"The novel struck me as a magnificent achievement both at the level of fiction and at the level of political analysis of America-Israel-Palestine. … You clearly know Israel well and your novel has a sobering message for Israelis. But the critical significance of the novel is for the American reader. I never cease to be amazed at the hold that Israel has on the American psyche. American foreign policy cannot change until this hold is broken. I believe and I hope that your novel will play an important part in dispelling the myths surrounding Israel and in breaking this hold."
Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations, St Anthony’s College, Oxford.
"With its audacious plot and thought-provoking premise, this novel of ideas asks its readers to contemplate America’s 'special relationship' with Israel not in the usual foreign policy context but in an even more fundamental one: the U.S. Constitution."
Janet McMahon, Managing Editor, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Comments from Amazon:
"If you have any interest in Palestine-Israel, do read this book."
"Mike King creates two parallel and alternating plots one based in the US and the other in Israel. The US story is about a female judge in the Supreme Court who encounters a case that challenges the US fiscal support for Israel. This provides a channel for Mike King to create a beautifully researched background to the Israeli Palestine conflict and the Zionist lobby in the US. Through discussions with her advisors and her very interesting family, loaded with religious conflicts, one views the whole range of religious and secular attitudes in contemporary America & polarisation around support for Israel. This was perfect for my trip to Israel and I constantly referred to the book during conversation with people I met during the trip and it enabled me to sound quite in touch with Israeli culture & politics. This American strand of the plot leads to a terrific political cliff-hanger and terrorism plot."
"As well as being a quite brilliant historical philosophical and journalistic work the book builds up to an incredible thriller climax, so when I finally put it down I realised that it works very well just as a thriller."
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Political Fiction, 2014, paperback (458 pages) or Kindle
Does American support for Israel violate the US Constitution?
For eleven months Israel’s future is in balance; for eleven minutes its redemption hangs in the air. Supreme Court Associate Justice Eleanor Johnson is experiencing the worst eleven months of her life, as hers becomes the casting vote on whether support for Israel violates the American Constitution. Israeli army officer Ehud Shlomo has eleven minutes to prevent a nuclear retaliation against Tehran. In their explosive and interleaved stories of ambition, justice and revenge, how on earth did the future of their nations become their sole burden? How can either of them arbitrate on the fate of millions when all normality is suspended?
The Angel of Har Megiddo is a “fast-paced political thriller” according to an Israeli academic who read an early draft of the novel, and “a magnificent achievement both at the level of fiction and at the level of political analysis of America-Israel-Palestine,” according to Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations at Oxford University. Shlaim adds that ‘at times the tension is almost unbearable.’ Grounded in extensive research into the workings and case history of the US Supreme Court, and in the history of the founding of Israel, the novel provides dramatic insight into the bizarre and deadly relationship between Christian Zionism and the international politics of the Middle East. Does American support for Israel violate the US Constitution? Does it matter for the Palestinians? Both of these questions receive dramatic exposition and detailed historical grounding, leaving the reader to decide. Eleanor’s own fate is bound up with the meaning of the American Constitution and the separation of church and state, while Ehud’s fate is bound up with his growing up as a son of Holocaust survivors slowly learning the fate of the Palestinians his people displaced.
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