With Israeli-American relations at a low, look for this stinging rebuke of Israel to garner more attention. There hasn't been much American buzz for the book, although in Britain, where Hirst is better known, he's gotten some press. He concludes that Lebanon will almost certainly be the site for a seventh Arab-Israeli war-probably very soon. Hirst highlights Lebanon's central role in every major regional clash of the last 50 years and offers a drastically different (and, to many, an inflammatory) view of Israeli policy than what's familiar to most American audiences. Beware of Small States offers a wide-ranging, big-picture account by an author who truly knows the area. This is not the same old Thomas Friedman take on the Middle East. Actually, it's a (mostly) definitive history of the role Lebanon has played as both a pawn and an agent in the ongoing battles between Arabs, Israelis, and Iranians, making the case for Lebanon as linchpin rather than little guy in the peace (or war) process. Beware of Small States purports to be a "definitive history of Lebanon." That's a stretch.
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