Criticism and bibliography. Reviews

Moscow: IV RAS Publ., 2005, 560 p.

In the flow of books on Middle Eastern topics, a peer-reviewed book cannot be lost: first, because of its substantial volume, and second, and most importantly, because of the large amount of information and serious approaches of the authors to the problems under consideration. Finally, here is not just a comprehensive study of the socio-economic and socio-political history of the State of Israel, but a textbook. Thus, an application is made for the final (certain stage) nature of research and conclusions about the modern history of Israel. The book really "organically combines problem and historical approaches, the formulation of discussion problems and the description of the sequence of events" (p. 9). Thus, this publication is a comprehensive monographic study that has educational and methodological significance.

The book immediately arouses the interest of a specialist. After all, the State of Israel has become a unique example of the "materialization of a political idea"in world history. The basis of its formation is-

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ideological, religious, and political components have formed the basis for this, and only secondarily, what is most important for other countries - geographical, historical, and demographic factors. The authors note that in socio-economic terms, Israel can be attributed to the "group of migrant states", since along with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in the XX century, a "new project of a migrant society" began to be implemented in the Middle East (p.425).

Structurally, the book is quite usually divided into three sections: "History" (author-I. D. Zvyagelskaya), "Party system" (author-T. A. Karasova) and "Economics" (author-A. V. Fedorchenko), but despite their apparent heterogeneity, the similarity of the authors ' approaches helps to better understand the subject that they are both interested in. images are rotated in front of the reader's eyes with different faces.

For example, the largest section "History" begins with an introductory chapter that tells about the deep antiquity, about the appearance in the XII-XI centuries BC in Canaan (the territory of modern Palestine) of nomadic tribes of ancient Jews, West Semitic in their ethnic origin, who later became known by the single name Israel. The history of the ancient kingdoms with the characteristics of the religious cult of the one god Yahweh, the stories of numerous wars, the Babylonian captivity, the establishment of the power of Rome, the emergence of Christianity, and the characteristic features of the social life of the ancient Jews only at first glance has a distant relation to modern Israel. It seems to me quite appropriate and useful to recall the ancient Jewish kingdoms that existed in the Holy Land. First, it is the historical and mystical reality that constitutes a kind of ideological, religious and historical justification for the right of the State of Israel to exist. Secondly, those who challenge this right, pointing out the absence of the State of Israel on the geographical map for 18 centuries, are also clearly right.: it disappeared in the first century, and even then the majority of Jews "began to leave the land of their ancestors, and eventually only a small Jewish community remained in Palestine, which did not have a significant impact on the political and cultural life of the country" (p.33).

The beginning of the Jewish colonization of Palestine is closely connected with the emergence of political Zionism, and many pages of the book are devoted to this, while much less is said about economic development during this period. In economic terms, by the beginning of the 20th century, the territory of the future State of Israel was a sparsely populated province of the Ottoman Empire with an undeveloped economy based on agricultural production. The collapse of the once-powerful empire and the establishment of the British mandate regime did not lead to significant changes, and the global economic crisis clearly affected the economic situation of Palestine. The process of impoverishment of the peasantry intensified, a few industrial enterprises were closed, and the remaining large factories and factories belonged to British capital. According to the 1928 industrial census, there were 3,505 industrial enterprises in Palestine, of which only 782 had more than three workers, and 583 had mechanical engines. Domestic Arabist M. M. Axelrod in those years pointed out the obvious discrimination of the Arab worker, whose salary in agriculture was 15-25 Palestinian piastres a day, and in industry-10-30 piastres, while for the Jewish worker it was 25-35 and 20-60 piastres, respectively (Countries of the East. Economic Handbook, vol. 1. The Middle East. M.-L., 1934, p. 289). Later, however, "a wave of immigration from Germany served as a source of new capital and engineering workers, which accelerated the industrial development of the Yishuv" (p.429). As the authors note, in general, during the years of the British mandate for Palestine, the volume of industrial production increased 25 times, and the cost of fixed capital increased 33 times. Thus, the economy of the Jewish state was not created from scratch.

Special attention is rightly paid to the process of the formation of the State of Israel before and after World War II, which is covered in chapters 3, 4, and 5 of the historical section, chapter 1 of the party-political section, and chapter 2 of the economic section. The authors interpret it as a process of internal structuring of the Zionist movement and colonization of Palestine, which is confirmed, for example, by such words of the famous Zionist figure V. Jabotinsky: "Our colonization must either stop or continue in defiance of the will of the native population. And therefore it can continue and develop only-

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It is protected by a force independent of the local population - an iron wall that the local population cannot break through" (p. 60).

The authors ' desire for a comprehensive analysis of the modern history of the State of Israel prompted them to present and study the material of the political and socio-economic life of the country, wars, conflicts and state diplomacy in the second half of the XX century. At the same time, a large volume of factual material (often introduced into scientific use for the first time) is clearly and logically built according to the problem principle. As a result, in the historical section, each chapter devoted to Israel's foreign policy in the 1950s-the first half of the 1960s or 1996-1999-the years of the Netanyahu cabinet becomes a "mini-monograph". The same problem-based approach is used in other sections.

This advantage in some cases turns into an omission. So, in the history of the State of Israel, there have been landmark events, the significance of which is partly lost when they are put on a par with all others, and this is annoying from the point of view of educational methods. Such crucial milestones for the country's internal development and foreign policy were not only 1948, but also the 1967 war, and perhaps the events of recent years, as well as the process of easing the severity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the historical section, when describing the "six-day war" in chapter 10, the main attention is paid to the description of military and diplomatic events, the domestic political aspect of events is almost not covered, although the economic section notes the "beginning of the militarization of the economy" that occurred during these years (p.427). I think it would be worth paying more attention to such a phenomenon as the diaspora, which is as much an external as an internal factor for Israel.

I note such an important quality of the book as the absence of schematics and cliches, the research is conducted with the involvement of a large and diverse factual material. It would seem that these qualities should naturally be inherent in scientific work, but in this case it is significant how useful and informative chapter 2 of the party-political section is for the reader, describing the main parties and party blocs in Israel, giving a vivid idea of the real, complex, ambiguous and often contradictory socio-political life of the modern state (pp. 343-363).

It is impossible not to complain about the insufficiently complete analysis of Soviet-Israeli relations and showing the role of the USSR in the settlement of the Middle East conflict, because two recent publications of a large body of documents from the archives of the diplomatic departments of Russia and Israel provide considerable opportunities for this. Similarly, the role and significance of the United States should be more fully highlighted because of the obvious importance of this global pole of power. In the historical section, I. D. Zvyagelskaya limited herself to showing the position of only the Palestinian movement and Jordan in relation to Israel, and did little to cover the policies of such important Arab countries as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Thus, King Ibn Saud, when expressing his objections to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, pointed out the obvious injustice of solving the problems of one people at the expense of another. The approach stated by him still exists today. For example, in 2001, a native of an influential Palestinian family, Dr. Saud al-Alami, in a polemic with an Israeli professor. Dan Cohn-Sherbock pointed out: "Why should the price of saving one nation be the ruin of another? After all, the Holocaust was organized not by the Arabs, but by Europeans... The real reason the situation is unsolvable is that the principle of equality on the playing field is not respected... Israel is portrayed as a civilized European country surrounded by barbarians full of hatred" (Denn Cohn-Sherbock, Daoud el-Alami. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two points of view, Moscow, 2002, p. 301).

The authors of the reviewed book seek to show in detail the painfully difficult and lengthy process of forming the Israeli state and Israeli society as a single socio-political community, as well as the" integration " of Israel into the system of the Middle East region as a natural element. Both are impossible without a solution to the Palestinian problem.

The section "Economics", being an organic part of the book, also has an independent value - it seems to summarize the results of previous research by A.V. Fedorchenko. In addition to the in-depth historical and economic essay, which contains a periodization of the formation of the national economy of Israel and its multi-factor analysis, there is another aspect that attracts the reader's attention. The question arises about the reasons for the current steady economic growth of the country.-

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Despite all sorts of political and economic crises, the country's economic development is still developing rapidly. In fact, a small country that does not have large natural resources has managed to make a qualitative leap in its economic development over several decades and enter the ranks of medium-developed European-type countries with high-tech economies. The share of Israeli GDP in the world's gross domestic product reached 0.27%, while the share of Israelis in the world's population is 0.1%. There are 135 scientists and engineers in the country per 10,000 employed in the economy, while in the United States - 70, in Germany-50; health care expenditures in 2002 accounted for 8.3% of GDP, in developed Western countries-6-7%, and around the world - 2.5% (p. 501, 503). By these and other indicators, and by the social structure of society, Israel at the beginning of the twenty - first century is a typical middle-class country. The main features of Israel's socio-economic development model may be of wider interest.

I think that a peer-reviewed book can serve not only as a textbook, but also as a reference book. An important advantage of the book is its extensive bibliography, although it does not include the first Soviet monograph on the topic of G. S. Nikitina "The State of Israel "(Moscow, 1968) and some other books that bear the stamp of their time. There are detailed biographies of leading Israeli political figures, statistical tables and charts that complement the economic section, and a well-thought-out selection of photo illustrations. However, there are no special historical and economic maps, as well as the "Chronology" section, which is especially useful for students.

In general, the important, useful, and largely final work of I. D. Zvyagelskaya, T. A. Karasova, and A.V. Fedorchenko will undoubtedly be of interest not only to Middle Eastern specialists or international students, but also to any reader seeking to understand the current situation in the Middle East and its development prospects.

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