Customer Rating: 
Summary: So little has changed
Comment: Grossman's message in The Yellow Wind is simple, and has been declaimed in other situations, at other times: occupation of one people by another degrades the moral and political life of both occupied and occupier. In The Yellow Wind Grossman allows both Arabs and Jews to speak their own opinions about the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in their own words, although there is a significant authorial intrusion at various times. Grossman's analysis is penetrating, deep and involved. His command of the political situation of the first 20 years of Israeli occupation of the Territories is multifaceted, his perspective humane and intense, and as his forward and afterward show, the essential themes of the book are still relevant, twenty years after its publication. In the end, it is the common people, both Jews and Arabs, who lose from 100 years of conflict. The cycle of violence and fear without end becomes a kind of tragic nexus for Israelis and Palestinians which no one is capable of resolving, which only worsens with time, every attempt at a solution only highlighting the complexity of the conflict. Everyone in the region, Grossman explains, is touched by this conflict. David Grossman's son was killed in the 2006 Lebanon war. Knowing this, and then reading this book, adds to the pathos and veracity of his claims.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: I'd Hoped for More Clarity
Comment: "The Yellow Wind" is outdated - already. Also, I was expecting a more objective presentation about the lives of the current generation of Palestinians, as it seemed this would be. I was interested in the book because an Israeli wrote it, reviews said he was patriotic yet sympathetic and that the stories were the human side of Palestinian life -- at least that was my impression and what I'd hoped to read.
Grossman spent time living with Palestinians. I think he feels he did put aside his own preconceptions to learn about Palestian life from Palestinians. At first I, too, felt he succeeded. The first few chapters--each chapter is a sort of short narrative of its own--were well-crafted and combined history with in-the-moment accounts.
As I continued to read on, I couldn't help but feel Grossman's own view and anger come through. His anger wasn't, to me, generalized frustration, but patriotic and with a "pro-" and "anti-" feel to it. He writes of Palestinians that they've been taught for generations, that it's so ingrained as to be nearly inescapable, to feel and express hatred. So, too, I felt, Grossman couldn't see past his own bias. He could for certain individuals, but the deeper I read the more bias I sensed. This isn't inherently negative. What is negative about this portrait is that he proclaims non-partisanship, and seems to believe he is a neutral voice, but ultimately he isn't.
"The Yellow Wind" isn't bad, not horrible, and it's readable. It's worthwhile. But distinguishing lines between fact, fiction, humanity and nationalism became a bit too difficult -- such that I questioned, for example, his factual presentation of history or even observations at times. Given this less-than-required objectivity in order to render the book what it is, and that it is somewhat dated, I'd say it's not necessary reading. I realize I disagree with the other reviews. Perhaps due to the current time in history, it takes on a different feel, and I'm certainly open to feeling differently about Grossman's work in the future. But I felt it could have offered so much more, given how it came about--Grossman, an Israeli, living with Palestinians for awhile--but perhaps that, too, is inherent to the deep-rooted emotions between Israelis and Palestinians.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A very talented writer and very poor moralist
Comment: I remember the sensation this work made when it was first published. The Israeli left , the post- modern anti- Zionist elite waved this work as a flag against Israeli ordinary citizens, soldiers and political leaders.
Grossman is a highly skilled writer. His effort to look into ' West- Bank reality' in a supposedly even- handed way is however a thinly disguised anti- Jewish and pro- Palestinian rant. It is simplistic and it time and again is guilty of taking Arab propaganda ( even when delivered by individuals in interviews) at their word. At some point it almost becomes laughable. This is when Grossman dutifully uncritically records an old ( and therefore to Grossman necessarily wise) Arab who predicts( really threatens) the Jews with destruction if they do not leave the Holy Land to the Arabs.
So skeptical, so critical so seemingly sophisticated in its relation to Jews, and so simply gullible in relation to Arabs this work marks yet another watershed in the lemming - like march of the Israeli left to the sea.
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Summary: Worth reading
Comment: This is a good book providing good insight into the human dimension of the conflict. Well worth reading. I found two chapters particularly striking. First one is about a Palestinian village divided in two after a Jordanian and Israeli border agreement, and how members of the same family could grow differing identities (and even come to be not so fond of each other) due to such cruel separation for years. Second one is about a terrorist's father. Grossman gives this poor man's account as he told him, without adding his own commentary. Briefly, the son, who was grown up and living in another town away from the father's home, got involved in a terrorist act that took innocent Israeli lives. The father was subsequently picked up from work by the Israeli authorities, and pressured to disclose whereabouts of his son, which he maintained he didn't know (of the son's whereabouts and his alleged terrorist act). Torture and all sorts of humiliation were used, including threats of rape of his wife and daughters. His house was bulldozed to ground on fifteen minute's notice. He lost his work permit, and reduced to wander as a beggar from one village to another, avoiding his own out of shame. He and his family ended up living in one bedroom at a neighbor's house, without kitchen or bathroom. The son was found and killed eventually without the help of any of this effort on the father. After telling this story, Grossman says something like (paraphrasing), "of course, one's heart doesn't go out to this man's suffering and pain" vis-a-vis, I guess, the pain suffered by the Israeli victims of the son's act. And he continues (still paraphrasing), "but I guess, it is such instances where we have to be more rational and measured." Well, maybe this was all my misreading Grossman, but why wouldn't one's heart go out to this man? Mine did. And I thought modern states and tribes would have to differ a bit in such law enforcement and crime investigation matters. What is new about this? Maybe this (i.e., Grossman's slip, as I see it) too is an indication of how tough and convoluted the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has become. Actually, throughout the book, Grossman seems to respect and listen more to those Palestinians who manage to maintain their honor and dignity no matter what, and who therefore arouse curiosity and would impress anyone. Those who are truly wretched seem to barely touch him, if they do at all. I guess such condition of theirs is their own fault, or their parents' or sons' and daughters'. In any event, the book is free from preaching; it's not like the author's value judgments will get in the way of your reading. By all accounts, Grossman did a commendable job, and my little critique is, well, mine only.
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Summary: About People�s Feelings--Not About Politics or Agreements
Comment: This book is more important today than when it was orginally written, in 1988. It contains a new afterward by the author. The author, a journalist, gives his impressions, and relates various converstaions, as he travels all over the West Bank, and through parts of both Israel and Palestine. He presents views from both sides of the issue very well. The book is not about politics, or various peace agreements. It is about individual people's feelings. I have read many books on this topic, and this is one of the BEST. I feel that I understand MUCH better why all the peace agreements come to nothing. To sum it up in a nutshell, the extremists on both sides will EACH never accept less than ALL of the land-that is why nothing works.
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