Weathered by miracles

In Weathered by Miracles, Thomas Idinopulos tells the story of that one explosive moment in Palestine's long history that began with Napoleon's invasion of the Middle East in 1798 and concluded with the founding of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948.

Transformed from a forgotten backwater of the vast Ottoman Empire and propelled onto a world stage, Palestine in the 150 years after Bonaparte's invasion became a dynamic country. Mr. Idinopulos tells this story with special attention to the fateful ties between politics and religion. He shows how, despite their many good works, the presence and power of Western Christians provoked the enmity of Muslims, who later fixed their resentment on the Zionists as an instrument of foreign domination.

Thus the reclamation of Palestine planted the seed for the larger and bloodier conflict between Arabs and Jews that would follow in the second half of the twentieth century.