One has only to look at the head­lines or turn on the tele­vi­sion news to know that Israel is fac­ing major mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal prob­lems. Hirsh Good­man, a senior research asso­ciate at the Insti­tute for Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Stud­ies at Tel Aviv Uni­ver­si­ty, takes an even­hand­ed approach to exam­in­ing the country’s dilem­ma. He traces Israel’s his­to­ry and assess­es its secu­ri­ty as well as its prospects for peace and pros­per­i­ty, exam­in­ing its place in the Mid­dle East and the chal­lenges it faces from its neigh­bors. Tak­ing an approach that is dif­fer­ent from that of most ana­lysts, Good­man notes that Israel’s obses­sion with threats from the out­side obscures the more dif­fi­cult issues that it faces from with­in. The fis­sures in the social and polit­i­cal sys­tem and the com­pe­tence of the country’s lead­ers pose more dan­ger than a poten­tial attack by Iran. He feels that the coun­try needs to con­cen­trate on a peace­ful solu­tion so that ​“no Arab coun­try will have moral jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for going to war with Israel in the future.” This means shar­ing Jerusalem as an inter­na­tion­al city and cre­at­ing a soci­ety where all share equal­ly in ben­e­fits and com­mit­ments. This is an impor­tant book with a time­ly message.