Product Description

This polemical study systematically undermines the popular and scholarly representations of the Israel- Palestine conflict. Opening with a theoretical discussion of Zionism and its roots, Norman Finkelstein goes on to look at the demographic origins of the Palestinians, referencing the work of Joan Peters and critiquing the influential studies of both Benny Morris and Anita Shapira, and closes by demonstrating that the casting of Israel as the innocent victim of Arab aggression in the June 1967 and October 1973 wars is not supported by the documentary record.

In the material added for this new edition, including a new introduction, Finkelstein focuses his attention on the renewed efforts of scholars to justify the brutal actions of Israel in light of the ongoing failure of the peace process.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106166 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
A major contribution to the study of the Arab-Israeli conflict which deserves to be widely read, especially in the US. -- Avi Shlaim, St Antony's College, Oxford University

One of the seminal scholarly texts challenging the Zionist narrative of what happened in 1948 and subsequently. -- Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 2004

About the Author
Norman Finkelstein lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

A much needed dose of reality
One of the biggest problems with trying to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict is finding an unbiased account of it. There seems to be no definitive work on the subject that would completely satisfy an open-minded observer, not that there seem to be many of those. Try reading through the reviews of this book or any other book about the subject on Amazon and what you'll see is an almost complete polarisation of views with little or no middle ground. Watching the news media doesn't help much either, as the origins of what is going on are never explained and it's significant that both sides of the conflict think that the media is biased against them. This book is not an attempt to give a full account of the Israel-Palestine conflict, in fact it presupposes that the reader already has some knowledge about the recent history of the middle-east; instead the author sets out to challenge the validity of certain widely accepted beliefs about the conflict and in doing so makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing (and semingly never ending) debate about it.

Accepting "official" Israeli history as fact involves accepting certain Zionist arguments as being true. For instance we are often told that there was never really any such thing as "the Palestinians", that the area which now comprises the state of Israel was largely an unoccupied wilderness when Zionists started to colonise it and that many of those Arabs who did in fact become refugees during the first Israeli-Arab war were actually recent immigrants. Because of this, the argument goes, the Jews have a greater right to the land than the Arabs, thus justifying the establishment of the Israeli state. Similarly we are asked to believe that although the first Israeli-Arab war created 700000 Arab refugees, this mass exodus was not caused by any premeditated or systematic campaign of expulsion, but was the result of "Arab orders" broadcast over the radio or perhaps, in the view of "new historians" like Benny Morris, mainly due to flight from Israeli aggression or the threat of it. The conquest of Israel is portrayed as being a defensive action against Arab attack and all Israel's subsequent border wars and military actions as necessary retaliations of a victim state.

The problem with all this is that some of it is actually quite difficult to swallow and the central aim of Finkelstein's book is to see how well such tenets of Israeli history stand up to rigorous examination. To facilitate his analysis the author refers to and discusses at length influential works on various aspects of the Israel-Palestine conflict (Joan Peters' "From time immemorial", Benny Morris' "Birth of the Palestinian refugee problem 1947-49", Anita Shapira's "Land and power" and others) and time after time he shows that the "official" version of Israeli history can ony be arrived at by a very careful and highly selective interpretation of evidence, statistical data and the historical record. The book is worth buying for the second chapter alone, in which "From time immemorial" is comprehensively and definitively exposed as a hoax and a fraud. On the other hand, there is praise for the "new historians", although as Finkelstein ably points out, Morris' valuable attempt to deconstruct the Zionist whitewash of the refugee issue is too cautious by far based on his own evidence.

Anyone seriously interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict would gain from reading this book and I strongly recommend it, but it's not the whole story by any means. For a diametrically opposed view of the same events, try reading "Fabricating Israeli history: the new historians" by Efraim Karsh. Or try sampling the work of Benny Morris to see what Karsh is complaining about. My personal view is that Finkelstein gets closer to the truth than a "new historian" like Morris and that Karsh and reactionaries of his ilk are the Zionist equivalent of King Canute. But that's just my opinion. You'll have to do a lot more reading to try to achieve a full understanding of this complex set of issues....

A Brave Man
Norman Finkelstein is a brave man who has received a lot of flak for writing this book. One response that authors who criticise Israel always have to contend with is the accusation that they are motivated by anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. Jewish authors (Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors)are additionally accused of being 'self hating' Jews. It's almost as if, in the eyes of Israel's unquestioning supporters, there can be no legitimate reason to criticise anything that Israel does. Maybe Israel, unlike any other country which has ever existed on Earth, is a perfect society which is completely above criticism - or is it?

The aim of this brilliant book is to ask questions about the view of Israel's history that Zionists would like the rest of us to believe. Many aspects of this history are hotly disputed so it's a perfectly legitimate area of study. Reading the book will probably challenge your preconceptions of the Arab-Israeli conflict and will make some people feel distinctly uncomfortable. But like nasty tasting medicine that ultimately does you good, it's essential reading for anyone who really wants to understand what's going on in that tragic part of the world. And the fact that all Finkelstein's opponents can do to counter his arguments is come out with the same old knee-jerk reactions says it all. Buy it!

detailed insight which is never discussed in the media
This work is very important for people to read as it provides a worthwhile alternative view to Israeli history.

I can't determine from my own research whether the author is totally right or wrong in his thesis, but the one thing that I can say is that like all history, it is important to hear all sides of a story.

Anyone who believes (as portrayed in the mainstream media) that Israel is the font of reason and love in the middle east and simply wants to be left alone to exist, and that it is the Arab States (and Palestinians) which cause all the problems in the area must read this book simply to inform themselves of other perspectives. To believe what is said in the media these days, you would never know about the history of land encroachment etc by Israel. The settlements which are still expanding to this day were going on since 1948! These things came as news to me, and simply points to the need to inform oneself about history from both sides, including the Arab side. You very rarely (never?) see or hear this side of the argument in the US. It is that very fact which should indicate that reading this version of history is important - ignorance is the foundation of an unfair world.

Read this book!