Diary of a Crisis explores the past tumultuous and traumatic year in Israel-Palestine. The
eminent historian Saul Friedländer began a diary of Israeli politics in January 2023 as the
country was convulsed by protests against Netanyahu’s attempt to overhaul the judiciary.
Hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against this threat to democracy. But
the protests said nothing about the Palestinian question—the "elephant in the room " according
to Friedländer who resumed his diary after Hamas’s 7 October assault on southern Israel.
Israel was facing one of the worst crises in its history he observes under the worst possible
internal conditions. Friedländer weaves together profound reflections on a national history in
which he has been an active participant. He describes how Prime Minister Golda Meir once flatly
declared to him "There is no Palestinian people." For Friedländer on the other hand the
fight for democracy is inseparable from equality of treatment for Arab and Jewish citizens and
an end to Israeli domination over Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. He argues that
despite the continuing bloodshed a two-state solution remains the only long-term answer to
this most intractable of conflicts.
