I confess I probably wouldn’t have read Goliath if not for the controversy it has generated: those squeals of pain coming from Israel’s apologists had to mean something, I figured. Either the book was egregiously unfair to the Jewish state or else a brilliant chronicle of its depredations against ordinary human decency. I had to read it in order to find out – and what I discovered both shocked and uplifted me, furthering my understanding not only of the Jewish state and its people but also of my own philosophy of libertarianism.

Goliath is an easy read on a subject that makes many very uneasy: although it’s fairly long, it consists of many short vignettes told in the first person, chronicling Blumenthal’s travels across the length and breadth of the Holy Land – and the story it tells is alarming, especially for those who count themselves among Israel’s friends.