Humanising zionism?

Here's an interview with Arthur Neslen in Ha'aretz in which he explains his motivation in writing his book Occupied Minds and his reason for writing it in the way that he did:

Moving, passionate, sometimes desperate, but always deeply personal accounts. Some are in-depth, others just one-page vignettes; stories of loss, stories of faith, stories of suffering, all clearly presented alongside black-and-white pictures of the interview subjects, as if the reader can almost hear them speaking. That is exactly the impression Neslen was aiming for.

"I wanted to make the book as unmediated as possible," he explains. "I wanted to allow a direct relation between the reader and the person being interviewed. And in that sense I think [the book is] as objective as it can be, even when it was dealing with people whose views I utterly detest."

Of which, he admits when pushed, it seems there are quite a few.

But the book is definitely not a leftist rant against Israel and what emerges is not a crass statement against the country's politics, but rather a very real picture of the human complexity that clamors for attention on this small piece of land.

"I tried to humanize people," says Neslen, "and I did want to humanize Zionism. If you can't humanize your enemy, you become the enemy. And I do see political Zionism that starkly - as an enemy."

The book is available from the publisher here but it's cheaper here.