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Surveys the history of the Department of Agriculture, describing its structure, current function, and influence on American society. ... Read more

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Surveys the history of the Department of Labor, describing its structure, current function, and influence on American society. ... Read more

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Surveys the history of the Veterans Administration and describes its structure, current function, and influence on American society. ... Read more

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Surveys the history of the Department of Transportation and describes its structure, current functions, and influence on American society. ... Read more

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With full coverage of recent dramatic events in Israeli politics from the Rabin assassination through the May 1996 elections, this work provides an up-to-date introduction to Israeli politics and society. It seeks to convey a strong sense of everyday life in Israel, the nuances and contradictions of Israeli identity, the ethnic composition and institutional structure of Israeli society, as well as Israeli political culture and the issues that dominate the country's domestic and foreign policy. ... Read more

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The official establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948 constituted the realization of the Zionist vision, but military victory left in its wake internal and external survival issues that would threaten this historic achievement for decades to come. The refusal of the international community to recognize the political, geographic, and demographic results of the War of Independence presented Israel with a permanent regional security threat, while isolating and alienating it in the international arena. One of the most formidable problems Israeli foreign policy faced was the stance of the Christian world toward the new state. Attitudes ranged from hostility and categorical non-recognition by the Catholic Church, through Protestant ambivalence, to Evangelical support. Cross on the Star of David presents the first scholarly analysis, based on newly declassified documents, of Israeli policymaking on this issue. Uri Bialer focuses on the impact that modes of thinking rooted in the historical tradition of Jewish-Christian interactions had on Israeli policymakers and concludes that they were not innocent of the perceptions and biases that influenced the Christian world’s behavior toward Israel. The result is a fine-grained, original interpretation of an important dimension of Israeli foreign policy from the founding of the State to the 1967 War. ... Read more

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Surveys the history of the Department of the Interior with descriptions of its structure, current function, and influence on society. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Disappointment
It's a pity one cannot find a really objective book about the conflict between Israel and its Arab Muslim neighbours. For a moment I thought that I found one but I was wrong: the victimhood complex permeates the book and nowhere could I find anything about Palestinians working, creating or building a better life for themselves.

Israel was built with the help of the international Jewish community. Why can't the "oil filled" Arab Muslim nations provide their brothers with a similar support? The book did not touch, explain or clarify this topic. Pity!

Difficult truth-telling
As an American Jew who just spent 6 months in Israel, this was a difficult and important book for me to read. The author writes of first-hand experience in the Israeli peace movement, and the challenging relationships between people on both sides of the Green Line. No one comes off looking perfect - not Israelis or Palestinians, right-wing or left-wing - but all the actors are flawed in one way or another, product of a terrible history. The book gave me hope that human beings can mend long-standing conflict, even if imperfectly and slowly. The story is, of necessity, biased, as it tells of one man's personal experiences, but still worth reading.

Dark Hope towards Enlightenment
Extremely well-written account of Israeli peace activists working to bring a bit of justice to the day to day lives of Palestineans under the Occupation.

Reveals a glimpse of the future in the fraternal interactions and warm personal relations that develop between Palestineans and Israelis when the task is to clear a roadblock, bring blankets to a village or harvest a crop faced with hostile settlers.

A great read. ... Read more

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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the headlines daily, but do most Americans really understand what it is about?With dramatic events happening almost every day in this region, and the US government increasingly becoming involved, the American public deserves to hear both sides.Arabs & Israel For Beginners provides an intelligent, in-depth, yet humorous and accessible Palestinian perspective on the struggle between the two nations.

Arabs & Israel For Beginners covers the Middle East from ancient times to the present, tells the truth in plain English.If you want to know the truth about 12,000 years of Middle Eastern history, then Arabs & Israel For Beginners is the perfect place to start. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Factual and Precise, if a little emotionally loaded
I remember first reading this book many many years ago.
After reading it I ended up taking several courses in Political Science and Middle East history at university, and have read all of the classic academic works from Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein to Edward Said, Israel Shahak, Charles Smith and Ilan Pappe.
I now know my Middle East history back and forth, and have spent years researching and reading on this topic.

This book is an absolutely excellent introduction onto the subject. Easy to read and fast. I'd recommend it for ALL interested people with little knowledge of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israeli history. It is the perfect stepping stone onto larger more academic works.

The only fault in this book is that the writing is slightly emotionally loaded, which isn't 'proper' for an academic or scholarly work. But that does not take away from the facts that this book is replete with, and it achieves its objective to be a beginner's run-through of the history of the area from ancient times to present, and that is why I give it 5 stars.

A useful introduction ...
... to a complicated matter that it may be impossible to be neutral about.Being of Jewish extraction, I have tended to be more sympathetic to the Israel side of things, particularly after reading much Holocaust literature over the years. Still, it is not responsible to look at only one side of an issue and clearly the unending heartache in the Mideast begs for a much clearer examination than will ever be presented in mainstream media.

Thus I launched into this book eagerly.To the author's credit, he states his frame of mind upfront, as well to answer deceptively simple questions that are almost never answered elsewhere-what is an Arab?Where is Palestine?The bibliography and references for further reading are also helpful.And he tries very hard to point out why there is unending cycles of violence in the Mideast that are not artifacts of ancient history, but are the direct result of events that happened in the lifetime of many of this book's readers.

Still, he crams too much in this book.While somewhat interesting, the ancient historyof the Mideast is not nearly as relevant as the specifics of the creation of the modern Israeli state.And the comic book format gets tiring.A more conventional, and tightly edited book would better explain the complexities of this situation.

Still, you'll never understand what is going on in the Mideast if you are only relying on your local newspaper and evening news; the author states that the more you watched TV, the less you knew about what was going on.Books such as this are a useful cure for this.

Concise and Accurate History
This is one book in a series "... For Beginners." Ron David does an excellent analysis of the Arab and Israeli confrontation. It is well researched and well written. Mr. David lays the ground work by looking at popular beliefs and then subjects them to critical evaluation. For example, there are those who believe that the Arabs conquered Palestine/Syria in the 7th century from the resident Jewish inhabitants. In fact, the area was under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire--identified as Byzantium in the West. The book covers the story from around 2000 BC to the early 1990's. It is well illustrated which adds to the pleasure of reading this book. It is quick reading, and easily referenced. The Table of Contents will get you quickly to a particular topic. Mr. David uses maps, tables, and quotes to great effect. He also includes a bibliography for further reading. For example, Mr. David examines the Holocaust, the failure of Western countries to open their borders to Jewish survivors, and the issue of Palestine by suggesting books like Leonard Dinnerstein's America and the Survivors of the Holocaust and Henry L. Feingold's The Politics of Rescue. At the end of the book, Mr. David provides two pages of further readings for those who become more interested in the topic. This book is a must for anyone unfamiliar with Arab-Israeli dilemma. It will help put in balance a great many misconceptions about the problem.

Read this one first...
If you are looking for a primer on the conflict in Israel/Palestine, you can't do better than this. I chose it in large part because the writer is Jewish and could be expected to put the case for Israel in the best possible light. Readers may be surprised, and some even angered, by the author's conclusions, but he doesn't stray far from the facts. Not overly verbose (it is illustrated), the book can be read in a couple of hours.

What the book addresses about Palestine
This book brings an argument of old saying "There is or was no such thing as Palestine" and goes into great detail of history both biblical and historical facts. Thing is people want to believe what they want to believe because their minds are made up before they read the book. If they even read it fully. The only agenda the author is using is telling the truth. Only thing is...the truth hurts. Many will deny it and only a few will accept it. ... Read more

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Surveys the history of the Senate, with descriptions of its structure, current function, and influence on American society. ... Read more

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This is the first comprehensive examination of the evolution of executive governance in Israel. The book describes and analyzes the political and bureaucratic structures and processes which have led to the predominance of the executive in policy-making and governance. It also analyzes recent political and administrative reforms and their consequences on the Knesset, political parties, governing coalitions, and non-elected public authorities. ... Read more

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Arab entrepreneurs in Israel form part of a traditional, yet peripheral, ethnic minority attempting to integrate into Israel's larger economy. This study, based on extensive fieldwork, focuses on the obstacles that these Arab entrepreneurs and new industrialists must overcome in their development towards industrialization. The research exposes a highly flexible entrepreneurial culture making use of a limited set of opportunities and resources. The work makes a strong contribution to comparative cross-cultural research and theoretical formulations on issues of ethnic entrepreneurship. ... Read more

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“I am deeply in love with the Holy Land,” writes Israel Shamir. “The essays collected in Flowers of Galilee are perceived as a model of the world . . . The war in the Holy Land is presented as the centre-stage of the world-wide struggle of ideas, against a backdrop of such momentous modern developments as the growing influence of American Jewry, the decline of the Left, the ascent of Globalisation, the first steps of the anti-Globalisation movement, and the outbreak of World War Three with America against the Third World.” While seeking the Liberation of Palestine, the author pursues another broader goal as well: the Liberation of Public Discourse. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A holy book of the Holy Land
Many of us - and this specially applies to the allegedly democratic and prosperous West - have come to realise that there is something deeply amiss with our societies. Our leaders seem strangely alike, bland corporation men in suits, who blindly lead us into wars against popular will, at the same time as they slash away at social provisions that have stood and served us well for decades.

Ordinary people too have come to understand that the mainstream media only provides a slick but highly slanted view of world events. We hear much talk of Palestinian terrorists, but never of Palestinian poets. Alternative viewpoints are desperately required in times like these. Such a new outlook is provided by Flowers ofGalilee.

Its author, Israel Shamir, is a true Palestinian poet, though an adoptive son of Palestine, rather than a native. Gently Shamir leads us from the local and the particular, to the global and universal. The olive trees and blossoms of Palestine lead in an entirely natural and unforced fashion to the great questions.

Why do we stand - apparently - on the very brink of WorldWar III? Why is the Left fading away into 'business friendly' neo-liberalism? What about the increasing brutalisation of society, and growing gulf between rich and poor?

Reading Shamir's analysis of Palestine and the worldis like seeing a metaphorical onion being peeled away, till you finally come upon the kernelof truth. This stripping away of the layers of illusion is bound to be an almost painful and traumatic process for many readers, so it's good that Shamir's friendly tone is there to guide you through. The example of the British Prime Minister is always there to warn of the dangers of believing your own falsehoods and illusions.

It's unfair, perhaps, to categorize any author in terms of his peers, but those who are unfamiliar with Israel Shamir's writings might imagine something of a combination of Lawrence Durrell and John Pilger. It would be out of place for this brief review to attempt a detailed description of the collected essays that comprise Flowers ofGalilee : all however make fascinating reading and re-reading. Individually, the essays vary in overall tone from the largely amusing such as 'Up to a Point', to at least one - 'Cornerstone ofViolence' - that will scare the hell out of its reader.

But amid all the moving or philosophical passages, there remains a gentle vein of serious humour :

'The instant recovery of a hijacker's passport, intact on the scene of jet crash, should be counted amongthe most spectacular miracles of all times, well ahead of Daniel's trip into the fiery furnace. The old Babylonian furnace surely had not built up to the temperature of burning jet-fuel. Arab-language flying manuals in the trunk of a car,
inaudible videotapes and other conveniently recovered exhibits make of the Moscow trials of 1937 a shining example of justice uncorrupted. The Afghani prisoners of war have been kept away from prying eyes, in the limbo of Guantanamo Bay, lest they disclose the greatest secret of all: their innocence.'

Despite the fact that the collection was written during 2001-2002, Flowers of Galilee retains an absolute contemporary immediacy.

Forexample, he leaves us in little doubt what a victory for the 'Mammonites' of the USA would mean for the world :

'Their programme of globalisation would eliminate all beauty and specific quality of the world, kill the spirit,undermine art, wipe out spirit, destroy nature, undo socialachievements, divide mankind into Masters and Slaves. Wherever they go, old cafès and restaurants disappear and Starbucks and McDonalds take over. Workers lose their working places, museums are filled with trash, art is replaced by TV. Still, they should be contained, not destroyed.'

Shamir seems to imply that an alliance of the outsiders of far left, far right and Muslims could defeat the forces of Mammon and the globalisers. But above all, he is convinced that the future of the world will be settled, one way or another,by the struggle for Palestine :'The fall of the Holy Land would create a point of no return for mankind and signify Man's total enslavement by the forces of domination. Our victory will set the world free.'

This man loves the holy land
With every word, every phrase, Israel Shamir displays his love
of the holy land. I've read lots of books on the Middle East,
but this is - by far - the most compelling. I really cannot
express how important this book is to me, so I'll include a
quote from Nick Pretzlick, which I agree with wholeheartedly:

"Israel Shamir is in love with the Holy Land. He has a
passion for the land and its people; he believes the
two are umbilically linked. For him there is only one
viable solution to the conflict that has ravaged the
region for so long and that is the one state solution.
Shamir is a humanist and although he is scathing about
Palestine's enemies - the Jewish elite - he takes
pride in and writes lovingly about the courageous
Jews, who resist Israeli crimes.

Flowers of Galilee is a collection of essays, so full
of affection - such an elegy of love - that, reading
it for the first time, I felt impelled to delay the
turning of pages, preferring instead to linger over

images - to savour the sentiments.

Shamir does not pull any punches. He challenges
conventional thinking, but he does so with honesty,
affection and such thorough understanding and
knowledge that his outspokenness is reasonable and
rational. Flowers of Galilee is an eye opener - a
learning experience. It is also enchanting." ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Shahak The New Prophet of Israel
I couldn't resist reading this book. My three favorite American intellectuals Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said and Gore Vidal have in one way or another recommended it. This in itself is high praise.

I find Israel Shahak's book a spring of fresh water in an arid intellectual environment of disinformation, propaganda and outright intellectual intimidation. For me Shahak is in the same mold as Jewish Prophets of old, warning Israel against a new catastrophe.

I do not pretend to the intellectual heights of Shahak.I can only judge the accuracy of the book by comparing it to areas where I do have expertise, namely the history, as it pertains to the Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. The only portion of the book I found lacking was Shahak's knowledge of Petlura's government of Ukraine during the First World War.

When I sent Shahak a short article about Petlura from a Symposium "Ukrainian & Jews" he responded in a letter to me dated June 1, 1999, quote..."I am sorry for my mistake about the regime of Petlura. Your evidence, especially the translated documents, is very persuasive and I accept it. If possible I will change the next editions" Jewish History, Jewish religion" accordingly."...unquote.

I found Shahak's book made me understand portions of the Bible which I had difficulty understanding. It provided the cultural context for an intellectual conundrum that I had in regard to the Old Testament.

The two conundrums are the ethnic cleansing condoned by God of the Canaanites in Deuteronomy and the other was the dialogue between Jesus and the Canaanite women in Mathew 15:21-28, where he replies , quote..."I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."...unquote.

It is only after reading Shahak that I finally understood the unchristian behavior of Jesus. He after all was not a Christian but a Jewish Rabbi, well versed in the Talmud with all of the cultural taboos associated with it in those times. He came to save the Jews and the World. It was Paul (Saul), another well trained Rabbi who brought Jesus' reformed Judaism to the Pagan Mediterranean world and created Christianity.

This book is replete with insights that only and intellect of rigorous and highly developed moral understanding of History could deliver.

A must read.
This book will merit either 5 stars, given by people without an agenda and who care to advance human understanding of the past and its mistakes. Or an obvious 1 (for lack of a 0, by the other end of the spectrum).

Consider that this book was written by an Israeli Jew whose family had lived for generations in a Jewish ghetto in Poland. Prof. Shahak had survived the Holocaust and elected to settle in Israel where he lived out his life. Prof. Shahak, together with historian Ilan Pappe ("The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine") and prof. Shlomo Sand ("The Invention of the Jewish People") are smart, progressive, well-educated members of Israeli academia who understand that the present course of Israeli politics is untenable. These authors are the soul and conscience of humanity that separate and protect us from degenerating into the abyss of the primitive. Perhaps, extinction.

"The Black Book of Communism" makes for a hefty companion book to all of the above titles.

AN EXCELLENT CRITIQUE BY A COURAGEOUS MAN
Shahak is a courageous man for going against the conventional wisdom and speaking out for human rights for all.His eloquent thesis in this book gives him the moral authority to speak out on racism and racial superiority, easily wresting this mantle from the likes of Eli Weasel, whose shrill weasel words of 'Never again!' only apply to Jews.Shahak has the wisdom to understand that the Iraeli state's treatment of non-Jews as 3rd class citizens undermines the legitimacy of the state, which could lead to its dissolution.

A disastrous misinterpretation of Jewish religion
Israel Shahak wanted in fact to be a follower of Karl Popper, the author of "Enemies of the Open Society". But attention! Shahak the intended peace dove changes his personality radically when he becomes Shahak the pamphlet writer. His book with the misleading title "Jewish history, Jewish religion" is nothing but a harsh and crude pamphlet against Jewish religion and identity. According to Shahak, the rabbines are sly control freaks who govern the Jewish community by lies and assasination: Such insinuations are a true gift to fanatical anti-Jews like the "biblebelievers" or Radio Islam, but this book has nothing to convince any reader with academical education. The level is too base, the accusations are too exaggerated, the footnotes are too short to inspire this reader to trust the author. Shahak pretends even that sense of humour is un-Jewish, and he is attempting to prove it by writing this bitter booklet that has no trace of understanding for the positive role of Jewish religion in many peoples' lives. I agree with the late Mr Shahak that Israel should be a multi-ethnical state for all kind of citizens, but I strongly disagree on his way of expressing this goal.

Paranoid Fantasy
Despite its title, this is not a book about three thousand years of Jewish history and religion. There is virtually no historically informative and detailed discussion of biblical history, the Second Commonwealth, the Spanish Inquisition, the Haskalah, the Holocaust or modern Israeli history. To be sure, there is some - generally fictitious - treatment of the development of Rabbinic Judaism. There is also virtually no discussion of Jewish theology or philosophy. To be sure, there is some - again, generally fictitious - treatment of Jewish religious law.
Shahak argues that Jews, and Orthodox Jews in particular, are evil. He claims that their history is not one of persecution but of persecuting. We have here the old motifs of the Jew as both wretched and oppressive, as both thuggish and conniving. Torquemada and Bogdan Chmielnicki emerge as the heroes of the story. There is no positive discussion of Jewish historical figures and the Jewish contribution to ideas and ideals.
Shahak argues that Orthodox Judaism is evil. In particular, he claims that Jewish religious law calls for the oppression of non-Jews and that it is racist and murderous. He also claims, perhaps most bizarrely, that Orthodox Judaism is not monotheistic and that Orthodox Jews worship the devil. There is no discussion of the virtues emphasized by Judaism, kindness, mercy, charity, humility, wisdom and love.
The mean allegations made by the book are available online - at numerous white-supremacist websites. Decisive responses are also readily available online. The book is therefore a waste of money.
This edition includes a new foreword by Ilan Pappe, a radical critic of Israel. One couldn't tell from his criticism here that the Arabs started the 1948 war against Israel, that Israel's leaders were mainly secular socialists, and that Israel allows for more freedom of religion and politics than any of Israel's neighbours do. The book lends no credibility to whatever criticism Israel may or may not deserve.
There are many informative books on Jewish history and religion available from amazon.com. A very popular history is "A History of the Jews" by Paul Johnson. Friendly introductions to Judaism include "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Judaism" by Benjamin Blech and "This is My God" by Herman Wouk.
Shahak is not a reliable authority on Jewish history or religion. His book is a concoction of outrageous fabrications, gross exaggerations and wild misinterpretations. I do not recommend it. ... Read more

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Israel Diplomatic Handbook (World Business, Investment and Government Library) ... Read more

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This perceptive study investigates the different ways in which the state deals with various social groups through the mechanisms of space. By means of case studies involving three social groups within Israel's multicultural society – the Sephardim, the Bedouin-Arab minority and the ultra-Orthodox community of Jerusalem – the different roles played by political space in legal analysis are revealed and analyzed. Issachar Rosen-Zvi then unearths the unifying logic underlying the disparate legal treatment of political space, brought to light by the case studies. The law treats political space differently depending on the social group involved, an attitude that, the author argues, can be traced back to early Zionist thinking. He concludes that a reform of local government law is required, to correct the segregated system of political space and the separate and unequal distribution of political power and economic resources that accompany it. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Good Book
Its a good book on Israel. Pretty plain and not too personal but gets it done.

On Israel's present political realitiesOutstanding collection of essays
Robert O. Freedman has put together an outstanding collection of essays on contemporary Israeli political realities.
Here are the contents:
The Israeli Right (Ilan Peleg)
3. The Israeli Zionist Left (Mark Rosenblum)
4. Israel's Religious Parties (Shmuel Sander and Aaron Kampinsky)
5. Israel's Russian Parties (Vladimir Ze'ev Khanin)
6. Israel's Arab Parties (Hillel Frisch)
7. Israel's Supreme Court (Pnina Lahav)
8. Israel's Economy (Ofira Seliktar)

Part Two: Israel's Foreign Policy Challenges
9. Israel and the Palestinians (Barry Rubin)
10. Israel and the Arab World (David Lesch)
11. Israel's Strategic Relations with Turkey and India (Efraim Inbar)
12. Israel and the United States (Robert O. Freedman)

Part Three: Israel's Strategic Challenges
13. Existential Threats to Israel (Steven David)
14. Israel's Second Lebanon War (Elli Lieberman)

Among the outstanding essays, and there are many are Barry Rubin's explanation of how Arafat and the Palestinians prevented President Clinton achieving a peace- breakthrough in September 2000.Robert O. Freedman focuses on the special strength of the U.S.- Israel relation. Efraim Inbar speaks about two countries of great importance for Israel, Turkey and India, and the relations which have developed between them. I felt Steven David's piece on the Existential Threats to Israel was especially well thought- out. He considers the Demographic threat, the Conventional Army Threat and the non- Conventional primarily Nuclear threat. He does this while underlining how unique Israel's situation is, being the only state in the world whose very existence is under constant threat. While not underestimating the Demographic and Conventional Threats David believes that the major threat today is the Iranian nuclear threat. He provides a clear picture of some of the complexities of the situation, and why all alternatives open to Israel are problematic. Even the alternative of using Israel's supposed nuclear - force as deterrent is taken by him to be problematic.
All in all this volume will be very helpful to anyone who wishes to understand Israel's current political realities and situation.

Invaluable for understanding Israeli politics
Israel has never been the home of quiet peaceful Jews, although it yearns to be. "Contemporary Israel: Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy, and Security Challenges" is an examination of modern Israel and the many challenges it faces, particular with its violent neighbors and constant battle with terrorism. The rough road they face isn't helped by the politicians of the country butting heads just like any other. A look at the many challenges that Israel faces like many other countries tells the story. "Contemporary Israel" is invaluable for understanding Israeli politics. ... Read more

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This first complete history of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip allows us to see beyond the smoke screen of politics in order to make sense of the dramatic changes that have developed on the ground over the past forty years. Looking at a wide range of topics, from control of water and electricity to health care and education as well as surveillance and torture, Neve Gordon's panoramic account reveals a fundamental shift from a politics of life--when, for instance, Israel helped Palestinians plant more than six-hundred thousand trees in Gaza and provided farmers with improved varieties of seeds--to a macabre politics characterized by an increasing number of deaths. Drawing attention to the interactions, excesses, and contradictions created by the forms of control used in the Occupied Territories, Gordon argues that the occupation's very structure, rather than the policy choices of the Israeli government or the actions of various Palestinian political factions, has led to this radical shift. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good anlaysis of the matrix of control in the OTs.
Neve Gordon does everyone a service by meticulously explaining the complex matrix of control Israel started laying down weeks after the Occupation began. It draws on sources in Hebrew that have not been translated into English.

Some observations/criticisms:

1)Since it is more scholarly than polemical (and hence some of its strength and validity) it makes at times for a slightly difficult read. Some of this has to do with the book layout , fonts etc, mostly with the way the subject matter is addressed.

2)It could have done with more maps. B'Tselem and other human rights groups in the Occupied Territories (OT) have some excellent ones. Their liberal inclusion would have been a more tangible reminder of how moth-eaten and non-viable the possibility of a 2-state solution now is.

3)A separate chapter on East Jerusalem would have been helpful. Gordon addresses EJ throughout the book but I have always been struck by how even the most knowledgeable observers of the scene (the recent attention to the issue notwithstanding) do not make it clear that EJ is Occupied Territory whose 'final status' has been subject to creeping and constant unilateral manipulation.

All-in-all a powerful and precise book whose conclusions only the most rabid nationalist (and there'll be plenty even on this forum) would bother to deny. ... Read more

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After the 1993 Oslo Accords people across the world anticipated the onset of peace and an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.For Israelis, the Accords generated massive economic growth and a sense of security.For Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, they led to a dramatic rise in poverty and unemployment due to a complex array of closures, militarized checkpoints, and bypass roads, and a vast expansion of the settlement project that fractured Palestinian territories and communities.In 2000 popular Palestinian rage with the new shape of the Israeli occupation erupted in a second uprising or intifada.

In this volume, prominent scholars and journalists examine the dramatic political changes in Palestine and Israel from the Oslo Accords through the second intifada and the death of Yasser Arafat.Their essays address the political economy of the Oslo process, social and political changes in Palestine and Israel, United States foreign policy, social movements and political activism, and the interplay between cultural and political-economic processes.The volume also includes documents, maps, poetry, and graphic art.

Contributors:Ammiel Alcalay, Lori A. Allen, Marwan Barghouti, Joel Beinin, Robert Blecher, Elliott Colla, Catherine Cook, Jonathan Cook, Richard Falk, Khaled Furani, Rita Giacaman, Lisa Hajjar, Jeff Halper, Rema Hammami, Sari Hanafi,Adam Hanieh, Islah Jad, Penny Johnson, Rela Mazali, Emma C. Murphy, Issam Nassar, Ilan Pappé, Yoav Peled, Mouin Rabbani, Shira Robinson, Sara Roy, Rosemary Sayigh, Charmaine Seitz, Adam Shatz, Rebecca L. Stein, Gary Sussman, Salim Tamari, David Tartakover, Graham Usher, Sharif Waked, and Oren Yiftachel ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Very dishonest book
Very dishonest book
This book full of bigotry & lies. Even hard to read it to the end...

Even-handed
Reveals without passion how the "no-matter-what" variety of support for Israel causes immense human suffering.
This book should be required reading for anyone who equates disagreement with the genocidal policies of Israel with anti-Semitism.

A good multilayered discussion of the current situation
This book is a collection of assays about the current situation in Israel/ Palestine - after the rise of the right wing in both elections, the disengagement and The Wall. I found many of the assays extremely useful: assays dealing with women in Palestine, with the economic meanings of shifting occupation methods, the Matrix of control and ethnic separation in the west bank, citizenship and national minority rights within the state of Israel... As an Israeli activist teaching about the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, I found this book highly useful in my work.

Extreme Fascist Propaganda
I had to keep reminding myself that this book is a recent work.And that it was not written in, say, Berlin in 1942. The book is indeed propaganda against human rights.Nowhere in this volume did I see any suggestion that there ought to be a place in the world for human rights for mere Jews.I wonder if the authors would permit human rights for, say, Pagans?

Israel is awfully land-poor.But the Jews decided to settle for the UN partition, which gave them rather little land, preferring that to nothing.Beinin and Stein challenge this, noting that while Jews (who had been to a great extent prevented from moving to the Levant) were only about one-third of the population of the Mandate in 1947, they were granted 55% of the land.And that's why the Arabs rejected the UN proposal!Get real.Would the Arabs have accepted the proposal had they obtained the Negev rather than the Jews?Of course not.

The authors do not like the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.They can't stand it when Jews defend themselves against Arab aggression, implying that self-defence is merely a sly Jewish trick.Golly, one has to wonder what these writers will be saying if the Arabs ever make the mistake of fighting folks other than Jews.

There's also plenty of love for thugs such as Arafat, and for those who took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.As well as for the thugs of Jenin.Listen to this:

"The events in Jenin refugee camp in April 2002 are another striking example of the international community's readiness to turn a blind eye to Israel's brutal excesses."

It would be hard to write a more dishonest sentence than the one I just quoted.Israel was almost superhuman in its willingness to lose soldiers in order to avoid unnecessary Arab civilian casualties.And it was blamed for such casualties anyway, as the media greatly exaggerated the number of deaths there.

There are boasts that the International Criminal Court does not like the Israeli separation barrier.Well, what is next?Boasts about Germany's anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s?A prayer that international law will give the Ku Klux Klan the right to murder Blacks?And there are comments about the idea that there ought to be a "binational state" in the Levant (presumably one that will get rid of human rights for Jews there).That sounds somewhat reactionary to me.Again, I have to wonder what is next, perhaps a call to reinstitute slavery for Blacks?

This book was written by fellow humans, that's true, and it makes me ashamed to be a human being.
... Read more