why did you write the book? it s about essentially, well here s the first question. what is the crisis of zionism? the crisis of zionism is that for me, the miracle of the creation of the state of israel, the reason that my 6-year-old son has an israeli flag on his wall is that 1948, with the stench of jewish death still hanging over europe, with israel fielding an army full of people who had numbers tattooed on their arms from the concentration çcamps. israel wrote a constitution that promised complete social and economic rights. the crisis is when you control the west bank for 44 years, a place where jews have citizenship and the right to vote and live under civil law and palestinians are noncitizens, don t have the right to vote, live under military law, have their movement radically restricted, you desecrate israel s founding principles and you put into question the issue whether zionism can remain a democracy for the long term.