Postcards from the End of the World

"Something special about this country? Gaza beach, 1985. An Israeli policeman is looking at my passport. It has several Israeli visas - 1981, '82 and '83 - and here I am again. Yes! I started to write poetry on my second day here. It's like loads of places and like nowhere else in the world. It raises so many questions. About God. About history. About people. About love. And hate. I could change religion here. Get married. Live here. Honestly, anything could happen. Actually, I didn't say anything. But I did wonder." This book covers the last three decades of the history of the Holy Land - Israel, Palestine - from the perspective a sometime kibbutz volunteer, English teacher and tourist with an interest in history, psychology and religion. The result is something like a journal of a journey towards understanding the roots of the conflict in the land, its people and its faiths. It is a search for peace, love and, occasionally, cheap laughs, that combines poetry, fiction, travelogue, journalism, theatre and theology to try and make sense of a conflict that few claim to understand or feel optimistic about. It has the chutzpah, the cheek, to try and offer both.