Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978
Author: Kai Bird
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 423
Price: Rs 1,299
In 1956, eight years after the violent creation of the state of Israel, five-year-old Kai Bird overheard an American heiress in East Jerusalem proclaiming that she would give a million dollars to anyone who could solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Excited, he told his father, America’s vice-consul in the then Jordanian-controlled part of the city, “Daddy, we have to win this prize.”
Almost seven decades later Kai Bird isn’t closer to that jackpot. Neither, of course, is anyone else, whether politician
