A decent account of the conflict between Israel and the Arab world, from the rise of Zionism to the mid-1980s.
O Brien strives to create a fair and balanced account and explains 'The Siege' as being about the question as to whether Israel has the right to exist , preceded by the question: Do Jews have the right to exist?
he honestly appraises the history of the situation as he sees it, and does not like the malevolent 'new historians' and revisionists, like Chomsky, Finkelstein, Said, Lenni Brenner, Michael Neumann and Israel Shahak, go back and rewrite history to suit their own destructive and malicious agenda against Israel.
The fact is that O Brien go's out of his way to be even-handed, which leads to a dilemma in itself.

The truth is that one cannot be objective in a conflict where it is clear to any fair-minded and honest observer who the aggressors are and always have been: The Jews peacefully returned to their ancient land, and for nearly a century the Arabs have been trying to drive them into the sea.
That is the bottom line of this conflict: The Arabs want to sweep Israel's Jews into the sea and Israel's Jews do not want to be swept into the sea.
How can you resolve a conflict like that?

He quotes Chaim Weizmann in his moment of clarity that the genuine anti-Zionists can never be appeased by any diplomatic or political formula as the objection of anti-Semites to the Jews is that they exist and of anti-Zionists that Jews exist in the Holy Land.
O Brien covers well the origins of modern Zionism and the movements of refugees from pogroms and later Nazism to the Holy Land.
The Jewish population of the Land of Israel (then Britain's Palestine Mandate) had stood at about 84 000 in 1925 and had reached around 400 000 in 1937. Half of that increase resulted from the emigration of European Jews during the first three years of Hitler's power in Germany.
O Brien does not however inform us about the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who migrated to he Holy Land, under the British Mandate of 1917- 1947.
He describes how the British in 1939 drew up the White Paper and blocked the entry of Jews into Israel, effectively cutting off the escape from the Nazi death machine. He documents the British inaction in the face of Arab pogroms against Jews in the Palestine Mandate, and the sinking of the Struma, which was filled with refugees from Nazism, and was turned back from Israel by the British, leading to it's sinking and the deaths of all aboard, except for two.

There is, however, another flaw in the book. O' Brien describes the Holocaust as mobilizing Jewish determination to create a Jewish State in the Holy Land, and how the resultant world sympathy after the Holocaust made this possible.
But was the Zionist dream REALLY in a stronger position after the Holocaust.
After all a great number of the Jews who perished in Hitler's inferno were Zionists, often members of the various Zionist youth groups.
Just imagine how many millions of potential Israelis and Zionists were cut off from making a contribution to the re-established Israel.
The State of Israel, in truth, arose, despite the Holocaust, not as a result.
O' Brien writes something of the Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini but does not fully explore the depth of his collaboration with the Nazis.
He does however inform us of the Italian broadcasts from Capri in Italy, in Arabic, to the Middle East which played a role in the Arab pogroms 0f 1936- 1939, alongside Nazi agents in 'Palestine', many of them from the German Templar communities.
O Brien also describes how the anti-Semitism of Attley and Bevin led to the British doing all they could to make sure that the State of Israel would stillborn.
Who could forget the comment that O'Brien includes her by Armine Dew to the British Foreign office in 1944 that " In my opinion a disporortionate amount of the time of this office has been waisted on dealing with these wailing Jews"- this at the height of the exterminations of Jews during the Holocaust.
He also describes the massive arming and military cover given by the British before and during the War of Independence, of 1948, to the Arbas.
Britishers carried out acts of terror against Jewish civilians such as the Ben Yehuda street bombing of February 22 1948, in which 52 Jews died.
The author also covers Israel's history from 1948 to 1985.
He describes the various wars but does not go far enough in truly depicting in the extent of Arab belligerancy before the 1967 Six Day War.

He also gives too much voice to far-left self-hating Israelis when quoting books and poetry by Israelis on the topics of Zionism and the conflict.

Conor Cruise O'Brien represented Ireland at the UN in 1956. Representatives sat in the alphabetical order of their nations, so he sat between representatives of Iraq and Israel. After his first speech about the Middle East, an American newspaperwoman asked him how it had gone over. He replied that both the Iraqi and Israeli delegates had thanked him.

"Christ!" said the newspaperwoman. "Was it as bad as that?"

The author points out that we all ought to remember these words when we hear explanations about how the Arab and Israeli positions are to be reconciled.

This book does an excellent job of tracing the history of Zionism. We see the ideas of Herzl, who saw Zionism as the means to normalize the Jewish people. We see those who saw Zion as a refuge. And we see Balfour, who viewed Zion as a stimulus to Jewish creativity.

And we see how the British failed to govern the Mandate wisely. How they tried to please the Jews by letting them immigrate and buy land but placate the Arabs by letting their worst thug out of prison and making him the Mufti of Jerusalem. (How the latter can be called a "pro-Arab" act is beyond me, of course). And we see the British finally capitulate to Arab terror by producing the White Paper of 1939, which strongly limited immigration of Jews to Mandate territory.

O'Brien devotes a fair amount of time to a very good question. Namely, after World War Two, why did the British Labour government devote so much energy to keeping the White Paper in force? By that time, the United States was insisting that Britain accept 100,000 refugees into the Mandate territory at once. The Labour platform had insisted on dropping the White Paper and giving the Jews their state. Britain had a unique opportunity to make everyone happy: the Jews, the Americans, and the Arabs (by partitioning the Mandate and giving the Arabs some of it when they had originally promised them nothing). It was clearly in Britain's interest to do this. The author explains that the reason Britain did the opposite was because its Prime Minister, Attlee and its Foreign Minister, Bevin were obsessed with depriving the Jews of what the Jews wanted, no matter how much it hurt Britain and no matter how wrong it might be.

In short, these two were indeed so antisemitic that they thought it was worth it to damage their country and Empire just to hurt a few Jews! It's amazing, but I have to concede O'Brien's point.

Of course, such illogical behavior got the reward it deserved when Jews became even more convinced of the need for a state, and the Soviet Union decided to support Israeli independence just to get a free shot at the British. Meanwhile, America's recognition of Israel did not damage its relations with the Arabs, while Britain's opposition to Israel simply helped Britain make more Arab enemies.

I was intrigued by what O'Brien, a UN person, had to say about Folke Bernadotte. And I found it interesting that Bernadotte had complained about Jewish "arrogance and hostility" to, of all people, the gentle Israeli Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett.

The book continues with a history of Israel's predicament as a nation under siege. While the author sympathizes with Israel's plight, he does refer to some of the times when Israel demanded its rights as examples of "hubris." I think that it is fair to call it that on the occasions when Israel managed to be opposed by both superpowers. After all, such demands could well have led to Israel's annihilation. And O'Brien does refuse to find fault with Israel's overall foreign policy, saying he can't see what other options Israel has had.

The author speculates that the Arabs may decide to live with Israel some day, and Israel may learn not to exhibit hubris. And there may be peace in the region eventually, although O'Brien is not as hopeful as most other writers about the region. I was left with a very different impression, namely that one day people may learn to demand their rights and get away with it.

I recommend this book.