Few years have produced as many politically significant books as did 2004.

Indeed, to a greater extent than any election year in recent memory, books seemed to be moving the agenda.

The criticisms of the Bush administration contained in "The Price of Loyalty," Ron Suskind's book with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and in former White House anti-terror adviser Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" did more to raise questions about this president than anything John Kerry said or did.

Unfortunately, Kerry never quite picked up on the critique. And to be fair, he took a battering from authors on the right, most notably John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi, who penned the fantastical "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry."

By far, the best book on contemporary American politics and governance was James Mann's "Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet," which provided essential insight into the neoconservative mind-set and practitioners such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice.

But when I look back on the year, I am struck by the fact that the book I most frequently gave to others was not so much about the Bush administration but rather about the broader issue of America's misguided foreign policy: Richard Ben Cramer's brilliant "How Israel Lost: The Four Questions." Throughout the year, I kept buying copies of Cramer's book and handing it to friends and colleagues, who in turn recommended it to book groups, discussion circles and friends and colleagues of their own.

Cramer's book is that good, and that important.

The recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Middle East, Cramer offers a refreshingly blunt assessment of the issues facing Israel and Palestine. And he comes to a conclusion that is appropriately skeptical of the empty pronouncements of U.S. officials about their desire to forge a lasting and equitable peace in the region. Indeed, as President Bush continues to peddle his "road map to peace," reading Cramer provides a necessary dose of realism.

"Since I've been watching this murderous act," Cramer writes, "the Americans have always had a peace plan they've been pushing, and special envoys, and fly-in visits by the spook-in-chief, and roundtable confabs, and reports to allies on the latest private discussions and ... they've never done squat to make it happen."

To make peace happen, Cramer argues, the United States must part company with the Israeli right - which always has an excuse or an exception to throw in the way of the peace process - and join those progressive Israelis who favor returning the occupied territories to the Palestinians.

"I don't mean give back the land except the settlements, or the roads or the military bases. I mean give back the land - the West Bank and Gaza. East Jerusalem (and the Dome of the Rock) for the Arabs. West Jerusalem (and the Western Wall - let that be their triumph) for the Jews," Cramer says. "After that, they would work out the details -neighborhoods exchanged, water rights, maybe a fence. Would it be a mess? Plenty of mess ... but worse than what they have now?"

Kramer's book is neither idealistic nor unrealistic. It is practical. And it is necessary reading - for 2004, and 2005.

Copyright © 2004 The Capital Times

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