First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if, instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

The Rules:

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page.
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first.
• Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

“I arrived in Israel the morning after October 7. At Ben Gurion Airport, alerts were sounding at a steady pace. Frozen despite the late summer heat, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem seemed like dead cities. Likewise, Sderot, a city on the Gaza border that has been martyred many times, had been emptied of nearly all of its inhabitants. 

I knew this city.”

This sounds like a dark start to a heavy book, but it is a topic that hits close to home. I have friends and family who live in Israel, and someone very close to me is a survivor of the Nova peace rave massacre. 

Do you recognize the lines?

Here’s a hint:

This is an upcoming nonfiction about politics and the SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa, colonially known as the Middle East).

Still not sure? Here’s another hint:

It’s written by Bernard-Henri Lévy.

The First Lines Friday book is:

Israel Alone.

About the Book:

• Title: Israel Alone
• Author: Bernard-Henri Lévy
• Page Length: 176 pages
• Publication Date: September 10, 2024
• Publisher: Wicked Son

Synopsis:

Weaving in fifty years of experience with Israel, Bernard-Henri Lévy analyzes global responses to October 7, the new virulent waves of the oldest hatred in the world: antisemitism, why Israel is waging this existential war against barbarism alone, and what’s at stake for Israel and the world.

Bernard-Henri Lévy’s Israel Alone is a passionate and outraged cri-de-coeur, about the loneliness of Israel and the tragedy of October 7, starting with Lévy’s eyewitness account the day after the pogroms.

On October 8, 2024, Bernard-Henri Lévy flew to Israel to bear witness to the unprecedented invasion and massacre committed by Hamas. Israel Alone begins here and weaves in Lévy’s fifty years on the ground in Israel, from his first trip in 1967, his experiences writing on all the conflicts since, and his participation in various peace plans and contacts with all the Israeli leaders from Menachem Begin to Shimon Peres and from Ariel Sharon to Yitzak Shamir and Yitzak Rabin.

From his unique philosophical and humanist perspective, Lévy analyzes the ultimate evil unleashed on Israel on October 7 and delves into how the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia, radical Islamist groups, Turkey, and China have played roles and profited from this tragedy.

The book addresses how October 7, though historic in scope, became, within weeks, a “detail” in the global consciousness amid a worldwide eruption of anti-Semitism, cloaked in anti-Zionism.

Lévy deconstructs the arguments of those calling for a “cease-fire now” without the release of all hostages and of those who demand that October 7 be seen within a greater “context.”

Lévy’s meditation on the soul of Zionism and Israel shows why this war is existential, not only for Israel but for the global West.

And yet, despite the urgency and critical nature of this war, Israel takes it on alone.

Lévy analyzes, today, why this is so and why Israel’s solitude is greater than ever.

Links: Goodreads     

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