Shavit was born in Rehovot, Israel in 1957. Israel in the 1960s was energetic, exuberant, and hopeful, but more than anything else, it was fearful. For much of Israel’s history, its citizens have lived in fear of their Arab neighbors. Violence is near constant in Israel’s short history, accentuated by frequent escalations to war: the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, the Six-Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the first Israeli-Lebanon War in 1982, the first Gulf War in 1991, and the second Israeli-Lebanon War in 2006. When not at war, Israel is frequently engulfed in periods of terrorist violence.

Israel’s neighbors dislike the young state for various reasons: Some are anti-Semitic, some view Israel as an occupying state, some are oppressed or refugee Palestinians whom Israel forcibly removed from their homes, some desire conquest, and others are radical Muslim extremists. In 2002 Shavit stands in a decimated pub alongside the lifeless bodies of young men and women and questions, “What will be? How long can we sustain this lunacy? Will there come a time when the vitality we Israelis are known for will surrender to the forces of death attempting to annihilate us?” (x).