Beirut To Jerusalem Thomas Friedman Analysis

Thomas L. Friedman’s Beirut to Jerusalem graciously dons its readers with a comprehensive overview of the conflicts of the middle east with a focalization of Israel and Lebanon. From a first hand experience, Friedman deftly navigates the politics, religion, and local stories during a ten year time span (1979-1988). This time span covers much of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the civil war of Lebanon. Friedman spends his first five years living in Beirut, and the next five years living in Jerusalem. He takes from these times a multitude of personal and local short stories to give a comprehensive overview of the life of a common man. From these stories he weaves a unique equilibrium of violence, nefariousness, and heart. Friedman manages to maintain the novels’ material equally pertaining to Beirut and Jerusalem in an attempt to show two sides of the story. Friedman’s favoritism for human life and disdain of senseless brutality, government, and corruption is what gives this novel its vibe. Thomas L. Friedman’s Beirut to Jerusalem uses a opinionated historical biography to
Half of the prose demonstrate raw pain, and the other half are devoid of emotion. By living through those awesome moments the author lost something of himself in those ten years. With each passing horrible event he quiets, soon the reader too finds himself becoming numb. One must be very wary as his message becomes muddled! Thomas L. Friedman wrote this historical diary of his memories to preserve the importance of the real life rather than just the politics of it, yet his pain in his biography leave a profound effect that dulls the pain with each additional account of violence. This leaves the novel light, and superficial. Further, it leaves the readers with feeling they watched a 6 hour news broadcast, resulting in feeling that they can’t care anymore, like the Beirutis, the readers must protect themselves, drown out the pain, and move