David Margolick writes in The New York Times:
Segev’s look into the origins of the occupation is invaluable. His research is prodigious, his intelligence obvious, his ability to reconstruct complex chains of events impressive. He writes clearly and confidently and has an eye for the telling, and often witty, detail. But he is the victim of his own eminence — his previous books, on the British Mandate and on the impact of the Holocaust on the Jews of Palestine, among others, have been justly praised — and, surprisingly, of his own parochialism.
The book is way too long, a temptation to which respected writers can sometimes succumb. A timid American editor hasn’t helped. Non-Israelis, even those who read Haaretz daily online, will find “1967” slow going. Indeed, if ever a book reflected the widening chasm between Israel and the Diaspora, it is this one. At times — describing day-to-day life in Israel or the political machinations there — it is far too detailed; do we really need to know that Israelis forsook fresh for frozen meat during the recession of 1967? Similarly, repeated quotations from the war diary of a soldier named Yehoshua Bar-Dayan — and how much he misses his wife, Gila, and young son, Yariv — undoubtedly resonate with Israelis, but will surely be exceedingly tiresome to most everyone else.
Why does Tom Segev get such reviews from non-leftist publications? The man is a leftist ideologue.
