Reddit reviews Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001

B'Tselem:

"According to the last official estimate, some 23,000 Palestinians were interrogated by the GSS between 1987 and 1994. According to the experience of B'Tselem and other human rights organisations, it is very rare indeed that the GSS interrogates Palestinians without using at least some of the methods described below."


First Intifada

"Righteous Victims" by Benny Morris

Instead of getting opinions from people I urge you to seek out independent sources. Also check out the mainstream human rights organizations Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Btselem.

Important UN document drafted following the 1967 six-day war and drawing borders for a proposed Palestinian state: https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/IP%20S%20RES%20242.pdf

Since 1967, Israel has steadily occupied and annexed this proposed Palestinian state.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2004/07/108912-international-court-justice-finds-israeli-barrier-palestinian-territory-illegal (International Court of Justice ruling on the illegality of the Israeli separation wall that is designed to annex Palestinian land). This ruling also concludes the illegality of the occupation and annexation of the West Bank.

https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754 (Righteous Victims by Benny Morris -- this is an excellent objective historical account of the I/P conflict, although Benny Morris has now done a 180 and actively denies / endorses ethnic cleansing). But this work has historical objectivity.

A good preview of the conflict is a debate between Noam Chomsky and accused pedophile (wrapped up in the Epstein scandal) Alan Dershowitz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULvJrb5lKu4&list=PLEE0D8C33AAD1F590

A great book on the subject is "Righteous Victims" by the Israel New Historian Benny Morris.

http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Morris

Benny Morris is not a sentimental leftist. He is by far the most respected historian in Israel.

Here is a dual review of Benny Morris' latest work in comparison to a Palestinian history of the creation of Israel:

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_03/858

(This dual review is by Gershom Gorenberg)

Benny Morris's Righteous Victims is one of the most balanced accounts of the Zionist-Arab conflict. It covers the years 1880 to 2001. It neither demonizes nor whitewashes the tough decisions Jewish leaders made before and after achieving statehood. https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

Honestly, if you truly want to learn about the conflict to a deep level, you need to spend some time reading non-biased historical books. I always recommend Righteous Victims, Martin Gilbert's book, and Six Days of War.

The first two will give a good overview of the entire conflict, from the first waves of Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine to the modern conflict, and Six Days of War will give you a good understanding of how and why Israel came to occupy the West Bank and Gaza (and how hard they tried not to occupy either).

That being said, if you want a cliff notes version for this:

>And I want evidence that Israel is a real state and Palestine isn't

Here goes.

Jews were relentlessly persecuted across the world for many centuries, and the persecution intensified in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Thousands were killed in pogroms, they were denied rights, and generally treated like shit. Many of them started to flee to early Palestine, which was not a state, but a territory controlled by the Ottomans until WWI, then taken over by the British. There were already many Jews living there, Jews who had stayed there since the beginning of the Diaspora. For example, in the 1850s, the first census of Jerusalem was taken and the city had a Jewish majority.

The British saw the need for Jews to have a safe place to live in order to escape worldwide persecution, so they wrote a paper known as the Balfour declaration, which stated their goal to establish a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. This encouraged much more immigration of Jews. Increasing violence, especially in Europe encouraged immigration even more.

However, violence by Arabs against Jews in Mandatory Palestine began in the 1920s, with many large scale riots against Jewish immigration, and hundreds and hundreds of Jews were killed. Riots continued for 1930s. Essentially, the reasons boiled down to the fact that the Arabs in the area feared Jewish immigration and thought they would be adversely affected (even though huge numbers of Arabs were themselves immigrating to Mandatory Palestine because there was more economic opportunity there).

Eventually it got bad enough in the 1930s that the British created a commission (the Peel commission), to propose a partition of the land. The Peel commission mapped out a very small Jewish state, and a very large Arab state. The Jews cautiously accepted, but the Arabs rejected it.

Note here that I use the word "Arabs" and not "Palestinians." This is because at that time, the Arabs in Palestine didn't consider themselves Palestinians, nor was there a movement for Palestinian nationalism. They wanted the entire region to be incorporated into Syria, and they even drafted official declarations stating this desire. They didn't identify as Palestinians until the 1960s when Palestinian nationalism started as a movement.

So anyway, the 1940s rolled around, and the British realized they were losing control. Both Arabs and Jews were attacking them (Arabs because they wanted a total halt to Jewish immigration, Jews because the British already instituted strict limits to Jewish immigration in response to Arab riots).

They basically handed the whole mess over to the UN. The UN created a new partition plan, with a state for Jews and a state for Arabs. The Jews said yes, the Arabs said no, and instead attacked the new Jewish state with the help of all the surrounding Arab nations. Israel won.

Between 1948 and 1967, Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt controlled Gaza. The Arabs in those territories didn't fight against Jordan or Egypt or demand statehood. Instead, they continued to attack the new state of Israel. The surrounding Arab states as well started to call for attacking Israel. This escalated until 1967, when war was preempted by Egypt's actions. Israel attacked, war began again with all the surrounding nations. Because they were being attacked from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel retaliated into those territories, and Egypt withdrew from Gaza (and the Sinai peninsula) and Jordan withdrew from the West Bank.

This is, of course, a very partial history with many important aspects left out. But the bottom line is this: Israel is a "real" country because it accepted international partition offers on multiple occasions, fought a war in which surrounding countries tried to destroy it, and successfully defended its borders in several other defensive wars. "Palestine" is not yet a country because its leaders refused all offers of peace and statehood, including later offers like Camp David in 2000.

It sounds like your professor didn’t tell you anything about the violence that Palestinians committed against Jews before and during the creation of Israel.

Here are some starting points for you:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936–1939_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world

https://www.ushmm.org/research/publications/academic-publications/full-list-of-academic-publications/nazi-palestine-the-plans-for-the-extermination-of-the-jews-of-palestine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947–48_Civil_War_in_Mandatory_Palestine

Here are a couple academic books you can read by a historian who is known to be among the most even-handed (not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine):

https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

https://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Refugee-Problem-Revisited-Cambridge/dp/0521009677/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539091713&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=birth+of+the+palestinian+refugee+problem&dpPl=1&dpID=41k290p1ICL&ref=plSrch

Now here are a few things for you to think about:

Why is your professor so intent on piling you with pro-Palestinian sources that she’s giving you fictional novels to read? Does that sound like she is trying to teach you or indoctrinate you?

It sounds like your professor has taught you about Jews expelling Arabs from the area they controlled, but didn’t teach you about how Arabs expelled Jews from the area they controlled. Why do you think that is? Do you think teaching students about each side’s violence would yield different opinions than only teaching about the Jews’ violence and framing all Palestinian violence only as a reaction?

It’s good that you asked about the other side of the issue and sought out reading material explaining it. But how many of your classmates do the same? What impression do you think that leaves them with? Do you think at the end of your class they will have a good understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict, or a distorted impression?

What do you think are your school and your professor’s responsibilities to their students with respect to informing them of the facts of topics they choose to study? How do you think the actual performance compares to their responsibilities?

If most schools have intro professors like yours (on this topic and others, but especially this), what effect do you think that has for the current generation of students?

You said you keep up on current events in the Israeli-Arab conflict. What sources are you reading? Is it only left-wing sources? Centrist sources? A mix of left, right, and center?

FWIW, I find Ynetnews.com, the online version of Israel’s most popular newspaper, to be the best source. You are better off if you supplement it with the New York Times (pro-Palestinian editorial board, but the news articles are pretty fair). USA Today and Bloomberg tend to be pretty fair too.

My personal recommendation would be these books:

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris. This book covers the history of the first Arab-Israeli war, with great detail given for how the war was conducted, the events of it, and how the Israelis managed to succeed in winning the war itself. This focuses on the lead-up to war from the Civil War that had been going on before, and discusses the various fronts.

Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict: 1881-2001 by Benny Morris.

If you decide to read the case for Israel, read beyond chutzpah after.
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Chutzpah-Misuse-Anti-Semitism-History/dp/0520245989

I recommend
http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

I'd be happy to help answer any questions to the best of my ability. I'd also recommend learning about the conflict not via a historical book arguing a particularly interpretation but rather a documentary source book. This one is wonderful and will give you direct access to many primary source documents so that you can make up your own mind about the conflict.

After learning the primary sources, then it's worth reading some more opinionated histories, like Benny Morris's or Efraim Karsh's.

The best advice I can give is to not forget that the conflict is really about people. People whose lives, families, and societies are on the line and whom are often caught up in the games of much bigger players who care little for them.

I thought we already went over this peaker, if you continue this childish behavior I will stop taking your seriously. As for the quotes above, I provided the links in the blue text, they are not from "jewsagainstzionism"

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/iocin/israeli_police_will_not_face_trial_over_killing/c25nr7b?context=3

>I cited Benny Morris several times in there. Benny Morris is a well know, respected Israeli author.

>Here's the source for the first quote http://www.amazon.com/America-Founding-Israel-Investigation-Morality/dp/0964515709

>http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

Nothing you've said is consistent with the historical record.

I'd suggest reading this:
https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0679744754&pd_rd_r=TSZA492YBQ0EEEH5W9J1&pd_rd_w=VUApi&pd_rd_wg=sdyek&psc=1&refRID=TSZA492YBQ0EEEH5W9J1

Norman Finkelstein himself usually recommends these three books pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict:

​

Benny Morris, Righteous Victims

Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land

Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation

​

As an aside, I'd also highly recommend Finkelstein's own Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.


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I gave you a real answer.

>The one that calls itself a Jewish State. The one that says this state is for the {insert ethnic group here}

And i'll give you this last bit of attention in regard to your diversity shtick

>"In my heart, there was joy mixed with sadness: joy that the nations at last acknowledged that we are a nation with a state, and sadness that we lost half of the country, Judea and Samaria, and , in addition, that we [would] have [in our state] 400,000 [Palestinian] Arabs."

Those where the words of David Ben Gurion, Israel's first leader. Found in:
https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

The dates of the quotes in the JP article are from the mid to late 1960's. There was a campaign of terror against the indigenous Arab civilians since the 1930's

Many of the people who were involved in the earlier terror campaign were involved in the massacres and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians during the 1948 conflict. (Before the denial, I would ask you read some mainstream Israeli historians, it is accepted; http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754 l
http://www.amazon.com/Scars-War-Wounds-Peace-Israeli-Arab/dp/0195325427/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318174623&sr=1-2)

The Arabs had nothing to do with the holocaust. They had done nothing to be made the target of terrorism, massacres and ethnic cleansing in their homelands.