Why do we insist on telling the story of Israel using 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, the First Lebanon War, the First Intifada, the Second Intifada, and the Second Lebanon War as the central milestones? What does that tell us about why the Jewish people sought sovereignty in the first place? What does it convey about the ways in which Zionism was a product not of nineteenth century nationalism but of a carefully crafted soulful yearning that was essentially synonymous with Judaism for almost two millennia? What does a story told that way reveal about what Zionists hoped they might be able to create? How does a narrative like that do anything to portray Israel-despite the conflict and even in the face of its many missteps and worrisome future-as a country in which (part of) the Jewish people seek to explore anew what being a Jew might mean in this still-young century?

Can we somehow engender an Israel conversation that does not ignore or paper-over the conflict, yet which engages Israel as an issue much wider-and more profound-than the conflict? This is, in large measure, what I am about to find out through the publishing of my new book    Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

Any book of this sort is going to be assailed from left and from right-that is inevitable. What remains to be seen, however, is whether when the dust settles, a history like this can help engender a conversation about Israel that puts the conflict in context and that focuses no less on questions such as how Jewish sovereignty was meant to-and has-transformed Jewish peoplehood. .....