By Tanya Reinhart,
Open Media Book, 2002
Seven Stories Press (www.sevenstories.com),
$17.95 (Canada)

Neatly designed in a five by seven inch format, this is a book you can read in sections on public transit, carry stuffed in a pocket or bag. Above all, it is a well-organized "handbook" for the eventful last three years, from Camp David to Taba to Israel's last two years of "slow ethnic cleansing" -- "the second half of 1948" in the words of Israel's military commanders.

In How to End the War of 1948, Reinhart writes simply and clearly, presents her argument directly, and substantiates it with revealing details. Read the book for those details, so indispensable to dynamic discussion with people mesmerized by mythologies untiringly repeated in the media.

Israel didn't give away the farm at Camp David and Taba but recycled the unacceptable; Israeli repressive policies are not a response to suicide bombings, but are the implementation of plans that pre-date these reprisals; Barak was not an alternative to but a version of Sharon; Israeli military-political leadership is not hand-cuffed by popular attitudes but over-rides majority Israeli support for ending the occupation and settlements; the leadership of the Israeli "peace camp" does not give voice to this popular sentiment but diverts it into dead-end negotiations intended to maintain the occupation.

Reinhart proposes a unilateral, immediate and unconditional Israeli withdrawal from 90% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, a withdrawal without the construction of walls, an interim initiative she believes can generate constructive negotiations.