Israel/Palestine : a short reading list

There is tremendous ignorance about Middle East affairs displayed everywhere among the people in western democracies, which results in a one-sided view of events, usually routinely pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian. And this website could not have been an exception. Although it is difficult to change things, I would think that serious poker players are open minded and eager to learn, or, at least, see things from many perspectives. With your permission, therefore, I’m gonna offer a short list of books that address practically all the issues of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.


So, take your mind off the wretched news coming over the TV, all full of blood and hatred, and sit back to read up some, for the summer. Makes a nice change from poker books !


In case you ever had some misgivings about the zealous claims that the Zionists’ is the only claim to the Holy Land, that the Bible is the only true historical record and that there’s no other people that ever lived as a nation in the land of Israel, the book "The Invention of Ancient Israel" has laid the matter to rest. Written by University of Stirling, Scotland, Professor of Religious Studies Keith Whitelam, the book is among the most eloquent and the most authoritative one around about the history of the place.

(See : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415107598/qid=1027520445/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6545203-2830354)


The history of the conflict itself is extremely interesting, provided one gets to read the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! The reknown Jewish writer Avi Shlaim, Professor of Int’l Relations at Oxford, UK, has written "The Iron Wall : Israel and the Arab World" which spans in condensed form the last fifty years of the conflict. With academic rigor and full of primary sources, it offers an overview of the Arab/Jewish conflict in a manner that may surprise, if not shock, the well-meaning believers of the notion that Israel is never the attacker.

(See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393321126/qid=1027520814/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-6545203-2830354)


The Jews have suffered from bigotry and racist hatred more than probably any other people on the planet. Their plight during World War II was aptly termed a Holocaust. But their Holocaust has also been used to justify scams and the distortion of History. CUNY professor Norman Finkelstein wrote "The Holocaust Industry : Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering". The author shows how the Holocaust has become an "outright extortion racket", in his own words, both politically and economically. The book has accordingly met with the expected venom and outcry from the Zionist wing -- but it hasn’t been refuted.

(See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859843239/qid=1027522447/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6545203-2830354)


The other book by Norman Finkelstein that I would recommend is his incisive study of our perceptions, prejudices and fixations of Middle East affairs. Titled "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict", it is dedicated to the author’s relatives who survived the Auschwitz and Maidanek concentration camps, and indeed its passionate but thorough search for the truth does them proud. A penetrating, if rare, perspective.

(See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859843395/qid=1027522787/sr=12-1/104-6545203-2830354)


Then there’s the question of that (damned!) Holy City, Jerusalem. Don’t forget that the latest round of the intifadah started after Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Holy Temple there. Read "Divided Jerusalem : The Struggle for the Holy City", an excellent primer for the place that lies at the core of the current conflict. The book sheds light on the policies, motives and objectives of all those involved. Its author is Jewish-English Bernard Wasserstein, Professor of History at the University of Glasgow, UK, and President of the Jewish History Society of England. Not your average Arab terrorist, you'll admit...

(See : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0300097301/qid=1027523189/sr=12-1/104-6545203-2830354)


But we get occasionally some murmured complaints about the undue influence of Israel in American politics and how this meddling distorts U.S. policy, etcetera. Is there any truth in this or is it just another lie by terrorist sympathizers? Well, Republican congressman Paul Findley, in his book "They Dare To Speak Out : People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby" offers such a testimony, and how absolutely revealing it is! It vividly recounts how the things that concern the Middle East get to be presented in the West and how Israel is able to influence the foreign policy of the United States, sometimes even against American interests. The author represented Illinois in Congress for more than twenty years. His account is worthy of our attention, at the very least.

(See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556520735/qid=1027523712/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6545203-2830354)


. . . Now , I promised myself that I won’t recommend anything by a Palestinian, so I guess that Professor of Columbia University Edward Said’s thoughtful and humane "Orientalism", a study of how the West perceives the East ("mysterious and dangerous" is my sum for it all!) is out! Pity , since it’s considered a classic.


Therefore, you get no link!


Have a good summer, you all.


--Cyrus

Why rack your brain trying to understand the mideast? Too many people competing for too little land and resources. None of the leaders are innocent and each side wants to see the other annihiliated.

This polemic by Noam Chomsky is thick with facts and footnotes and makes for a quick read for anywone interested in the last 20 years.

I write this to Cyrus, but it applies to all posters: The title of the post I refer to was extremely offensive. No less so than a racial slur. Please do not make references like this again.


That said, I appreciate your viewpoint. I for one, feel that it is very important to know as much information about a topic as I can, before reaching any conclusions. Thanks, Mat.

Offensive to whom? There were no follow up posts in which anybody expressed being offended. And, furthermore, what makes that title different than KJS' "Israel: Baby Killer" or eLROY's "Palestinian Mothers: Sick, Irresponsible Criminals" or even Goat's "Hail Israel" that it deserves to be editted?


Matt

....accuse EVERYONE ELSE of racism, bigotry, hate, you name it. I know the title that you refer to Mat and I agree it was VERY OFFENSIVE. Even though I'm Catholic, I was very offended by the bigoted title of cyber-sniper Cyrus's post. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for cleaning it up and your reprimand of him is well justified, as was Mason's jab at him awhile back. I will heretofore refer to Cyrus as cyber-sniper-bigot

I also found the post title highly offensive. While we encourage vigorous debate on these forums, this one crossed the line.


Best wishes,

Mason

I'm honestly not trying to offend anyone but could you tell me how the title of the Cyrus post is offensive?

"In my childhood I have suffered fear, hunger and humiliation when I passed from the Warsaw Ghetto, through labor camps, to Buchenwald. Today, as a citizen of Israel, I cannot accept the systematic destruction of cities, towns, and refugee camps. I cannot accept the technocratic cruelty of the bombing, destroying and killing of human beings.

I hear too many familiar sounds today, sounds which are being amplified by the war. I hear 'dirty Arabs' and I remember 'dirty Jews.' I hear about 'closed areas' and I remember ghettos and camps. I hear 'two-legged beasts' and I remember 'Untermenschen.' I hear about tightening the siege, clearing the area, pounding the city into submission and I remember suffering, destruction, death, blood and murder .... Too many things in Israel remind me of too many other things from my childhood."


Shlomo Shmelzman, letter, Ha'aretz, 8/11/82.


Since the writing of that letter, rivers of blood have been shed over Israel's continued refusal to release the people of Palestine. The number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, Gaza and (Arab) East Jerusalem has grown more than five-fold, to more than 400,000, and continues to grow daily.


I agree with you that there is no comparison between the worst depradations of Israel and the Nazi murder machine. They're not even in the same realm. Israel's actions aren't as bad as Serbia's and dozens if not hundreds of other countries guilty of racist violence against innocents. (And if my tax dollars paid for them, I'd be hammering them instead).


But invading, colonizing and occupying land in order to vindicate a notion of national superiority is just as racist as similar ideologies that inspired much worse crimes. While Cyrus can be faulted for being offensive by being overbroad, we shouldn't let our squeemishness about obvious analogies from preventing us from calling a spade a spade.


"Ein Volk. Ein Riech. Ein Fuehrer."


(Nazi slogan from the 1930's)


"One people, One Army, One Government."


(Hebrew-language sign from a government sponsered rally in Israel supporting the invasion of Lebanon, reported by Ze'ev Strominsky, Davar, 7/19/82)

Not a bad post at all Chris, but there is one point which may be worthy of further examination. Has Israel been colinizing the territories due to a belief in and attempt to further what they see as racial superiority, or is something far more practical and less sinister than that: namely, that they have been attacked from all sides as long as they have been in existence, and a bit of a buffer zone makes good sense for Israel. After all, when those big wars with all the neighboring states took place, certain adjacent areas were of great miltary importance (Golan Heights, for one?). Anyway, whatever racist propaganda some Israelis might espouse (there are bad apples in every crowd), consioder the history of attacks upon Israel, and that Israel might see it as necessary as a military buffer zone of sorts. Heck if we had been attacked by Canada and Mexico on a regular basis, and we succeeded in grabbing some of the land from which the attacks were routinely launched, we might hold some of that land too, and even develop it for our people. So I'm not trying to debate who is ultimately right or wrong historically, in this post, but rather just wondering if maybe the Israeli motivation is primarily pragmatic rather than sinister, and if so, I'm suggesting that their pragmatic reasons might be pretty sound, from their standpoint.

"Has Israel been colinizing the territories due to a belief in and attempt to further what they see as racial superiority, or is something far more practical and less sinister than that: namely, that they have been attacked from all sides as long as they have been in existence, and a bit of a buffer zone makes good sense for Israel."


This is dead on. The issue is whether Israel is so threatened by external threats that it should be granted some leeway from international norms against condemn conquest and colonization, or is it devoted to a national supremacist view of "Greater Israel" being a land exclusively for Jews and whatever lesser groups they choose to accomodate?


I think the latter, although I agree with Andy Fox that it certainly didn't start out that way.


But left-wing (accomodationist) zionism lost out sometime in the 1930's and was pretty much expunged from the mainstream shortly after Israel proved to the U.S. that it could be a strategic ally. I think the dynamics work like this: the U.S. gives Israel a blank check because it needs a client military outpost in the Middle East (and not, BTW, because of the vaunted "Jewish" or "pro-Israel" lobby, although this is a factor). Over the years, this subsidy has effectively subsidized the chauvinist religious right in Israel (and it's counterparts, often Christian rightists, in the U.S.). The expansionist right wing thrives politically in Israel in part because it doesn't need to approach the rest of Israel with a price tag for it's politics -- the U.S. pays the tab, although for reasons that have nothing to do with "Eretz Israel" or similar ideologies. There are other factors, such as class and ethnic divisions among Jews in Israel, but this is a biggie.


For evidence, I would cite how the growth of the right in Israel has tracked the support Israel has obtained from the U.S. since 1967. I would also cite the obvious fact that distant settlements in surrounded by large populations of indigenous Arabs are obviously harder and more dangerous to defend than Jews living within Israel's borders, a comment one often encounters from the soldiers given this task.


As for Israel's need for a "buffer" zone, I don't see any evidence for it at all. Israel has certainly suffered from attacks from the West Bank, but mostly from Palestinian terrorists (and indigenous resistance fighters) that thrive because the Palestinians have no political settlement. The West Bank -- and certainly not the Gaza strip -- has not posed a significant threat to Israel from actual foreign invasion. Jordan is the Arab government most amenable to Israel's existence, and it lies on the other side, a buffer zone in it's own right.

Let me get this straight : I posted something titled "Heil Israel" in (ironic) response to a post titled in all seriousness "Hail Israel" -- and you object to the former but not to the latter? I personally find the salutation to be offensive in the sense that it reminds us the last time we heard it round this planet. It was the time of saluting Fuhrers and the Reich.


If you find my reminder offensive, how can you not find it offensive that a poster uses a Nazi salutation for his cause?


And if you want my two cents, I would leave both posts alone. They are way, way below the combustion point to be considered flames, either of them.


--Cyrus

i was pretty sure it was the f word.

well... I thought "Hail!" was used for the Caesars, whereas "Heil!" was used for the Fuehrer. Anyway, I don't think your post title was out of line or offensive given the context, Cyrus, although of course I disagree with a lot of your views on related subject matters.