate as much as they chose, prosper, and survive - as other refugees since and before, including Parsis, those from Persia fleeing terrors of a persecuting new religion over a millennium ago, and more recently Tibetans. This is by no means a complete or exhaustive list, either - it includes all those from east or west that came with intentions of life rather than that of death of others.

China on the other hand assimilated the Jewish diaspora gently - according to Pearl S. Buck, for example - until trace of such assimilation is found in a name here, a nose there, and very little more.

In India - what is now retained by that name - however, one can find old Jewish settlements in various places, and people who have lived there for all this time. The young might have emigrated elsewhere, but that was due to better economic prospects post formation of Israel as much as a returning to an ancient homeland or finding others of one's faith from across the globe - all the positive reasons, and none of the usual ones of persecution or lack of any rights of citizenry on par with everyone else.
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Events have gone far beyond the book's beginning of Hamas, of course. Now the world is smaller, terror spread beyond boundaries of the nations that have been the usual target, rogue nations have been reluctantly admitted by various powers of west after attempting to coopt them into "fight against terror" by labeling them as a partner of US in this fight and bribing them with billions of dollars unaccounted for - only to find the money vanishing, more demands for sophisticated weaponry, and backdoor coordination by those "partners" with the very agencies of terrorism they have been pretending to cooperate fighting. This is today, post not only the horror of towers unfolded over a decade ago but nearly a year post having the man who masterminded or at least was leader and spirit being hunted down in his lair in the very heart of military establishment of the "partner" of US in fighting terror.

Few dare to ask, was US really so stupid as to be duped by this nation, one born less than a century ago out of terrorism used for demanding it to begin with (but teaching its children, falsely, that it had existed for over a millennium, never mind how unlikely it was to exist even today without the massacre of thousands in Calcutta to force the demand), all along, or was it something else?

Now however not only this is post 2001, it is post the 26/11 targetting of western and Israeli people in a landmark luxury hotel in Mumbai used as focal point of a terrorist attack masterminded on cellphones from across the western border to instruct the terrorists continuously, and there can no longer be a pretension of doubt about the rogue nature of the agencies that mastermind and train the terrorists while denying it with open lies as long as the paymasters are willing to buy the lies. Hamas has been joined by various other agencies of terror as a front for the authorities of the rogue nation - agencies that merely change names and claim to be institutions of charity, on the whole creating a picture of a killer on the loose pretending to be a beggar and denying both begging and killing, or blackmail that joins the two.
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