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The book depicts the people and places of a narrow strip of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Shipler paints vivid word pictures of the Jewish and Muslim quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Muslim sanctuaries on the Temple Mount and the Jewish Wailing Wall; squalid refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and southern Lebanon; brutal interrogation cells, and the Ansar prison camp; kibbutzim and militant Israeli settlements on the West Bank (which they prefer to give their biblical names: Judea and Samaria); outposts on the Golan Heights; Bedouin encampments in the Sinai and Negev deserts; Lebanese cities plowed through by Israeli tanks, streets in West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv strewn with the rubble and gore left by Palestinian suicide bombers; roadblocks where Palestinians are humiliated; rock strewn streets where heavily armed, uniformed Israeli teens face off with kufiya-wrapped Arab teens; university campuses where Arabs and Jews intermingle; Jewish and Arab apartments and offices; retreat centers where teens discover their "enemy's" humanity. Shipler shows us historical sites, natural beauty and unnatural horror. He paints scenes of hope and scenes of despair. Arab and Jew is a rich tapestry.