Built On Sand

In Built on Sand, journalist and political analyst Anna Momigliano offers a gripping exploration of Israel at a critical crossroads. Blending first-hand reporting with sharp historical insight, she unpacks the deeper forces behind the war that reignited in the Middle East in 2023—revealing it not as an isolated eruption, but as the culmination of long-simmering internal transformations.

Returning to Israel eight months after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Momigliano finds a nation shaken, hardened, and consumed by a grim sense of inevitability. But as she writes, understanding what Israel has become requires looking at what it was already turning into—long before that fateful day.

Israel is a country of contradictions: youthful yet burdened by ancient history, high-tech and modern yet deeply traditional, democratic in structure yet fraught with social fractures. Ultra-Orthodox Jews who challenge democratic norms, Palestinian citizens of Israel who reject the state’s Jewish identity, a nation rooted in collective memory and trauma that also leads the world in innovation—this is a society in flux, constantly redefining itself.

Anna Momigliano paints a complex and nuanced portrait of a country that was born from displacement and survival, yet has imposed its own long-term military occupation. Drawing on interviews, on-the-ground observation, and historical context, Built on Sand is not just a book about war—it’s about identity, power, fear, and the future of democracy in one of the world’s most contested and consequential regions.

A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the present—and future—of the Middle East.