Sleeping on a wire

Israel is both Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel. During the Gulf War many Israeli Arabs found themselves in an absurd situation as they climbed atop their roofs, gas masks on their faces, to cheer on the missiles Saddam Hussein had aimed at Israel. 'My people is at war with my country, ' is how one Israeli Arab has described the dilemma in which he and his brothers are caught. In the summer of 1991, Israeli writer David Grossman sets out on a personal journey into the world of the Arab citizens of his country to explore these problems. This book is an account of that journey, a story about an intensifying bitterness and a Palestinian problem likely to become as serious as the one already familiar to the world.