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struction around them, risking their lives so as not to harm the
innocent? Israeli public opinion did not need Mr. Timerman 's
book to pressure the government into appointing a Commission
of Inquiry into the Beirut massacre committed not by the Israeli
Army but by the Christian Phalangists against fellow Arabs–
another trifle that the author fails to mention. Yet this same pub–
lic is depicted by Timerman as swollen with hubris and patriotic
braggadocio, intoxicated into a drunken stupor by official ma–
nipulation and a lying, cowardly press. (The Israeli press, it
should be pointed out, was quite remorseless in its exposure of
the government's evasions in the aftermath of the Beirut massacre.)
Timerman's cavalier disregard for facts, his comic-tragic
posturing and his remoteness from Israeli reality make his ac–
count of the war in Lebanon highly suspect and at times frankly
nauseating. Yet even this distorting hall of mirrors has its poig–
nant moments-a kind of anguished lyricism and flashes of pol–
itical insight that are scattered throughout the book, need to be
separated from the overweening sentimentality and Olympian
disdain that unfortunately color the author's tone. Thus Timer–
man is often moving and undoubtedly sincere in his evocation of
the Palestinians' plight, he is not altogether wrong about General
Sharon, and his personal distress at the turn of events in Israel is
surely genuine. Anguish, rage, and tears for the dead are not,
however, reliable indicators of truth, nor are they necessarily a
testimony to sound political judgment, authenticity, and the re–
liability of the reporter's information. On all these counts,
Timerman's book falls far short of minimal professional stand–
ards and is unlikely to convince even those sympathetic to his
politics.
ROBERT WISTRICH
