The new book by David Berlin, founding editor of The Walrus, is difficult to classify. Its subtitle suggests a treatise on the best path forward for Israel, and indeed you will find some of that here. However, Berlin also reminisces about the passing of his parents, his time in an elite reconnaissance unit (run by Ariel Sharon) of the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and his experience reporting on and visiting Israel during the mid-2000s.

Despite all the ground covered, the book never quite coalesces in a satisfying way. Instead of building toward the conclusion – in which Berlin argues passionately and convincingly for an Israel that is simultaneously Zionist and secular – the book’s meandering approach detracts from the most compelling material covering the summer of 2005, when the IDF dismantled Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the 2006 war with Hezbollah and Lebanon.

From the perspective of Berlin, who was born in Israel, grew up in Toronto, and returned to the land of his birth in his teens, there is an inextricable link between Israel’s current circumstances and the “first-generation of Sabras” (people born in Israel or pre-independence Palestine), of which his parents are members. (One of the pivotal moments in Berlin’s narrative comes when he reads a letter his father had written shortly before he died, asking Berlin to look after his country.) Unfortunately, Berlin fails to fully explain the sway this group of Israelis still have over their country and even swaths of the diaspora.

The most compelling and visceral parts of The Moral Lives of Israelis come when Berlin allows his anger with the many absurdities of life in modern Israel and the perfidiousness of various state and military officials to boil over. His account of a trip as a member of a New Democratic Party delegation to Israel and Jordan in 2002 is dark humour at its finest. But more importantly, Berlin’s outbursts and confrontations seem born of deep frustration and abiding passion – in other words, a deeply felt love – for Israel.