Sylvain Cypel, senior editor at Le Monde, joined the paper in 1998 as deputy head of the international section following a career of distinguished reporting, often on the Middle East, at several other major French dailies. He holds degrees in sociology, contemporary history, and international relations, the last of which he earned at the University of Jerusalem. He lives in Paris.
Publishers Weekly
This scathing indictment probes Israel's soul as much as the
substance of its treatment of the Palestinians...Cypel's book...is
an impassioned, often perceptive challenge to the Israeli
consensus.
Kirkus Reviews
...of interest to students of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
New Yorker
"In this survey of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (translated
anonymously from the French), Cypel, an editor at Le Monde who
spent twelve years in Israel, writes with the ardor of a believer
and the critical eye of a distant observer, producing a nuanced
assault on the blindness and inertia that have afflicted both
sides. Cypel is a harsh critic of the failures of Palestinian
leadership—he excoriates the “Oriental despot” Arafat and the
“impotent” regime he built—but believes that Israel needs to be
saved from its own incipient brutalization. This process, which he
carefully documents, is marked by a “cult of force,” a denial of
history, an obsession with security at the expense of human rights,
and a shocking willingness to discuss, publicly, the forcible
cleansing of Palestinians from Israeli territory. These are
symptoms of occupation, Cypel argues, and they can be cured only by
its end."
Tikkun
Sylvain Cypel’s careful study of political discourse...if read as
widely as [it] should be...would make a serious contribution to
changing mass consciousness about the nature of the
[Israeli/Palestinian] struggle and how we should respond.
ForeWord Magazine
For Sylvain Cypel, the wall [dividing Israel and Palestine] is much
more than a physical barrier. It is a tangible manifestation of the
mental walls that Israelis and Palestinians have built over the
past sixty years. With the passion of an investigative journalist
and the patience of a historian, Cypel describes how a culture of
denial has strangled both societies.
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