Israel: The Will to Pre­vail by Dan­ny Danon is an auto­bi­og­ra­phy and a polit­i­cal plat­form wrapped up into one. The auto­bi­og­ra­phy informs the author’s pol­i­tics and pro­vides him with the foun­da­tion he needs to build his platform. 

Danon is, as he calls him­self, ​“part of new gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers who see Israel tak­ing a dif­fer­ent, more autonomous path than it has over the past sev­er­al decades.” 

Now serv­ing as Deputy Defense Min­is­ter, Danon the author launch­es his polit­i­cal polemic and then delin­eates a very clear and bold set of prin­ci­ples. Most impor­tant in his argu­ment is that the U.S. does not nec­es­sar­i­ly know best when it comes to the Mid­dle East. And the U.S. most cer­tain­ly does not know what is best for Israel. Danon, a long time mem­ber of the Likud par­ty, sug­gests that Israel will have a bet­ter and more inde­pen­dent rela­tion­ship with the U.S. if Israel were to ever devel­op a stronger back­bone and just ​“say no.” 

The most essen­tial stum­bling block to peace between Israel and the Pales­tini­ans is, in this author’s esti­ma­tion, the insis­tence on a two-state solu­tion. That demand, accord­ing to Danon, must be scrapped because it is both imprac­ti­cal and dan­ger­ous to Israel. 

Danon goes into depth explain­ing his point of view which can best be sum­ma­rized by say­ing that a strong, inde­pen­dent Israel is the only way to pro­tect Israel’s future. Any­one inter­est­ed in under­stand­ing the new polit­i­cal right wing in Israel will find this book to be a per­fect intro­duc­tion to the span and scope of ide­ol­o­gy and politics.

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