Daniel Sokatch, a graduate of Fletcher, creates a “literary Navigation system” for traversing perilous regions like Israel.
Few nations elicit as strong a response from people as Israel, whether in formal or informal talks. Daniel Sokatch, F99, observed that many onlookers avoid participating in such debates because of the contentious nature of the topic or because they believe they lack the knowledge necessary to comprehend it.
According to Sokatch, “Over the past 20 years, I have observed the tenor and tone of the conversation surrounding Israel become more and more vitriolic, emotive, irrational, and scary for individuals who are simply attempting to understand what is going on.” “I wanted to attempt to make a literary GPS system that would allow sensible, open-minded individuals to try to navigate—or at least get the means to navigate—this emotional, tense fight,” the author said.
The book
Can We Talk About Israel, A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted is the end product. A Guide for the Doubtful, Uncertain, and Unsettled. The New Israel Fund, a progressive group with a U.S. basis that promotes equality for all Israeli residents, irrespective of their race or faith, says that the book is also for “the compassionate and the caring.”
Can the past of such a volatile geopolitical and religious region be objectively analyzed? According on reviews and how the book has been received, Sokatch believes he has come quite near; to his surprise, a British critic praised the novel for being “annoyingly levelheaded.”
Sokatch claims that “very few individuals have sought to refute the substantial content in the book.”
At Fletcher, Sokatch concentrated on the Middle East, and he claims that the “Fletcher ethos” has been essential to his clearer vision. Because of your emotions and desire to refute the other person’s account, international issues are never resolved. You can only expect to take things forward by comprehending and dissecting that tale.
The last chapter
Three Israeli activists are briefly profiled in “The Case for Hope,” the book’s concluding chapter. They are seeking to build a common future for everyone in Israel as observant Jews, Sudanese political asylum seekers, and Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent. According to Sokatch, “my objective in creating the book was to kind of represent some type of lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis who live in that region, in a circumstance where no one’s going anywhere, in addition to providing them that literary Compass.”
