Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government--A Memoir
Selected Book Details
- Hardcover
- Edition: 1
- Author: Gregory Levey
- Publisher: Free Press
- Release Date: April 2008
- ISBN-10: 1416556133
- ISBN-13: 9781416556138
- List Price: $24.00
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryShut Up, I'm Talking is a smart, hilarious insider take on Israeli politics that reads like the bastard child of Thomas Friedman and David Sedaris. Now a political writer for Salon, Gregory Levey stumbled into a job as speechwriter for the Israeli delegation to the United Nations at age twenty-five and suddenly found himself, like a latter-day Zelig, in the company of foreign ministers, U.S. senators, and heads of state. Much to his surprise, he was soon attending U.N. sessions and drafting official government statements. The situation got stranger still when he was transferred to Jerusalem to write speeches for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Shut Up, I'm Talking is a startling account of Levey's journey into the nerve center of Middle Eastern politics at one of the most turbulent times in Israeli history. During his three years in the Israeli government, the Second Intifada continued on in fits and starts, Yasser Arafat died, Hamas came to power, and Ariel Sharon fell into a coma. Levey was repeatedly thrust into highly improbable situations -- from being the sole "Israeli" delegate (even though he's Canadian) at the U.N. General Assembly, with no idea how "his" country wanted to vote; to nearly inciting an international incident with his high school French translation of an Arab diplomat's anti-Israel remarks; to communicating with Israeli intelligence about the suspected perpetrators of suicide bombings; to being offered leftover salami from Ariel Sharon's lunch. As Levey got better acquainted with the personalities in the government's inner sanctum, he witnessed firsthand the improvisational and ridiculously casual nature of the country's behind-the-scenes leadership -- and realized that he wasn't the only one faking his way through politics. With sharp insight and great appreciation for the absurd, Levey offers the first-ever look inside Israel's politics from the perspective of a complete outsider, ultimately concluding that the Israeli government is no place for a nice Jewish boy. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Interesting, but overly negative
Rating:
Although the book has a number of interesting anecdotes and those who have spent time in Israel can relate to some of the stories and characters described, Levey presents his entire experience in an extremely negative light and comes off as bitter, vindictive, and judgmental. He rarely describes any redeeming factors or positive elements to his experiences, and the reader is left with a bad taste in his mouth at the almost completely negative account of the people and country he worked with.
Great book
Rating:
After reading this book I've looked at Israel's government in a new way. This book isn't satire, it is a demonstration of all the issues that, I'm sure, exist in most governments. I appreciated the circus-like quality of the UN...peppered with a little highschool drama. This is by far one of my favorite books.
Shut up, A real megaloman is talking
Rating:
A young law student gets an interim position as a speechwriter at the Israeli mission to the UN and from that moment on he really believes that the world should focus on him, his achievements and difficulties.
Just to remind the reader who may forget it while reading the book that the young student didn't have any say in policy making nor did he have any access to policy making - he was just a junior speechwriter - something that many diplomatic services around the world would normally take an intern to do.
This however, doesn't prevent him from considering himself no less than the voice of Israel "I was now going to be in charge of the country's voice" (p. 69) he thinks to himself when he gets the job... although the only thing he is in charge of is making sure that the linguistic, syntax and grammer of this voice is accurate - taking into account the Author's arrogance, i am willing to take a guess that somebody told him that when he got the position but he probably chose to ignore...
Later on, when he is offered a position in Israel he thinks to himself that Israel truly relies on his wisdom "during this pivotal time" and when this doesn't happen guess what - he turns to drinking, like a true megalomanic who suddenly sees that no one really cares for him.
His arrogance is so self evident even when he wants to be funny - for example when an holocaust survivor asks him for directions at the UN corridors it irritates him so much that he thinks to himself "Didn't you survive the holocaust? this is nothing, stop complaining" (P. 152) - so funny - don't you think?
The young "Kissinger" calls the minister of foreign affairs a "lunatic" (p. 123) and finds no one in israel's foreign service capable of handling his wisdom. In another example, Gregory bumps by incidence into Hillary Clinton during a demonstration before the UN (not that he has any access to the so many meetings the Senator had with Israeli officials) - what are the insights - she has huge head (p. 103) - so funny....and that incident deserves three pages in this "memoir" and he actually thinks that she was probably imagining the same newspaper headline he was (p. 104)...and guess what is this headline - that the author bumped into Hillary - i wonder if Hillary mentioned also this incident in her memoir...
The book won't tell you anything you do not already know on how Israel's diplomacy and foreign relations are being shaped, apart from the fact that Israel's diplomatic service is so over stretched to a point that they recruited a talented writer but one with the mentality of a five years old child.
A total waste of time!
Disappointing
Rating:
I had very high hopes for this book but I was left very disappointed.
There was nothing in the book that gave me any more insight into the Israeli government than I had from reading The Economist or any number of other publications. Further, the author didn't give me any reason to hope/cheer/support or otherwise care about him either.
So, to my mind, a failure to provide political insight and, worse (as this is an autobiography) I didn't find the story of the individual at all compelling.
The title and cover art were, without question, the best part of this book.
Levey bites the hand that feeds him
Rating:
I could see why Greg Levey's book would be interesting to someone who hasn't spent much time in Israel and doesn't know much about the country. For someone who knows a little about the country, though, less than 25% of the book is particularly entertaining.
Much of the story is that Israelis are Israeli: simultaneously warm and rude, bureaucratic and disorganized, very serious about security and lax about everything else, and always always late. But you can find that out by walking into any Israeli government office to get a visa renewal or a tax exemption. Or from any of Efraim Kishon's books or films from the 1960s, which are far funnier. Levey tells many of the same anecdotes that everyone who has ever lived in Israel tells with humor, but he coats them in bitter outrage. Incidents are told in proportion to his irritation rather than humor: 3 pages cover a co-worker's obsession with baked potatoes, as if there were no eccentric co-workers outside Israel. Likewise "the worst person you'll ever meet" in Levey's eyes is an irresponsible and rude bureaucrat. Inshe allah that should be the worse person any of us ever meet.
Yes, we get it: Levey's sense of humor isn't good enough to allow him to tolerate the frustrations of Israel. He gives only one positive anecdote: workers donating part of their paychecks to help a co-worker with cancer whom none of them know.
Levey's experience taking security courses in Tel Aviv is a side of Israel that most people wouldn't have see, as are those seen from inside the government, though those are sparse. The best of those anecdotes are: Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom holding a meeting in his underwear and whose poor command of English necessitates that the sentences in his speeches be no longer than six words; Raanan Gissin telling Swedish diplomats the reason he was extremely late was that he had ordered from abroad a new pen and had to pick it up at the post office; ABBA's song Dancing Queen blasting on infinite repeat as Gissin did a media interview and drove on the sidewalk; nameless prime minister office bureaucrats leaking intentionally meaningless information to the press who struggle to decypher it.
The worst part of the book is the author's bitterness and ingratitude. At the beginning of the book Levey makes clear that Israel's informality and disorganization allowed him to be hired in the first place. Throughout the book, he interacts with high-ranking authorities and is repeatedly given opportunities beyond his rank and seniority, culminating with a relaxed and informal conversation with the prime minister who tries to find common ground with Levey to the point of asking if they have a mutual acquaintance. Instead of being touched by the informality of even the Prime Minister, Levey seems almost offended by the "tribal" nature of that question. Israel's informality gave him tremendous opportunities, and yet the book is unmercifully critical of the informality in virtually every respect in which the informality does not benefit him personally. The bottom line may simply be that Levey does not want to belong to a club that would have him as a member. He may not like it, but he belongs. I never heard of Levey before picking up this book at my public library's new books shelf, but I do know at least one person mentioned in his book from my college's Hillel and I'm sure that will be true for many readers.
Initially I wanted to write all about how Levey's political opinions seem knee-jerk, shallow, and naively one-sided, even when I agree with his conclusions, but that seems almost beside the point; the book isn't even good story-telling, much less political analysis. Like him, I favored the withdrawal from Gaza, but I'm surprised at his naivite to say that it was "the only hope for peace" and any opposition must be blinded by religious irrationality. As Kassam number 10,000 lands in Beer Sheva, it's now clear to everyone that there were strategic reasons to oppose withdrawal.
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