Best israel & palestine history books according to redditors
We found 750 Reddit comments discussing the best israel & palestine history books. We ranked the 245 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 750 Reddit comments discussing the best israel & palestine history books. We ranked the 245 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Wow, this takes me back.
That said, for some reason the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just incredibly prone to stupidity, even more than most other troll-infested issues. When I was at university >20 years ago, there was an ongoing propaganda war between the "Israel Action Committee" and the "Muslim Student Union", who'd regularly gather at the entrance to campus to scream at each other while students tried to get past.
They had an ongoing flyer tit-for-tat, with really bad (this is pre-Photoshop) manipulated pictures. It was so awful that when I tried to take a course on the topic, with a really excellent Israeli professor who tried incredibly hard to present a moderate, totally even-handed view, the two groups would sit in the same seating areas in the lecture hall every session, glowering at each other. The moment one of them raise their hand, you knew that you had one of three options:
...because at that point, the class was just lost.
On that note, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by Mark Tessler is a great read.
I recommend two books actually: [The Iron Cage] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Iron-Cage-Palestinian-Statehood/dp/0807003093) and [The Iron Wall] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Iron-Wall-Israel-Paperback/dp/0393321126). Each book shows how one society was shaped and the impact it had on the conflict. Neither book blames anyone but they show the rational that went into the decisions at the time,
I was a history major. I did some extensive research on the events of 1948. While the OP's account is largely accurate, there are some extenuating omissions. Be aware that any account that portrays either the Jews or the Palestinians as fully culpable is essentially promulgating propaganda. There were the assholes, and there were the assholes. This is what happened between the assholes and the assholes:
Beginning around the 1900's Jews began immigrating from Europe to what is today Israel. There were always tensions between the Palestinians and the Jews who shared the land. After WWII, there was widespread pressure to give the Jews a homeland, so in 1947, the UN voted to grant some narrow strips of land in what is now Israel to the Jews. It should be noted that the area that was granted to the Jews is less than 50% of the size of Israel today (not including the West Bank).
When the UN vote passed, the entire Arab world was in uproar. Britain was to hand Israel over to the Jews on May, 15th 1948. Skirmishes arose between the Palestinians and Jews; these skirmishes slowly escalated into a full-scale civil war (which was not the War of Independence, as the OP asserts). Arabs states held back their attacks, promising to launch an invasion only after the British left and the Jews declared independence. The Jews, determined to realize their goal of becoming an independent state, knew they were going to declare independence. However, they feared that even with the civil war won, the Palestinian populations living right near their borders would provide aid and protection to the invading forces. In order to eliminate the threat of Palestinians aiding the Arab invasion, the Haganah (a precursor to today's Israeli Defense Force) and the Irgun (a right-wing militia) engaged in tactics ranging from the civil to the brutal aimed at ousting the Palestinians (some of whom left voluntarily). About six months after the civil war broke out, a day before the end of the British Mandate and with a sizable buffer between the Jews and the Arab states, the Jews declared Independence.
What happened on May 15th? The Arab states did indeed mount an attack on Israel, but they ultimately lost what is known by the Israelis as the War of Independence. Although they were superior in number, the Arab attack was half-assed and disorganized. Arab soldiers weren't willing to risk their lives to oust Israelis -- who were ferociously defending their land. On March 10th, 1949, the Arab states surrendered and an armistice was signed. As part of the armistice, a much larger patch of land (which is still smaller than Israel today), was extracted from the Arabs as the price of losing their invasion. The rest of what is Israel today only became part of Israel in 1967.
Also, on Deir Yassin: After any battle, the Palestinians would overestimate their losses while the Haganah and Irgun would underestimate the Palestinian losses. Deir Yassin was an anomaly because the Irgun estimate was larger than the Palestinian estimate. Researchers speculate that the Irgun overestimated the numbers to intimidate the neighboring Palestinians into leaving on their own -- which many did. While probably not the vicious massacre that was reported, Deir Yassin was nonetheless a bloody invasion.
If anybody wants to read up on this further, this is probably the most impartial book I've found: http://www.amazon.com/1948-History-First-Arab-Israeli-War/dp/0300151128/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343631186&sr=8-2&keywords=1948
Edit: I realize that this is a very emotional issue for some, but I do my best to provide an even-handed approach. There is information here that both pro-Israel and anti-Israel people would want to downvote. If you take issue, please respond with a comment.
Mark Tessler's A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is often cited as a very balanced work on the subject.
/r/AskHistorians also has some good information such as:
There are many others on the sub as well, but I think that covers the most frequent topics I have heard about Israel.
For a few more books My Promised Land by Ari Shavit is about the history of Israel, Shavit is a writer for Haaretz which is a very 'left' publication in Israel. Also, Israel by Daniel Gordis Gordis has written for a variety of publications including the New York Times and the New Republic
We have also had some posts here on /r/NeutralPolitics about this subject, which are a bit more modern than AH:
The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951 by Ilan Pappe, and The War for Palestine by Avi Shlaim agree with Morris.
Trust me. From the hundreds of tomes and articles I've read on the subject, there is no such thing as an objective history of Israel. It's impossible. There's simply too much emotional and cultural baggage that people have to lug around.
You just have to critically sift through the arguments. Saying that one Israeli historian fundamentally disagrees with another historian is like pointing out that Israel's flag has a Star of David on it... Not a huge surprise.
Former President Jimmy Carter actually wrote a book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
Everything you know about Hitler and WWII is conditioned into you by a joint government-corporate-academic military grade psychological operation that's been running almost continuously since the end of the war. It ramped up big time in the 70's.
https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614
https://www.amazon.com/German-Villainy-Benton-Bradberry-2012-07-03/dp/B01FEK8ZKM/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_6?keywords=myth+of+german+villainy&qid=1556886600&s=books&sr=1-6-fkmrnull
What's funny is that Spencer didn't salute at that event. He raised a glass of whiskey. Every shot the MSM uses is a pulled back phone camera behind someone's head. There are many other cameras at the event though and he's clearly just raising his glass. Several attendees at the event did salute, the cold calculating intellectual and political powerhouse Tia 'Tequila' was one of them, and I can assure your her and the others had not the faintest idea about fascism and national socialism and were just doing it to be edgy.
Your post also seems to assume we are offended to be linked to Hitler and the national socialists. Many in the alt right are not. Many of us are are unabashed 3rd positionists (aka as fashists or national socialists). The 3rd positionist wing of the alt right strongly dissuades nazi paraphernalia, especially at public events. You can be confident that anyone with a big swastika flag is a spook. For example nobody knew who the fuck this guy was.
The dissident community isn't afraid to seriously look at the source history and the context of what Hitler did and what he was fighting for. If you were to truly explore what really went on during both wars and how the family and tribe that shall not be named manipulated and orchestrated them you'd probably change your tune about Hitler. Instead most people allow their opinion to be shaped for them by slick manipulation of consensus. I could show you several examples of these public consensus manipulation events but it would bump up against rule 6. The Phillip Rushton Suzuki debate is one example.
The fact that he'd write this book calling out Israel demonstrates that Jimmy Carter has more fucking sack than any present day western public figure.
TLDR the international plan was not just a "sorry about that whole holocaust thing" that called for booting out the Palestinians. The Zionist concept of an independent Jewish state predates the Holocaust by decades, and plans had been drafted well before Hitler rose to power in Germany. By the time the UN voted to partition the country, a large Jewish community had been living in Palestine for sixty+ years, and smaller Arab-Jewish communities predated even the aliyahs.
Disclaimer: I have attempted to avoid biased language in this. I did not have space to cover every massacre or infraction by either side. This is intended to be a brief overview of the situation and a starting point to read and learn more about this immensely complicated subject, not a comprehensive history of the creation of Israel. It should be noted that Zionist != Jewish != Israeli. Likewise Arab != Muslim != Palestinian. There are and were Arab Christians, Arab Jews, and non-Arabs all involved in the situation.
Sources (just the first two I grabbed off my shelf):
Lacquer, Walter. The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict , 7th Edition.
Gelvin, David. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War.
The conflict is too politicized to find an 'unbiased' primer. You largely have to read the histories, be very critical in your thinking as you do so, and do background checks on who is telling you what and consider why they might lean towards a certain viewpoint.
I'm not sure where you want to start from... you could start with the Old Testament. But presuming you're looking for a more recent analysis, Tom Segev's One Palestine, Complete might be a good starting point. It deals with the time frame of 1917-1948, i.e. the critical few decades just before the creation of Israel.
You might want to check out this interesting book and then you'll find out that katsas operate in different countries...so no surprise about NZ.
"Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," authored by Jimmy Carter, published in 2007.
I'll begin by noting that anti-Semitism was not historically prevalent among the Arabs to the degree it is today. The Qur'an offers protected status to the Jews, and members of that people rose to high positions in the governments and societies of various Islamic lands--notably Cordoba.
The Qur'an does make reference to three Jewish tribes that lived in the city of Yathrib (now called Medina). These tribes were each expelled for various reasons, mostly relating to betraying the conditions of the Constitution of Medina. You can find out more about each of those tribes by following these links: Banu Qurayza; Banu Qaynuqah; Banu Nadir. Now, most Qur'anic injunctions against Jews refered specifically to members of these tribes but not all Muslims have seen it that way historically.
Now, for modern anti-semitism, there are various reasons.
Firstly, there is the complexity of the current Middle East's political and national divisions. It was not the Arabs who divided the ME into Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and so forth. The English and French did this according to the provisions of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Sadly, they paid no attention to the desires of the people whose land they were dividing, nor did they consider ethnic, tribal and cultural differences in carving up the land. This created a fairly tense political climate. Complicating matters, Britain had promised to return all this land to the Arabs in return for their help against the Ottomans in WW1. However, simultaneously, Britain also offered this land, in spirit, to the Jews involved in the quest for a Jewish homeland, in the Balfour Declaration. All of this served to create a rather hostile climate, struggles for power and authority, and so forth.
Next comes changes in Jewish migration to the Holy Land. Before WW2 many Jews had returned there, and were living (generally peacefully) with their Arab neighbours. Jewish novelist Leon Uris offers a fictionalized account of such in his novel Exodus. While there were ocassional squabbles, and sometimes outright revolts things didn't really come to a head until just after WW2, when, instead of a few dozen Jews arriving at a time, hundreds--and then thousands--began to show. The driving need for a safe haven, underscored by the horrors of the Holocaust, drove many Zionist Jews to desperation. The tactics of groups such as Irgun and Lehi certainly involved terrorism, and were condemned by prominent Jews like Albert Einstein. More on this violence here.
The unilateral foundation of Israel in 1948 was the last straw for many Arabs. Not only were the Palestinians now displaced, but lands that had been Arab for a long time, and which were to be returned to the Arabs, were taken away. Since then US financial and military aid has made Israel a force to reckoned with, and has continued to foster anti-Israeli sentiment.
Additionally, the Israelis have proven to be capable soldiers, scoring victories in the 1948 war; The Six Day War; The Yom Kippur War and so on. These wins for Israel were stinging defeats for the Arabs, who still remember.
Now, over the last 50 or 60 years Arab nations have used the existence of Israel as a means to motivate their people and deflect criticism from government. When people have become angered with a regime in power, those regimes often use Israel as a geo-political boogeyman. Playing off the sense of community that exists among many Muslims allows ME governments to generate sympathy for the Palestinians and, therefore, anger towards the Israelis. In the ME, just as in the West, people don't always distinguish between "Jewish" and "Israeli", though the two terms are not synonyms.
Now, all this covers the basics, and only the absolute basics. If you want more I'll provide you a deeper examination of the topic.
Some additional reading, in addition to wikipedia:
Herf, Jeffrey The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World
Lewis, Bernard The Jews of Islam
Segev, Tom One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
Shipler, David Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land
Stillman, Norman The Jews of Arab Lands.
I just read Israel by Daniel Gordis. It is a history of Israel and Zionism from the 19th century to today. I felt it was very well written. The book is long, but I could not put it down.
I'm currently reading The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. This one is about dispelling common myths used to de-legitimize Israel. Since he is a lawyer, the book is written in a style that makes it read like a court case. It is a bit shorter but it might be what you are looking for if you need to take apart someone who argues that Zionism = colonialism.....
For more information, I recommend you read
[Force and Fanaticism: Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond]
(https://www.amazon.com/Force-Fanaticism-Wahhabism-Arabia-Beyond/dp/1849044643)
Describes the history of Wahhabism and its effects. Author spent time in Saudi Arabia.
[The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State] (https://www.amazon.com/ISIS-Apocalypse-History-Strategy-Doomsday/dp/1250112648/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496875330&sr=1-1&keywords=The+ISIS+Apocalypse)
Self explanatory.
[Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection] (https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Unjust-Behind-U-S-Saudi-Connection/dp/1944869026/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496875675&sr=1-1&keywords=kingdom+of+the+unjust+behind+the+u.s.-saudi+connection)
Easy to read description of Saudi crimes.
[The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11] (https://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower-Al-Qaeda-Road-11/dp/1400030846/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496875754&sr=1-1&keywords=Looming+Tower)
Excellent narrative history of Al Qaeda. Highly recommended.
[My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir] (https://www.amazon.com/My-Year-Inside-Radical-Islam/dp/1585426113/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496875857&sr=1-1&keywords=My+Year+inside+Radical+Islam)
Not a wide-sweeping narrative but a personal story of someone who worked for a Saudi-funded charity and slowly adapted their beliefs.
[On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines -- and Future]
(https://www.amazon.com/Saudi-Arabia-People-Religion-Lines/dp/0307473287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496875930&sr=1-1&keywords=On+Saudi+Arabia)
Written by a reporter who spent years in Saudi Arabia, gives a description of Saudi society.
[The Siege of Mecca: The 1979 Uprising at Islam's Holiest Shrine] (https://www.amazon.com/Siege-Mecca-Uprising-Islams-Holiest/dp/0307277739/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496876042&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Siege+of+Mecca)
A great history of an almost unknown terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. Goes into the relationship between the Saudi royal family and Wahhabi religious establishment.
[Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror]
(https://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Enemy-Jihadist-Ideology-Terror/dp/0300122578/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496876149&sr=1-1&keywords=Knowing+the+Enemy)
Really good explanation of Salafi-Jihadism.
Edit: Added links and made it look nicer. If you want more, just ask. If anyone has any other recommendations, I would like to know. :)
http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026
I'd imagine that's a big part of it.
He's got to be about the only US President to bluntly denounce the policies in action in the Occupied Territories.
book link
It sounds like you have two subjects, Sam Harris on Israel and is there anything stopping them. I am no friend to Islam, in fact I am in agreement with Sam that "it's the mother load of bad ideas." However, my feelings towards Islam does not blind me to the plight of the Palestinians. It's painful to watch and the sorrow that Israel heaps upon them only fuels and legitimizes the Arab/Muslim world against the West, specifically the US for funding Israel. What is going on there is nothing short of globally accepted genocide.
I too am a huge fan of Sam Harris. For the most part, I agree with everything he so eloquently states...except for Israel. I listen to his podcast every day and find myself marveling at his use of the English language in expressing such well thought out concepts and ideas. However, I try to avoid his talks on Israel, but it's really not that hard since it doesn't come up much. I just accept him for being soft on the subject.
Regarding "nothing stopping them" I hate to submit to the idea that they are on the path to steamroll all Palestinians and nothing will stop them. As long as the US is their money-guy, they will do whatever they want and nobody can say anything. Why? Because there is a huge Israeli lobby by the name of AIPAC that will destroy any American politician that questions Israel. They are organized towards one goal and fund both right and left leaning politicians and to see that goal come true, which is to ensure Israel takes ownership of the entire country of Israel and push out the Palestinians. Zionism is alive and well and its victim is the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, to say anything about the subject turns the speaker into a bigot and antisemite; there is no room to criticize Israel.
I suggest reading two books on the subject The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy and Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
It isn't the narrative of the country, it's just part of the current thought process post-WWII. It's impossible to not be affected by something like that on a cultural level, and reinforced by the weight put on it by basically everyone, Jewish or not. Israel did have a lot of refugees from WWII but they were also actively being limited by Britain, like refugee ships being intercepted and diverted away from Israel, because they were trying to adhere to an immigration limit to appease the Arab population.
Re: books, I'm currently reading this one that I highly recommend. It talks about all this stuff in great detail.
Israel guilty of a "false flag" attack? Could it be?
What would Israel have to gain from deploying chemical weapons in Syria - with the blame falling on the Assad regime? Would it benefit Israel if the world - and especially the US - were to react by increasing support for the "Syrian Rebels", or perhaps even becoming directly involved in the conflict?
Would such a "false flag" attack be out of character for Israel?
In a 1954 incident known as "The Lavon Affair", Israel recruited a group of Jews living in Israel to plant bombs targeting Egyptian, British and US facilities. The idea was to blame Egyptian nationals, and to enrage the US and British in the hopes that the British would maintain troops in the Suez Canal Zone. Though the Israeli operatives were successful in fire-bombing an Egyptian post office, the US Information Agency and a British owned theater, their plans fell apart when one of the firebombs went off prematurely in the pocket of one of the False Flag saboteurs.
Israel immediately denied any involvement, and continued to deny for 51 years. In 2005 Israeli President Moshe Katzav officially honored the surviving conspirators with certificates of appreciation - effectively an official admission of what had long been common knowledge.
More on the Lavon Affair here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
The USS Liberty Incident is yet another example of an Israeli False Flag attack that occurred during the Six Day War in 1967. During this incident, the USS Liberty, a virtually unarmed vessel assigned to monitor communications, was ruthlessly attacked by Israeli forces for several hours. The Israelis unleashed torpedoes, napalm and relentless machine gun fire on the helpless crew - killing 34 seamen, and injuring 171 others. The apparent goal of the attack was to sink the Liberty and lay the blame of the attack on Egypt (again), in the hopes of drawing the US into the war on the side of Israel.
The plan ultimately failed because in spite of the Israelis' best efforts, the Liberty stubbornly remained afloat, with its heroic crew members taking great risks to restore communications with their US counterparts.
As with the Lavon Affair, Israel denied and continues to deny that the attack on this US flagged ship was anything other than an "accident". I suspect we'll have to wait a few more years before Israel admits to the dastardly deed by "honoring" the soldiers who participated in the attack, as they did the perpetrators of the Lavon Affair.
More information on the Liberty Incident can be found here http://www.usslibertyveterans.org/ and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Liberty Incident is that the story was officially hushed-up by the Johnson Administration, and that the survivors of this cut-throat attack were ordered not to speak of this tragic stab in the back by our "ally".
Israel and its infamous Mossad are well known for employing sinister, underhanded and deceptive tactics to achieve their goals. For example, it is well documented that Israeli Intelligence deliberately fed the US false information with the intent of goading the US into attacking Iraq in 2003.
There are many other incidents in which the Israelis have allegedly utilized false-flag operations, the above are only two examples that are well known and highly documented.
Is it possible that Israel may have deployed chemical weapons in Syria, as retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff alleges in the article?
Certainly. "By Way Of Deception, Thou Shalt Do War."
http://www.amazon.com/By-Way-Deception-Making-officer/dp/0971759502
While I am not in the least surprised when Israel pulls off such stunts, I am deeply troubled that in administration after administration, the US kowtows to the Zionist State, and that no matter how much trouble she causes us in blood, treasure and reputation, countless politicians from both parties line up to pledge fealty, and support them with cash, arms, technology and UN Security Council vetoes.
Whose interests are our elected officials representing, and at what cost to us?
Yeah, the history of the foundation of Israel is much more complex than you'd think.
I recommend One Palestine, Complete for a thorough and impartial, if rather dry, discussion of the period.
I have the book that you mention by Harms & Ferry, and I can confirm that it is a very good intro to the topic, and well worth buying.
Another good introduction is The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War by James Gelvin, which was a required textbook for me at Uni. It doesn't appear to be available from Amazon.com though, so you might want to look around for it. It is available on Google Books so you can have a look at it there.
Another good book for further reading (specifically about Palestinian identity) is The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi.
Hope that helps.
Israel: A History, by Martin Gilbert
The media is useless. Honestly, just do some reading. I highly recommend History of the Middle East. It's a very in-depth, impartial look at the Middle East starting with a quick one-chapter primer to get you up to speed from ancient to modern times, then going much more in-depth starting around 1800 up to modern day problems such as the Arab-Israeli conflict.
If you want to confine your reading to the Arab-Israeli conflict, then I would recommend The Iron Wall which will start you off around 1947, post WWII.
The Israel/Gaza fiasco is just the latest in a looooong chain of events. Again, anyone coming down solely on one side over the other is simply ignorant of all of the facts. There's no such thing as an innocent player in this and to pretend there is is simply foolish.
Great choice of interest - I have studied Israel for the last couple of years and it has been very interesting.
There are two books I would recommend:
Martin Gilbert, Israel: a History. Almost 800 pages, but you could read it selectively. I recommend this because I often find that in order to understand something about Israel you need to know something about its background. The conflict starts a long time before the formation in 1948 when Jews bought land from the locals.
David Hirst. The gun and the olive branch. More focused on the conflict(s), but also sets out from the time before the declaration of state. Slightly shorter and more readable than Gilbert's book.
Both of them are well known books on the subject and perhaps more likely to be available from a nearby library. They also come as reasonably priced paperbacks.
Because Isreal exploits Holocaust Guilt
There's a great book about it --
The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering
by Norman G. Finkelstein
https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614
I would suggest to read a little more about the history of Israel creation. It started by Zionist terrorists that later became officials in the government they created.
Here is a book about it as well.
Not about my country, but I'd recommend reading [The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Israel-Palestine-Conflict-Hundred-Years/dp/0521888352) by James L. Gelvin. I used to think I knew what I needed to know about this conflict from watching news through the years, but after having read this I realize I didn't have a clue. Unbiased, interesting and at times witty. My favourite quote, about the Americans accepting Soviet participation in the Madrid Conference: "American policymakers believed, in the words of an old arabian proverb, that it was better to have a camel inside your tent pissing out than a camel outside your tent pissing in."
If you're starting to read his books, I recommend picking up ["The Holocaust Industry"] (https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1781685614&pd_rd_r=97d5364c-5a0c-11e8-a956-456fc52f333f&pd_rd_w=16qEm&pd_rd_wg=1g1Mc&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=7967298517161621930&pf_rd_r=0T0GZ21H6HQKNTF72WSZ&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=0T0GZ21H6HQKNTF72WSZ), ["Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict"] (https://www.amazon.com/Image-Reality-Israel-Palestine-Conflict-Revised/dp/1859844421/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526587388&sr=1-1&keywords=image+and+reality+of+the+israel-palestine+conflict&dpID=414Zbglcz4L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch), and [his most recent book] (https://www.amazon.com/Gaza-Inquest-into-Its-Martyrdom/dp/0520295714).
"The Holocaust Industry" isn't as provocative now as it is was when he first wrote the book, but it still solidly holds up today. An troubling insight into the "exploitation of Jewish suffering," as he states. It's fairly short compared his other works, but that's the work which brought him into the spotlight.
"Image and Reality" is a good starting point with Finkelstein on understanding the conflict, as he dissects, piece-by-piece, common false talking points and assertions over the conflict (Joan Peters, Benny Morris, Abba Eban, amongst others); his introduction to the book's second edition provides an excellent overview of the history.
Though, it'd be an understatement not to recommend his latest book. By far the largest amount of footnotes, and he affirms by his maxim of making the book as well-sourced and truthful "as is humanly possible". He details the Mavi Marmara incident, Operation Cast Lead, and Operation Protective Edge, and the inconsistent reporting of human rights organizations. The book's final statements, especially, cut deep. Certainly his best work, indeed his magnum opus.
Sometime later on I might go through "Beyond Chutzpah" (it's labeled as his "sequel" to "The Holocaust Industry"), but the three books above are a great start at the very least.
If you really want to know, I recommend this book: 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris.
This is a tricky thing in terms of online sources, since the form sort of lends itself to pointing towards contemporary issues, rather than strict historicism. I'll recommend a few books that I think directly address some of the issues you're interested in below. What I might actually suggest is digging around for primary sources on the internet for this issue. One kind of nice side effect of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict is that pretty much all of the major primary documents have been reproduced online! And many of the non-English ones have been translated into English! I suggest taking some time to actually read the Balfour Declaration, the Sykes-Picot agreement, UN Res. 242, the Hamas Charter, the Israeli Constitution, the Oslo Accords, etc., etc..
Additionally, if you want even deeper primary source info, you can get that too. The US National Archives has made public and digital thousands of primary documents related to this subject on it's website. A simple search for Israel, as an example, returns over 1,700 documents that are in the Online Public Holdings. Similar searches at the British Public Records Office can be done as well.
Some recommended reading:
Israel Gershoni, Confronting Fascism in Egypt
Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim, The War for Palestine, 1948
Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity
Mausim needs to read 'The Iron Wall' by an Israeli historian who used historical documents. The truth hurts. Israel has been the aggressor since day one. . .
http://www.amazon.com/The-Iron-Wall-Israel-Paperback/dp/0393321126
Fun fact: Israel once threatened war with Jordan because some prize-winning sheep wandered across the border into Jordan. Israel was willing to go to war over sheep!
I always recommend three books for people who want to start learning about the subject:
Righteous Victims by Benny Morris
Israel, a history by Martin Gilbert
and Six Days of War by Michael Oren
Between those three, you have a good introduction. The Morris and Gilbert are both comprehensive histories covering everything from the early Zionists to modern day. They have very different interpretations; it's not that either one is wrong, they just place emphasis on different aspects. And the Oren is the best overview of the six day war which was the most important war in terms of causes of the present day conflict.
Just how much do you know about Saudi Arabia or the Saudi political system? I ask because in your first sentence, you state that a decapitation strike against the Saudi government pushes the royal family from power, yet the House of Saud is comprised of roughly 15,000 people--2,000 of which have power in one form or another in the government. Additionally, there are systems in place to help facilitate succession of the kingdom. And there are entire military services dedicated to ensuring the security of the government against internal threats. So the idea of a decapitation strike is fairly unlikely, which is to say nothing of the numerous other political and societal structures in place that would either facilitate or inhibit any attempt at a coup (especially by a non-state actor).
Before you continue drafting your storyline, I encourage you to read up on the history of Saudi Arabia, political Islam and Islamic extremism, and the international relations of the Arab World. Additionally, I would suggest taking a greater look at the Grand Mosque seizure of 1979 and its aftermath, and instances of a monarchy being overthrown by a non-royal entity. The coups against King Farouk of Egypt (1952), King Faisal II of Iraq (1958), King Idris I of Libya (1969), and the attempted coup against King Hussayn of Jordan (1970) might be good places to start. Not all of them will be applicable to you, but it should give you an idea of what a coup entails, what a successful coup looks like, and what the aftermath is.
With that in mind, I suggest the following books as a place to start:
History of Saudi Arabia and the Arab World
Middle East Politics
Islam and Political Islam
Jihadism and Islamic Extremism
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.
That's part of the idea. Make the waters so muddled that it's too difficult to cut through the good-faith replies from the bad-faith replies. Make it so that you eventually just lose interest since it's not you being directly affected!
Here are some good debates to get your started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ux4JU_sbB0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6To-o-aiRg
I'd also recommend reading President Jimmy Carter's Peace Not Apartheid (amazon link not necessary, use your public library!). It's a decent, short primer to the conflict.
The Israel-Arab Reader is almost entirely composed of primary sources, with almost no commentary by the authors apart from the foreword and afterword.
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Arab-Reader-Documentary-History-Conflict/dp/0143113798
> Just google "Israel-Palestine Mark Tessler 2014", I forget the exact name.
It is very aptly called 'A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'. It's on its second edition now (2009).
amazon link
Jimmy Carter supports Palestine.
Is it any wonder that the media completely ignores him?
http://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Real-Enemy-False-Messiah/dp/0932863647/
http://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Enemy-David-Becomes-Goliath/dp/0932863663/
http://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Real-Enemy-Conflict-without/dp/0932863698/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gun-Olive-Branch-Violence/dp/1560254831
http://www.amazon.com/Disappearing-Palestine-Israels-Experiments-Despair/dp/1848130317
In that case, my nation-state (the US) could withdraw the billions of foreign aid we send to Israel every year. And to Egypt for not attacking Israel. (They're by far the top recipients, unless we count Iraq. And it's probably not even counting other forms of military aid we send them.) Let the mightiest and most militant survive without my nation's intervention.
Or, we could support the significant Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, and eliminate what president Carter calls "apartheid."
The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War would do the trick. $11 on amazon. Covers everything guitarbro suggested and more.
Suarez, pp 315-317: On July 23, 1954, Israeli agents blew up various post offices and cinemas and other UK and US-owned buildings in Egypt. "Egypt's arrests ignited charges of anti-Semitism". The chief rabbi of Egypt said it's not true.
> The typical view of the Western public was likely that expressed by the Manchester Guardian: the accusations against the defendants were too outrageous to be plausible.
> "What benefit could Israel have gained", it asked, from bombing American and British facilities?
The answer, however, soon became clear.
> In the blunt words of the CIA, Israel staged "Arab" bombings
to "embitter relations between Egypt and the West".
This is the tip of the iceberg.
More later.
> Being anti-Israel is totally fine, unless there's even a slightest wiff of, or connection to, anti-semitism, which there so often is.
Not my experience. Of the claims I have seen that particular criticisms of Israel are anti-semitic, I would say 8/10 are valid criticisms and are unfairly slandered on r/LabourUK as anti-semitism. Yes, 2/10 are a bit much, and indicate a bias against Jews. Even then I wouldn't call them anti-semitic. I would call them 'unbalanced'. Meanwhile outright anti-muslim comments like "Muslims are all criminals and rapists" are barely discussed.
In my opinion the anti-semitism label is definitely being used in a weaponised way to deflect criticism, as Norman Finkelstein documents in "Holocaust Industry" https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614. This happens on r/LabourUK quite a lot, and it is done very often by the moderators.
Jonathan Cook: West's Failure to Act Will Be Cause of the Next Gaza Massacre https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2018/05/16/wests-failure-to-act-will-be-cause-of-the-next-gaza-massacre/
Norman Finkelstein Explains the Extraordinary Evil That Is Israel https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/05/16/norman-finkelstein-explains-extraordinary-evil-israel/
Gilad Atzmon http://www.gilad.co.uk/
Uri Avnery http://original.antiwar.com/avnery/
Uri Avnery is now over 80 years old and used to be a member of the Knesset. He has been mixing with Israeli leaders for the last 50+ years. You might want to start with him.
Miko Peled - The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine https://www.amazon.co.uk/Generals-Son-Journey-Israeli-Palestine/dp/193598215X
Miko Peled writes occasional articles and does lectures and Youtube videos too. He is the son of a very famous Israeli General.
Is that enough to be going on with?
You don't get to take land from an population entirely innocent of the persecution of the European Jews without doing horrible things.
I urge you to take your own advice and read say The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War
You will get a far more balanced view of the conflict and get maybe a little insight to the Palestinian POV.
Why limit yourself to fiction? Here are a couple of nonfiction books that are great:
https://www.amazon.com/House-Saud-Said-Aburish/dp/0747578745
https://www.amazon.com/House-Bush-Saud-Relationship-Dynasties/dp/0743253396
https://www.amazon.com/Saudi-Arabia-People-Religion-Lines/dp/0307473287
All of these are really good. The Bush one does try to play politics, but its good none the less.
I thought that Benny Morris' 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War was an excellent account of the 1948 war. He also covers some of the pre-war history as well. I felt like it was a pretty even-handed treatment of that particular conflict.
> SHOW ME WHERE HAMAS HAS STATED THEY ACCEPT ISRAEL HAS A RIGHT TO EXIST
> SOME ME WHERE HAMAS HAS STATED PUBLICLY THEY WANT A 2 STATE SOLUTION
Haaretz: Hamas accepted two-state solution
NPR: Hamas Foreign Minister: We Accept Two-State Solution With '67 Borders
HuffingtonPost:Senior Hamas Member, Reportedly Says Hamas Ready To Accept Israel's Right To Exist
Guardian: Hamas accepts two-state idea, says former US President Jimmy Carter
BBC: Hamas has agreed to a document backing a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel
UN April 2014: Hamas-Fatah reached agreement to work together to establish two-state solution
Mark Tessler. A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
> The Palestinians have shown serious interest in a two-state solution since the mid-1970s, and its mainstream leadership has embraced the concept since the 1982 Arab Summit
Hello! I'll suggest the following:
I hope this will help you understand the conflict. Have a enlightening read~!
I would recommend you to read a good book about Israel, for example A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time by Howard M. Sachar and base your opinions on solid historical facts.
"For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, clean, and wrong."
http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-1948-First-Arab-Israeli-War/dp/B000ROI67I
http://www.amazon.com/1948-History-First-Arab-Israeli-War/dp/0300151128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325011672&sr=1-1
Victor Ostrovsky (Former Mossad case agent) described the assassination of El-Mashad in his book By Way of Deception. He described the assassination of Gerald Bull, the Canadian engineer, as well.
It is indeed a complex situation, but these would be a good start:
Earlier history:
For more contextual books, I would recommend:
A standard history of the region is important, as well as info about the colonizers who defined Palestine's borders, and then Israel's. Here are just some initial thoughts, but definitely keep searching.
A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (read this years ago; assuming it's been updated?)
The Lemon Tree (good book that really humanizes the conflict)
If you're looking for scholarly history research, the first books from Benny Morris like 1948 and After are as unbiased as you can get in this controversial issue. His later books, on the other hand, are more complete and include new relevant information that came since to the light, but you'll have to take into account that he went to the far-right politically by then.
If you are looking for lighter reading, O Jerusalem!, from Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins is pretty balanced (though still slightly pro-Israel). I still prefer the The Gun and the Olive Branch, from David Hirst, but the author does not hide his sympathy for the Palestinians' plight in that one. Not such a bad thing, I would say, as long as you stay true to the facts and your heart is in the right place.
yeah, one of the things that pisses me off so much about the "israel = evil" brigade is the absolute lack of responsibility laid on the palestinian "leaders" who have fucked over their own people over and over with zero criticism.
israel has done terrible things as a state, there's no denying that, but it's hardly a one sided issue. i strongly suggest that anyone really interested in the subject read an academically published, unbiased history that doesn't cut too many corners (it's gonna be around 1000 pages at least.) i found this one to be very very good http://www.amazon.com/History-Israeli-Palestinian-Conflict-Indiana-Islamic/dp/025322070X
Eh, it's among the more ok-ish pieces on the topic that's out there. Sure he's biased, and some of his points are awkward at best, but the amount of either anti-semitic or anti-Arab nonsense is just mind blowing. It's hard enough to find anything that provides original sources.
And regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of scholarship on the subject, al-Husseini had some pretty reprehensible ideas.
This is one of the best books on the history of Middle East conflict - if you search a bit, you can find PDFs of older versions.
It's a crazy complicated history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some of the earliest Jewish settlements were to escape Russian pogroms in the late 1800s. During this time the area we refer to as Israel or Palestine now was under control of the Ottoman Empire, which were relatively religiously tolerant provided citizens paid their taxes to include the Jizyah. Fast forward about 30-40 years, the Ottoman Empire (one of the Central Powers during WW1) is dissolved into many of the modern day states of the middle east by the British and French (Sykes-Picot Agreement). One of the easiest ways to see this is the hard angular lines of country's borders in the middle east. Anyway, when the the British and French divided the territories of the Ottoman Empire, the British ended up with Palestine. The British ran a provisional government of sorts during this time and ultimately the Jewish settlers of the area had far more experience with Western European notions of bureaucracy than the Arab Palestinians (far more accustomed the the rule of authoritarian's like the Ottoman Sultan). Anyway this continues for roughly the next 50 years with Jewish settlement continuing in several waves referred to as Aliyahs (Return in Hebrew if I remember correctly). Post WW2 the UN grants Israel statehood. This is a crazy crazy simplification of a highly complex issue but if your interested in reading about it, I would look into these 3 books.
​
Land, Labor and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Land & Power: The Zionist Resort to Force
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis Revisited
Some people claim it is more, and they too are persecuted. Anything that deviates from the "official government story" is considered blasphemy to these people, even if you think it was worse than they actually propose. An excellent book was written about this crowd by Norman Finkelstein (whose parents were in concentration camps).
https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614
A really interesting book I read on Saudi Arabia once, On Saudi Arabia. Worth a read for anyone interested in learning more about the Kingdom.
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.
Still not seeing any facts adduced.
You gave me links to sites created by---
Give me their surnames.
(Forgive me for this request. But, to understand the credibility of any claim, we have to know who is making the claim.)
We don't want to lapse into the error of circular reasoning. That is to say, intelligent people aren't impressed by the zealot who says "I know the Bible is true because the Bible says so". Anymore than they're moved by "I know the Jews lost 6 million in World War II because the Jews said so."
So give me the surnames of the people running the websites you linked to.
Let us all learn more about these objective impartial fonts of truth you credulously promote. I'm just curious. Are these the same credible sources that have also "proven" that the Romans murdered four billion Jews at Bethar (as the Talmud says)?
I'm just going to leave this here: https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3HB558T1F1URP&keywords=the+holocaust+industry+by+norman+finkelstein&qid=1570360846&sprefix=The+holocaust+industry%2Caps%2C203&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483129182&sr=8-1&keywords=the+holocaust+industry
I want to also recommend "The Case for Israel by Allen Dershowitz" all supporters and opposers of Israel should read it. Very well written in English.
The Case for Israel https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471679526/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_m-9OCbY9BZWSS
Great List.
The Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim is another that is worth reading.
I read this book a while back, A History of Israel. I felt it was very accurate and well structured, and for sure does not let Israel off the hook. Only problem is that he is not impartial when it comes to religious involvement in Israel's politics, using very negative and unnecessary language about them.
The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War by James Gelvin is a good overview that tries to touch on both sides. I read it in 2008 though, so it's not 100% up to date, but it's a good account of how we got where we are.
By Way of Deception, The Big White Lie, Reluctant Spy, and The Devil's Chessboard are a few that come to mind immediately.
Profiting from the holocuast. This is a true holcaust industry.
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.
Avi Shlaim's book, https://www.amazon.com/War-Palestine-Rewriting-History-Cambridge/dp/0521699347/
His essay http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Debate%20About%201948.html
Ironically, I actually got that from a pro-Palestine site. The book it references is Iron Wall, page 264. King Hussein of Jordan said:
>"... I was offered the return of something like 90 plus percent of the territories, 98 percent even, excluding [occupied East] Jerusalem, but I couldn't accept. As far as I am concerned, it was either every single inch that I was responsible for or nothing."
So outside of East Jerusalem, it would've been potentially 98% of the West Bank.
If you really wanted to learn about the conflict, I would suggest reading two books. One pro-Israel, and one pro-Palestinian. That way you get a better understanding of both sides. I recently read The Case for Israel, and it gives really good arguments against many Palestinian arguments, but it is much better if you already have a lot of background knowledge about the conflict.
This is probably the best source out there. It is incredibly balanced and incredibly comprehensive.
Historiska fel.
Propaganda.
Intressant läsning om du är intresserad av konflikten: http://www.amazon.com/The-Generals-Son-Journey-Palestine/dp/193598215X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407513484&sr=8-1&keywords=miko+peled (ja, man kan läsa en del online, det är bara att klicka!)
I won't argue your history but the rest of the world will. Miko Peled discusses the history from his father's involvement in the 6 day war, his father was General Peled. (You can buy it on Amazon) http://www.amazon.com/The-Generals-Son-Journey-Palestine/dp/193598215X
Please don't invoke the Nazi party. They believed in a Master Race (those kind of races for example where God gives them the right to do and act without consequence), the ability to secure territorial enlargement, and the harassment, marginalization, imprisonment, and killing of "undesirable" elements." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
I don't claim that the Nazi's were moral, but at least their motto was: "Treu, Tapfer, Gehorsam" "loyal, valiant, obedient." Compare this with the Israeli Mossad: בתחבולות תעשה לך מלחמה "With clandestine terrorism we will conduct war," or "By Way Of Deception, Thou Shalt Do War."
Thank you for the conversation. I'm enjoying this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
Apartheid is a discriminatory legal separation. In the US an example of apartheid was the famous blacks-only, whites-only water fountains in some parts of the US South. The term is famous from the racist system used by Israel's old ally, the country Israel worked with to develop nuclear weapons, the apartheid regime of South Africa.
The US president that negotiated the Israeli-Egyptian peace deal, Jimmy Carter, wrote a book on the topic: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
In one interview Carter described one aspect of Israeli apartheid this way: "When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects the 200-or-so settlements with each other, with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases even crossing the road, this perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa."
I read this book by Howard Sachar in a course I took in college, though it covers the era immediately preceding the foundations of the modern state of Israel. It seemed pretty fair to me, but then I grew up in an evangelical Christian household where Israel could do no wrong. He also wrote a book about the modern state. While I haven't read it, it does look promising.
This looks like another good one and probably has a better mix of Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. Pricey, though :(.
http://youtu.be/u57yxd753f8
http://youtu.be/Zm09uRDdzto
http://youtu.be/lpsxiMrgVK4
http://youtu.be/8O9AHzUKYk8
One person? Try looking online a bit, you will find hundreds of videos and descriptions of Hamas using schools, hospitals and civilian buildings as launch sites; along with Hamas telling civilians to ignore Israeli warnings to leave just to increase the body count.
One random video posted by a random user on YouTube is meaningless, for all I know you posted it and then called it out to further your antisemitic agenda.
>Nazi like colonization is simply not justifiable, you're wasting time.
Er... how much do you know about this conflict? If you think it's that simple then I suggest reading a few books on the topic, this and this and this are all good start points.
TestTube did a decent summary of what happened.
Also, why did you randomly go to this topic? We're talking about how Hamas is using human shields and how Al Jazeera, among others, have been clearly caught out in their pro-Hamas propaganda. If you can't back up your points in this argument don't try to change the topic...
>Furthermore, prior to the declaration of Israel, the future Israeli people had attempted over several decades to establish a mutually beneficial state
Read these and see how wrong that statement is,
http://www.amazon.com/Plowshares-into-Swords-Zionism-Israel/dp/1844672352
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Wall-Israel-Arab-World/dp/0393321126/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301948665&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Real-Enemy-False-Messiah/dp/0932863647/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301948693&sr=1-1
(the above is in 3 vols)
Thomas Freidman wrote From Beirut to Jerusalem about two decades ago and it is still such a great read.
>instead of feeling like you have a duty to argue this point, step back and try to actually explain to yourself why a tiny land mass like Israel needs 38 billion dollars for military operations
Ever hear of the Suez Canal? The Cold War? The aide program to Israel and Egypt which is why Israel and Egypt haven't fought a war in 40 years (something they used to do every 5-7 years prior to the US brokered 1978 Camp David Peace Deal).
Good for you for questioning things, but it seems like you have allowed yourself to follow a pretty biased and incomplete set of sources (600 babies killed in the 'Hannibal' raid - I mean come on).
And frankly
>we're all being completely duped into this shit
Is such a incomplete, shorthanded, non-nuanced view of the world that you should really stop and think about what leads you to believe you can boil complex geopolitical situations into such a tight and tidy narrative. The world is not that easy - it may be easier to believe you can see "behind the curtain" and understand the evil rich capitalists controlling the entire world like a comic book super-villain... but I submit to you that such a belief is frankly lazy and self centered.
This type of belief only allows you to feel like you have some deep understanding of the workings of the world and the multi-facted interests, dynamics, and peoples who shape history - but without the true historical knowledge to back it up.
__
>tribal loyalty and religion is extremely blinding and biasing
Is it possible that political and other beliefs are equally as blinding? Anti-Zionism doesn't have a monopoly on "truth"
___
Drugs are awesome, but try reading some books also:
>Morris's work on the Arab–Israeli conflict and especially the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has won praise and criticism from both sides of the political divide. He is accused by some academics in Israel of only using Israeli and never Arab sources, creating an "unbalanced picture".[3] Regarding himself as a Zionist, he writes, "I embarked upon the research not out of ideological commitment or political interest. I simply wanted to know what happened."[4]
>>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Morris
>This history of the foundational war in the Arab-Israeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. A riveting account of the military engagements, it also focuses on the war's political dimensions. Benny Morris probes the motives and aims of the protagonists on the basis of newly opened Israeli and Western documentation. The Arab side―where the archives are still closed―is illuminated with the help of intelligence and diplomatic materials.
>>https://www.amazon.com/1948-History-First-Arab-Israeli-War/dp/0300151128
Or even a documentary:
>The 50 Years War Israel And The Arabs
>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSAD9pS8NIw
Being baked and learning can be fun. :)
And there are tons of other sources out there including Illan Pappe (who I hate and think does incredibly poor scholarship) and everything in between.
But please stop adopting such a, frankly, ZOG-like view of the world. Nothing is that easy, even if it can feel good when it provides a simple framework for a complex and interconnected world.
A history of Israel: from the rise of Zionism to our time gives a pretty comprehensive overview of the whole conflict and really help me understand it a lot better. But beware the book is about 1000 pages long so you should only read it if you enjoy purely historical literature.
http://www.amazon.com/History-Israel-From-Rise-Zionism/dp/0375711325
I can recommend this book. It is very good: https://www.amazon.com/War-Palestine-Rewriting-History-Cambridge/dp/0521699347
Just as a quick point for future. If you break your posts you want both responses under the parent not chained like this. I don't get notified if you reply to yourself.
> It was a very different time, and we shouldn't be doing things like that anymore.
And people then would have said the same thing, "sure this sort of formations happened during the 30 years war... but now we have more limited warfare and treaty enforcement...."
> Seems like ethnic nationalism to me.
Well yes Israel is ethnic nationalism. That's not a point in dispute. The point of dispute is why this particular ethnic nationalism is singled out for destruction when most of the world is governed by ethnic nationalists with little comment.
> According to the Shaw commission people were concerned that the new Jewish immigrants would eventually try to take the place over.
The Shaw commission is 1929. That's a decade into British rule. We are talking about the situation during the end of the Ottomans. You are a decade off here. The Shaw commission is a reaction to the fact that the Jewish population, as a result of Palestinian terror is now Zionized and has a distinct national identity. And when is firmly entrenched as well in the Arab population. Hapoel Hatzair (a cultural Zionist party) had merged into Ahdut HaAvoda (David Ben-Gurion's party). Labor Zionism was the dominant form of Zionism.
You seriously have to stop treating all of history as one big blog. 1882-1949 is 61 years. 61 years took just as long back then as it does today.
> But were they opposed to the immigration, or to the proposed partition, etc? The British had already promised the Palestinians independence, and then snatched the rug out from under them. I can see how people might have been upset.
Your order of events is backwards again. The opposition to Jewish immigration is organized to an overall political platform among Palestinian Christians by 1911. Balfour is not till 1917. Mostly the opposition is forming (at least among the Christians) well before there is anyone knows Turks will be replaced by the British as opposed to the French, Russians, Germans, Syrian nationalists...
> Now I'm just confused - what are you asking me about the US?
Assume the Green Party won the election. How many Americans is Jill Stein willing to lose in a war with Israel to achieve your goals. 1,000; 20,000; 400,000; 8m? Can she justify those loses to Americans? Remember you are talking a 1st world army with ICBMs. Beating them is certainly something the USA can do. Beating them cheaply is not.
> You know, sometimes people say that Palestinians hate Israel more than they love their children. It sounds like you are saying that about the Israelis. It is horrifying that the Israelis would nuke their own people. That really surprised me.
Let me really horrify you the party that had ordered that strike to happen had the tank battle gone the other way won the next 2 elections. The Israelis love Israel more than their children. Jewish history teaches them that their children have no future without Israel.The official strategic (as opposed to tactical) nuclear policy is called the Samson doctrine after the bible verse "God grant me your strength one last time that I may die with my enemies" (https://youtu.be/Ro3pIwHbHuQ?t=160). Ariel Sharon, prime minister 2001-6, had a quip he used with leaders who shared your view that the Israelis would surrender their freedom, "This time we don't go to Auschwitz alone". Let's not forget when you discuss Israel you are talking about the people who invented apocalyptic literature.
The Israelis love their country. They will die in large numbers for their country just like Americans. They are if anything substantially more determined than Americans would be. They are never leaving. They are never going to agree to return to slavery under Palestinians. They will go to war, and fight a brutal war to prevent Israel from falling. You can agree or disagree with nationalism. But don't assume Israelis are at all ambiguous on nationalism. Don't underestimate their determination. As you read more of the history of the Yishuv and Israel you'll see that many Arab leaders made the same mistakes through the decades thinking of the Israelis as colonizers and then discovering that they were willing to fight with the bravery of natives.
> But they're willing to be the foreign ruler over other people?
If they have to, yes. They would rather not. Israelis will accept humane compromises at reasonable cost. But that's as far as they will go. Just as your neighbors in Georgia might be willing to compromise with Mexico but not accept Mexican rule over them.
> This is why I say that the Israelis have turned into the pigs from Animal Farm. They started off like everybody else and then turned into what they claimed to be fighting.
If you want to use that analogy, the Zionists were horses who dreamed one day of being pigs.
> I haven't found any books, even history books, that aren't supporting a side. If you know of some, I'd love a list. Seriously.
The book that both knowledgeable Zionists, non-Zionists and Palestinians most agree on is https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Wall-Israel-Norton-Paperback/dp/0393321126 . I could list a bunch of others but if you are only going to read one this is the book. That's a very straight history, excellent research, balanced... but you will likely have a lot of trouble identifying with either side. If you want a narrator who is more of a western style liberal and thus you might be able to better relate to who is struggling with Israeli history while sharing your values: https://www.amazon.com/My-Promised-Land-Triumph-Tragedy/dp/03855217 .
> The English [17th century Massachusetts] were the foreigners...they came to conquer and colonize.
OK good clear answer. When did they become natives and Massachusetts their's rather than Mashpee, Pennacook...?
> But still nobody's denying those groups did awful things.
I'll deny they did awful things. They killed very few people to get the British to leave. They seem to have done a wonderful job of scaring the British off without killing too many of them. As humane as possible.
> I don't know what then. It does make the Harry Potter universe seem really appealing though.
What then is exactly what happened in China, France, Ireland.... a culture arises and people assimilate into it. The national identity becomes broader and encompasses essentially all the residents of the territory. The French don't think of themselves as Franks, Burgundians, Aquitaines... they all have a Frankish/French shared identity. That's what will happen. The nations that used to exist are absorbed into the now dominant nation and the oppression ends.
> But it hasn't made me less of an anti zionist. I still don't think it takes a genius or a scholar to know right from wrong.
I can't do anything about right from wrong. I'll settle for true and false.
>So 7K-25K deaths are "tiddlywinks". So how many people has Israel killed?
Oh, are you pretending to be a fan of the Muslim brotherhood now? I thought you'd be happy.
>What slaughtering occurred before the war?
Go to the library or a decent bookshop and get this book.
>And do you include the destruction of the 2500 year old Jewish community in Hebron as part of "cleansing the natives"?
An unfortunate and condemnable incident but totally pales in comparison to the inequities and suffering dealt upon the Palestinians. Are you again trying to argue that such incidents somehow justify zionazi crimes against humanity?
Its chapter on the history is short, but if you're interested in people's current views on it and how it impacts current life (at least as of 1989), I would strongly recommend Thomas Friedman's "From Beirut to Jerusalem".
Yeah, it's the same guy who wrote "The World is Flat". He was stationed as a reporter in Beirut during the period around the Lebanese Civil War and covered all kinds of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. His reporting at the time won two Pulitzers, and the book won the National Book Award. It's an immensely fascinating read.
And yes, Friedman is Jewish, but his writing is pretty fair, and acknowledges bias where it exists. He's pretty heavy-handed in condemning many of Israel's tactics, probably to the point of holding them to a higher moral standard than the PLO.
Give it a shot.
Hey, I got some recommendations for you!
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Almaz's story and a redditor's comment.
As for myself, I am currently reading On Saudi Arabia by Karen Elliott House.
https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614
>behind every destructive revolution is based on literally two examples?
Well I just used the two worst of the 20th century. If thats not good enough we can go deeper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsions_and_exoduses_of_Jews
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/expulsions.html
>The first in Russia (led by a non-Jew and the most Important Jew got an ice pick to the head) and one being
No, Lenin was a quarter Jewish. Trots and Marx also Jews.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/was-lenin-jewish/
>an intellectual movement in literal Nazi Germany.
Frankfurt School was all Jewish, buddy. You clearly havent done the research on this.
https://www.bh.org.il/blog-items/frankfurt-school-jewish-intellectuals-made-60s/
>You have to establish a valid reason for them being hated
You want me to tell you why people hate Jews? Its been the same reasons for a thousand years. Are you really that out of the loop?
>The Schengen Area is a Jewish plot as well?
The Jewish influence on the recent open border policy of Europe is well documented. The most visible being George Soros and his Open Society.
>I didn't realize that free movement of Europeans that preexisted the refugee crisis by two decades was also made to allow Muslims to take over, despite it not effecting Non-EU states.
Who does the end of European nationalism benefit? It sure as hell doesnt benefit Christians or Europeans. This isnt rocket science.
>I'm still waiting for this thousands of years of evil Jewish plotting and not you simply pointing out modern ideas and policies you don't like and blaming Jews.
Oh you are actually willing to do some real reading into it? Sure I can help you there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_Critique_series
https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Revolutionary-Spirit-Impact-History/dp/0929891074
https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+holocaust+industry&qid=1558996929&s=books&sr=1-1
Yes because Wahhabis exist within and subvert the governmental structure it does not mean the government supports terrorists. There have been digressions in the past but they are most certainly not colluding with ISIS, as a government. It's a very complicated theocratic, monarchistic structure.
Saudi Arabia has been victim to plenty of terror attacks.
>Yes their population is ultra conservative but they don't want to spread terrorism worldwide like the Saud family does.
You literally have it precisely fucking backwards. I try not to swear but this is insane. Read some literature on the subject.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saudi-Arabia-People-Religion-Lines/dp/0307473287/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496609398&sr=8-1&keywords=elliott+saudi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Saudi_Arabia
Passenger trains joined the Irgun’s targets by 17 August (1936), when it attacked the Jaffa-Jerusalem line with grenades and gunfire at the bridge at Shlush Street in Tel Aviv, causing (as the Irgun put it) “great consternation among Jaffa Arabs”. One passenger died on the spot, and others were critically injured. Palestinian beach-goers remained a favoured target for the next decade; the terror gang murdered some in March, 1937, as well as agricultural workers in the Hefer Valley.
Irgun bombings of Palestinian cafés are first documented in April 1937 in Haifa, and bombings of Palestinian buses as early as September of that year. Rehavia was hit on 6 March, Yazur on 22 March, Jerusalem on 20 May, with further attacks on 7 July and 20 October.
On the 11th of November, the Irgun threw a bomb at a group of Palestinians on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem, “near the garage of the ‘National Bus Co.’,” and that month it attacked cafés in Jerusalem with semi-machine guns and grenades. Palestinian vehicles in the Galilee region were attacked in December, and on the 27th the Irgun opened fire on a Palestinian bus on the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem Road.[89]
After “two sacks containing bombs were found on the Iraq Petroleum Company’s workers’ train from Haifa”, the British reported on 11 April 1938, a Palestinian sergeant removed the canvas sacks from the train and placed them in the Company’s terminal site, where they exploded, killing two people and seriously wounding a third. As police rushed to the scene from Haifa, news came of a similar sack discovered on another train in the vicinity. That carriage was evacuated and uncoupled, and a bomb expert was summoned. Before he arrived, a sergeant and two constables ignored (or were unaware of) warnings not to risk entering the carriage and, hoping to protect the train, threw the sack out the window. It exploded, killing two of them. The British appear not immediately to have known the origin of the bombs, until the Irgun took credit for placing the “clock mines” on the trains carrying Palestinian workers. Four more people were killed that day by Irgun bombs near Kiriat Haim.[90]
The Irgun attacked what it called “mob rioters” (?) on 17 April, and four days later tried to blow up a Palestinian bus, but the grenade failed to explode. “Reprisals against groups of Arabs” followed on 17 May in Jerusalem and on the Hebron-Jerusalem Road. More “mob rioters” were attacked on 23 May, this time in the Tel Aviv area, and that day there were attacks against Palestinians in Haifa in response, however illogically, to the British trials of three Irgun members. The Arab market in Jaffa was hit with explosives on 26 June, and on the fourth of July five more Palestinians were killed and twenty wounded in an Irgun attack on the Arab quarters (what the Irgun referred to as “concentrations of Arabs”) in Jerusalem. The Irgun attacked Palestinian buses in the Ramle area on 5 July.[91]
What happened on 6 July (1938) was the urgent topic when the British ship HMS Repulse anchored in Haifa Bay two days later. The District Commissioner came aboard and explained the situation on shore:
A large bomb had been thrown on Wednesday afternoon [6 July] in the Arab market, and had exploded causing a large number of casualties, and these had increased to about 120 before order was restored.[92]
As reported in Falastin, the terrorists had
slipped up to the roof of a shop in the entrance to the bazaar market near the Aloon market and threw a bomb on a crowd of Arabs and it exploded with a terrible noise near the shop of the Jewish money changer who was killed with his son ... the sight of [the many victims] was harrowing, this one moaning, that one in pain.[93]
The attack, the British report said, “must almost certainly have been committed by Jews of the Revisionist party”. It was indeed the Irgun, whose records cite both this and a similar bombing “in the Old City of Jerusalem” that day. On 7 July Irgun militants from Kfar Saba took up positions on the Tel Aviv - Haifa highway “to attack Arab traffic”, but they hit Indian visitors from Tanzania instead, mistaking them for ‘Arabs’.[94]
After a bomb “tore apart a bus filled with Arab countryfolk” (as the NY Times reported it) by the Jaffa Gate on 8 July, killing four Palestinians immediately and wounding thirty-six, the British took four Jews into custody for the crime, among them the alleged bomb-thrower—a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. The blast was so strong that it shattered a nearby vegetable market. The Irgun, taking responsibility, boasted that the bombing had caused “great consternation in Arab quarters”. For the British, it was an early indication of the Zionists’ radicalisation of children.[95]
To prevent further attacks, the British assigned a platoon to safeguard each of Haifa’s five police districts and imposed a curfew—yet the Irgun pulled off an even deadlier terror attack on 15 July. Disguised as an Arab porter, the bomber placed a booby-trapped “cucumber can” in the middle of Haifa’s Arab market, killing “scores” of Palestinians and wounding many. In Jerusalem three days after that attack, another bombing by Jewish militants killed eleven Palestinians and seriously wounded three.
In Haifa, “just when the situation in the town seemed to be getting back completely to normal”, a captain in the Royal Navy reported on 25 July, Zionist terrorists threw a bomb into the (Arab) melon market, the same as the 6 July attack. The time chosen—six o’clock in the morning—ensured maximum civilian casualties. The bomb “did a terrible amount of damage, causing the death of 45 Arabs, wounding 45 others, and killing 3 horses and 9 donkeys”. Early morning food shoppers might have thought the situation was safe, since “no more public place could have been chosen”, situated by Kingsway, the Seamen’s Institute, the headquarters of the landing parties, “and within easy sight of the Central Police Station”.[96]
The next day (26th), one of the Irgun’s most venerated ‘martyrs’, Jacob Rass (Yaacov Raz or Ras), tried to deposit “a particularly loathsome time-bomb in the Old City of Jerusalem”, as British records put it. Dressed as an Arab, Rass hid the device in a barrow of vegetables and was wheeling it into the market when suspicious onlookers exposed the bomb and handed him over to the British. According to the Irgun, he committed suicide to avoid revealing secrets under torture.
‘Arab deaths’ were the goal of the militia, which inhabited an imagined Biblical ‘Israel’ that had never ended: it extolled Rass and its other fallen who had “saved the honour of Israel [this still a decade before the state that adopted the name] more than once during years and enlarged the number of Arab deaths in Jerusalem, Haifa and other parts of the country”. To encourage what it called “right-thinking Jews” in the murder of Arabs, the Irgun exploited Biblical passages, such as the Old Testament’s account of Moses.[97]
---
[89] A British War Cabinet Report dated January, 1940, cites an incident of October 5, 1939, in which 43 armed and uniformed Irgun were caught, and a large cache of weapons and explosives discovered in a nearby settlement, as Britain’s first confirmation of the Irgun as a specific organization; This may have made it bureaucratically official, but British records well before this date cite the Irgun by name and as responsible for terror attacks; TNA, CAB 67/4/17; Kister, Irgun, 246.
[90] TNA, CO 733/370/11, especially Dispatch No. 383 Reference No. K/50/38; Kister, Irgun, 249; NYT, 12 Apr 1938.
[91] Kister, Irgun, 251; Pedahzur & Weinberg, Religious Fundamentalism, 100-101; By 1939, more than 60 terror attacks against Palestinian civilians are known. Hoffman, Anonymous, records the April 21 attempted bus attack and claims that the bombers intended to blow up a bus whose passengers included certain ‘Arabs’ who, the bombers claimed, were responsible for an attack against Jews. Even if the claim of guilty Palestinians on that bus were correct, and even if one forgets the majority of the victims would have been innocent passengers, Hoffman’s position is untenable, as the bombers then targeted a different bus after failing to hit the first. (k1736 etc); Bell, 42.
[92] TNA, ADM 116/3690, No. 191/9862; see also beginning (unnumbered) pages.
[93] Falastin, 7 July 1938, in Palestine Chronicle.
[94] TNA, ADM 116/3690, No. 191/9862; see also beginning (unnumbered) pages.
[95] NYT, 9 July 1938; Kister, Irgun, 251 (which cites an attack at the Jaffa Gate at 10 July, but this is presumably a misdating for July 8).
[96] TNA, ADM 116/3690, SECRET. H.M.S. “REPULSE” at Haifa, 3oth July, 1938. For Tel Aviv attack, Hoffman, Anonymous, k1896, cites a bombing in Tel Aviv on 23 July 1938 in which twenty-three Jews were injured.
[97] TNA, KV 5/34, 10AB; Bell, Terror, 42-43; Kister, Irgun, 252.
---
For more info consult this book.
Try this one:
https://www.amazon.com/History-Israel-Rise-Zionism-Time/dp/0375711325/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0375711325&pd_rd_r=GT7ZNFWCZ9F3CC1DF5SJ&pd_rd_w=hWSc0&pd_rd_wg=dQNrU&psc=1&refRID=GT7ZNFWCZ9F3CC1DF5SJ
That interview makes it incredibly clear that Dershowitz is a lawyer above anything else - and as Finkelstein says, this is why lawyers have a bad reputation. The most damning part, I think, is the discussion of Dershowitz's two-order-of-magnitude error in the number of arabs who fled in 1947-48 (33:38). That's just plain poor scholarship, and it seems that Dershowitz's citation directly contradicts his claim. In response, Dershowitz dismisses this error because it weakens the evidence for his claim rather than strengthening it. But he still made a serious factual error in his book, which would be mortifying for any serious scholar. Yet the only thing he seems to care about is employing lawyerly rhetorical techniques to deflect and deny.
Apparently Dershowitz put up an intense campaign against Finkelstein's application for tenure at DePaul, seemingly in response to this controversy (see /u/e40's comment on this post for a link). That is shocking. Here is a fascinating discussion with Noam Chomsky concerning this debate. I didn't know much about this before, but it's just outrageous stuff. It makes me want to read Finkelstein's book more than anything else, actually. Looks pretty interesting.
EDIT: added links to e40's comment, Amazon
Ah, yes, classic tactics--call anyone who points out the truth about Zionist control of U.S. foreign policy insane, a neo-Nazi and a conspiracy theorist. Problem is, hasbarah (that's what you are, whether you are paid or volunteer) fewer and fewer people are falling for that fallacious b.s. anymore. That's why you're throwing such a tantrum--this is the death throws of the censorship you defend. Mearsheimer and Walt couldn't even get their paper published in a major U.S. outlet. Things have changed a LOT since then. You're losing.
Anyway who knows anything about U.S. politics knows that a candidate stands virtually zero chance of getting elected unless he kisses the Zionist Lobby's ring. There are occasional miracles of zero consequence, like Ron Paul, but exceptions prove the rule. AIPAC brags about destroying U.S. candidates who don't toe the line! And you can't deny it!
I'm not delusional--if you didn't think there was a chance other people might be reading this, you wouldn't be going to such embarrassing lengths to distract front he truths I'm laying down, DAWG.
Here's that great article by former CIA officer Phil Giraldi. And make sure to google "hasbara." It's stunning.
http://www.crescent-online.net/2014/06/how-the-israel-lobby-works-philip-giraldi-4504-articles.html
And here is the wonderful book by the wonderful Jimmy Carter. It's a shame Zionists sued him over this book, but what are you gonna do?
http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285034/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421022795&sr=8-2&keywords=israel+apartheid+state
And yes, I am absolutely sure that Gen. Petratraeus' woes are partially the result of his comments that enraged Zionists. This is by no means an insane POV. It's a totally rational interpretation. Your ranting and raving and "Neo-Nazi" accusations won't change that fact.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/when-former-cia-chief-david-petraeus-enraged-israel-lobby
And here is a great video from that famous neo-Nazi, Ralph Nader:
https://zionismkills.wordpress.com/tag/ralph-nader/
I'd recommend One Palestine, Complete.
http://www.amazon.com/One-Palestine-Complete-British-Mandate/dp/0805065873
It covers how the Middle-East was split up after WW1 and looks into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Read James Gelvin's The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War
Also, this MERIP page is a good starter.
It's hard to answer this question without explaining significant background history of the conflict. It looks like you want Cliff's Notes on the conflict, and I'm afraid it isn't possible. In short, it's quite like any other land possession conflict, but the inclusion of religion (i.e., Biblical significance of the land), the holocaust, and the role of the U.S. make this particular conflict more relevant to Americans than a similar dispute elsewhere.
If you really want an answer to your question, you'll have to do some reading:
If you want a progressive viewpoint: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (Jimmy Carter)
If you want a pro-Israeli viewpoint (this doesn't mean the progressive viewpoint is anti-Israeli): The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved (Alan Dershowitz).
For the record, I have read neither but I am familiar with where each of the author stands on Israel.
Jews in the same way there are Greeks or French? What? Jews live in virtually every country, a lifelong way of life. Greeks or French must live in Greece or France, a lifelong way of life, there in those countries, but not everywhere.
Zionists secretive? What? I would never describe Zionists as secretive, but rather as anything but secretive.
I have no difficulty 'owning what I believe'.
I can do better than a transcript - here's the book. I suggest that your library, or anyone's, would be enriched by having this book in it.
The book By Way of Deception published around '91, and purportedly written by a disenchanted Mossad agent asserted the same thing.
"By Way Of Deception" by Victor Ostrovsky
If you are interested in this article, I highly recommend this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Way-Deception-Making-Unmaking-Officer/dp/0971759502
That is not what I recall from my professor's book, nor his course on the subject.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Israeli-Palestinian-Conflict-Indiana-Islamic/dp/025322070X/
Alas, I don't have the book in front of me.
With that said, refer to the chart on Page 5 of the below PDF. Note that it is a source which is "Pro-Zionist," but the numbers mentioned align with my former professor's research. Of the land under Jewish control in 1947, 57% of it came from Arab landowners.
http://www.wordfromjerusalem.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/the-case-for-israel-appendix2.pdf
On a personal note - I don't have a horse in the race. The course I took at the University of Michigan was quite the eye opener for me with impassioned arguments from both the Jewish and Muslim communities. For many of these kids, it was the first time they actually got to debate the matter outside of the safe space of their family dinner table.
Edit: Removed a sentence I used twice.
> What does the United States have to gain from lying about Gaza being occupied? What do the EU and UN have to gain?
The UN is a membership organization made up of countries and some organizations (in a consultative position). Look up who the voting members of it are and make a list with your own classifications along the lines of "democratic", "authoritarian", "totalitarian". Put each voting country in one of the columns. Think about whether you see a pattern in the voting behavior.
The EU - oil, a sense of "Maybe if we vote their way terrorism won't reach our country."
The US - perhaps the same. Perhaps landing rights for its planes in the war on terror. Perhaps diplomatic support on other issues.
I'm not saying that they are the only countries that have what might be called a 'deceitful' or a 'hypocritical' foreign policy (or that they even have such). And I'm not saying that they don't have other concerns or interests other than what I've listed here.
> The only conclusion I can come to with only information from the IDF and no information from anywhere else is "I don't know."
It doesn't seem to me that you are taking an "I don't know" position. It seems that you are taking a "The IDF is wrong, but I don't know how it is wrong and I'm not sure if it wrong here, but I will disbelieve them anyway."
> > Hamas is highly secretive due to the nature of the organization itself, not as a result of the state that Gaza has been in for some time. Hamas is an authoritarian (at the very least) organization that wants to impose a theocratic state on the people that live in the territory it rules.
> You don't think it has anything to do with reasonable paranoia from decades of having to deal with spies and other state of the art intelligence services?
Hamas is an offshoot of The Society of the Muslim Brothers (aka The Muslim Brotherhood, or The Brotherhood). It as been like that for years before Israel was even founded.
> > By self-sufficiency, do you mean having the funds to carry out social welfare and infrastructure-building? If so, you should do some research and find out just how much money the world community has supplied the PA with over the past 10 years or so. (Hint: well over $500,000,000 since the beginning of 2010!)
> Of course.
Well, what are your findings on how much money the PA has received from the world community in the past 10 years or so?
***
With all respect, I think that you are basing your opinions on an idealized notion of what you would like the situation to be, rather than what it is.
If I may be so bold, may I suggest some reading for you?
A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel, by Walter Lacquer
Israel: A History, by Martin Gilbert
Palestine Betrayed, by Efraim Karsh
Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, by Jeffrey Herf
The Flight of the Intellectuals, by Paul Berman
I don't have any connection to Amazon and don't get paid to shill for them.
Be very very careful going against Jewish interests. This is one of the most censored topics.
Stuff like Culture of Critique. Already taken down by Amazon. It had amazing reviews, and averaged around 4.5-5.0
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2019/03/12/amazon-bans-culture-of-critique-and-separation-and-its-discontents/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182136.The_Culture_of_Critique
"MIND BLOWN.
This should be required reading in school.
Exposes a fundamental issue in our society that most are completely unaware of.
Book is well referenced, and have fact checked many of the claims myself, which i've proven to be true."
Stuff by Ron Unz.
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-racial-discrimination-at-harvard/
The book the Holocaust Industry
https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Industry-Reflections-Exploitation-Suffering/dp/1781685614/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=holocaust+industry+finkelstein
The book the Israel Lobby, written by two Harvard professors
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=the+israel+lobby
Nobel laureate Solzhenitsyn wrote a book about Jews in Russia, 100 Years Together, that few dare publish.
Roosh V, as a proponent of mens rights, questioned Jews and feminism, and promptly had books deplatformed from Amazon. He was banned from the UK. Books along the lines of Bang, Bang Ukraine, etc.
Check lectures by Michael E Jones. A Catholic that calls out "Jewish influence."
https://youtu.be/uYOcyDRcG1E
Check videos of Alex Jones talking about "globalists", which some say is a codeword for Jews.
If you really want to combat censorship try to find videos that Youtube is about to take down. People keep trying to get the truth out and censors keep taking it down. Look at videos listing 109 countries Jews were kicked out of, as an example.
https://youtu.be/6roAvG02gms
Try to guess the religion of the people usually taking these things down, and not giving people the chance to defend the truth of their work or statements.
https://www.adl.org/blog/pick-up-artist-roosh-v-moves-from-misogyny-to-anti-semitism
Remember, feminism is a Jewish movement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Feminists_by_religion
...there's much more to say, if the censors don't get you first!
Fairly balanced and objective:
The Palestinian People: A History
The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land
Israeli Perspective:
The Case For Israel by Prof. Alan Deshowitz
Palestinian perspective:
The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood by Prof. Rashid Khalidi
I enjoyed From Beirut to Jerusalem by Tom Friedman.
Amos_Quito: ^^original ^^link
Israel guilty of a "false flag" attack? Could it be?
What would Israel have to gain from deploying chemical weapons in Syria - with the blame falling on the Assad regime? Would it benefit Israel if the world - and especially the US - were to react by increasing support for the "Syrian Rebels", or perhaps even becoming directly involved in the conflict?
Would such a "false flag" attack be out of character for Israel?
In a 1954 incident known as "The Lavon Affair", Israel recruited a group of Jews living in Israel to plant bombs targeting Egyptian, British and US facilities. The idea was to blame Egyptian nationals, and to enrage the US and British in the hopes that the British would maintain troops in the Suez Canal Zone. Though the Israeli operatives were successful in fire-bombing an Egyptian post office, the US Information Agency and a British owned theater, their plans fell apart when one of the firebombs went off prematurely in the pocket of one of the False Flag saboteurs.
Israel immediately denied any involvement, and continued to deny for 51 years. In 2005 Israeli President Moshe Katzav officially honored the surviving conspirators with certificates of appreciation - effectively an official admission of what had long been common knowledge.
More on the Lavon Affair here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
The USS Liberty Incident is yet another example of an Israeli False Flag attack that occurred during the Six Day War in 1967. During this incident, the USS Liberty, a virtually unarmed vessel assigned to monitor communications, was ruthlessly attacked by Israeli forces for several hours. The Israelis unleashed torpedoes, napalm and relentless machine gun fire on the helpless crew - killing 34 seamen, and injuring 171 others. The apparent goal of the attack was to sink the Liberty and lay the blame of the attack on Egypt (again), in the hopes of drawing the US into the war on the side of Israel.
The plan ultimately failed because in spite of the Israelis' best efforts, the Liberty stubbornly remained afloat, with its heroic crew members taking great risks to restore communications with their US counterparts.
As with the Lavon Affair, Israel denied and continues to deny that the attack on this US flagged ship was anything other than an "accident". I suspect we'll have to wait a few more years before Israel admits to the dastardly deed by "honoring" the soldiers who participated in the attack, as they did the perpetrators of the Lavon Affair.
More information on the Liberty Incident can be found here http://www.usslibertyveterans.org/ and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Liberty Incident is that the story was officially hushed-up by the Johnson Administration, and that the survivors of this cut-throat attack were ordered not to speak of this tragic stab in the back by our "ally".
Israel and its infamous Mossad are well known for employing sinister, underhanded and deceptive tactics to achieve their goals. For example, it is well documented that Israeli Intelligence deliberately fed the US false information with the intent of goading the US into attacking Iraq in 2003.
There are many other incidents in which the Israelis have allegedly utilized false-flag operations, the above are only two examples that are well known and highly documented.
Is it possible that Israel may have deployed chemical weapons in Syria, as retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff alleges in the article?
Certainly. "By Way Of Deception, Thou Shalt Do War."
http://www.amazon.com/By-Way-Deception-Making-officer/dp/0971759502
While I am not in the least surprised when Israel pulls off such stunts, I am deeply troubled that in administration after administration, the US kowtows to the Zionist State, and that no matter how much trouble she causes us in blood, treasure and reputation, countless politicians from both parties line up to pledge fealty, and support them with cash, arms, technology and UN Security Council vetoes.
Whose interests are our elected officials representing, and at what cost to us?
This is my favorite book on Mandatory Palestine: One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate. Segev was a journalist for Ha'aretz and he writes incredibly engaging social history as only a journalist can.
/u/gingerkid1234 did a fantastic job summarizing the political developments in the 20s, 30s and 40s, but if you want some social history from the period, I like Segev.
EDIT: Ignore the 3.5 star rating on Amazon: most of the 1 star reviews are from people who are pissed off that Segev wrote a book with "Palestine" in the title. The book is very solid, and the history is very good. It's not chronological political history, but you will have a feel for what life was like.
Konflikten mellan Israel och Palestina är långt mer mångfacetterad (boktips) än så, så det är ett dåligt exempel. Jag skulle för övrigt vara väldigt intresserad av att se ditt resonemang bakom hur religion var orsaken till t ex Andra världskriget, eller något annat av de krig som tagit flest människoliv.
Former President Jimmy Carter wrote a book he called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. So the comparison is clearly made, and quite publicly so, even in the US.
bad parallel. read norm finkelstein
Suggestion: History through Prof. Mark Tessler. Unbiased. Informative.
From Beruit to Jerusalem is fantastic. You can find it used anywhere,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385413726/
I did read, mostly Morris books (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, and ordered this (not from amazon but that is the name of the book) ) to Kimmerling. that is why I asked for a citation.
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid By Jimmy Carter (of presidential fame) is a pretty good overview of the history of it all. He comes down pretty harshly on Israel iirc. The information is all there and he has a very unique perspective to share and personal stories that you can't get elsewhere.
Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Charles Smith was quite balanced, as I remember. Check out the reader's reviews. More reviews of it here.
I agree with bugbunz that there's plenty of propaganda on both sides, so when you read the reviews of that one, or any other book on the conflict, remember that supporters of each side will typically view different books as "one-sided" or "skewed". I suppose the only way to get through all that is to read even more books, to eventually reach something of a 'balanced understanding', whatever that is... Good luck! :)
EDIT: I chose Smith's book in part because it contains plenty of historic documents, like the Balfour Declaration, the White Paper, speeches in the UN etc.
If you don't end up buying the Smith book (and even if you do), you should at least get a hold of one or more document readers, like this or this one. Here is another one, that you can browse through here. Beware that bias is also possible in the selection of documents to present (or of which sections to quote).
read this before you make a judgement call on them mossad
http://www.amazon.in/By-Way-Deception-Making-Officer/dp/0971759502
http://www.amazon.com/The-Iron-Wall-Israel-Paperback/dp/0393321126
The Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim.
However, to be fair, it should be pointed out that he's British and that he may be a rabid anti-Semite.
What about this https://imgur.com/a/XN6Z1FQ?
Or this : https://imgur.com/a/O5VmvMy
Or this: https://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Refugee-Problem-Revisited-Cambridge/dp/0521009677
Or this: https://icahd.org/2018/09/02/demolition-and-displacement-report-august-2018/
One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, by Tom Segev
http://www.amazon.com/One-Palestine-Complete-British-Mandate/dp/0805065873
"Tom Segev is one of Israel's most notable historians and journalists--one of the few to strive for any sense of objectivity in his writings--so a new book by him is always worth waiting for. One Palestine, Complete is a detailed account of Palestine under British rule from 1917 to 1948, the critical period in the modern history of the region that led up to the creation of the state of Israel. Segev begins by carefully detailing Britain's well-known inconsistencies in dealing with both the Jews and the Arabs--to both of whom it had appeared to promise, if not the world, at least the country after independence was granted--and goes on to make a convincing case that because Palestine fell into the category of an emotional rather than self-interested colonial possession, the Brits hoped the situation would unwind to everyone's advantage."
Yep, really great book called 'The Iron Wall' about the history of Israel. Basically, being a dickhead from inception to the current day. With some humor. Israel threatened a war with Jordan in it's early days because sheep wandered across the border...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Iron-Wall-Israel-Paperback/dp/0393321126
I've got Howard M. Sachar's A History of Israel and Ilan Pappe's A History of Modern Palestine. So far so good.
e: Shlomo Ben-Ami's Scars of War, Wounds of Peace looks promising, too.
>The palestinians?
I do not hate the Palestinians, simple enough? I believe that they have a claim to some of the pie, but not all of it.
>Israel wasn't a country. The jews that are in Israel are foreigners. So what exactly is your point? The people who lived in that land do not count, but hordes of jews from around the world have claim to that land? You are just making bullshit palestine-denial statement. Your argument is no different than saying the holocaust never happened. You are a joke.
Did I ever say that Palestinians should have no land? I think they do, I prefer a two state solution. 30% of the population was Jewish pre 1946 Are you saying that they deserve no land? At the bar minimum the Jews deserve 30% of the land.
>How "generous" of them. Why should palestinians give up half their land?
If they want peace. That land was concurred fair and square; should we return all of Canada and the US to the natives then? Its a done deal, it happened over 70 years ago. Israel has built an oasis of democracy and technology in a desert, no small feat.
I have already established that Israel has legitimate claim to a portion of the land, a fact that you seem to deny.
>There were plenty of jews helping the nazis during the holocaust also.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judenrat
>What's your point? Holy shit, people like you are the first to whine about holocaust denial and yet the first to use the same tactics to push your bigotry.
I am not quite sure the relevance. The Jews are not systematically killing the Palestinians. If you are not aware of the fact that they are very capable of wiping the Gaza strip and associated territories off the map, you are willfully ignorant.
>Yes. It's called Israel...
A good portion of the land was already owned by the jews. Plenty of arabs live in Israel peacefully, and get to keep their homes and citizenships. They enjoy all the advantages of an advanced democracy. So what is the difference between them and those who live in the gaza strip?
>That's so pathetic. That's like whining that the jews do not live nicely with neo-nazis and therefore jews don't deserve sympathy.
Your on the losing side of history. There is no scenario where Israel does not exist. I would refer you to read a lovely written book called the case for Israel which I am not doing justice.
Keep in mind that Israel was a jewish state over a thousand years ago. It was the surrounding arabs, driven by the pogroms which sent them into Europe. If you can say the Palestinians have a right to that land, because it was initially there's; then you must see the Jews are entitled by the same logic.
I don't think you are pathetic. I respect your opinion. World history is brutal and unfair, I get that.
The problem with your side is that you are unwilling to accept a two state solution. The majority of Israel supporters favor a two state solution, while the Palestinians want the who place to be Palestine. The major difference is that they do not have the arms do make those dreams a reality. They are not proponents of technology are dictated by a tyrannical theocracy which is anti science. For that reason, freedom will always win out against those who wish to oppress it. In this case the lines are blurred. Many innocent people are being caught up in the mess. Jews killing arabs, arabs killing jews. Its just a shame, more pointless blood shed in the quagmire that is the middle east.
Israel is the only nation in the area that supports womens rights, homosexual rights, and democracy. Don't get me started on the clumsy democracies that are Egypt and Turkey. There is an actual separation between religion and state, and people are allowed to live freely without the threat of governmental violence. You can be a Christian, Muslim or jew and live in Israel, granted it is harder to get citizenship if you are not Jewish. But it is also fairly hard to get citizenship in most western nations.
Why are you so obsessed with destroying this beacon of democracy, this one country which is at peace with itself where we have civil war and strife all around it? Civil war in Syria, civil unrest in Syria and Lebanon. People actually want to live in Israel, they are not trying to move to Canada to claim refugee status.
*Why does Egypt not take these people in? Why do they not support the Palestinian cause?
Just some food for thought. Religion is good and all, but once it mixes with politics it becomes messy. Just look at the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, or ISIS in Iraq and ISIL in Syria?
Essential
You're welcome
Prepare yourself for some harsh comments.
Try The Gun and the Olive Branch, by David Hirst. I feel you'll like it.
The first link is not even a separate war, that's part of the six-day war; Egypt tried to take back the Sinai which was occupied by Israel's initial aggressions. Israel started that war. The second link is the war in 1973 that I was talking about initially and that one is even debatable.
I doubt you are honest or literate enough to actually read this, but here you go:
https://www.amazon.com/State-Terror-Terrorism-Created-Modern/dp/1566560683
Have a great day.
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Israel-Alan-Dershowitz/dp/0471679526
I do my research. Palestine kills more civilians than Israel. Most of the deaths caused by Israel are Hamas fighters.
If you look into its history you realize most of the "facts" pushed by academia are false. The firs wave of Jewish immigrants came in 1880 (the first Aliyah). Most of the land they settled was bought from absent land owners and real estate speculators. After the First World War the British decided to give them their own land within the Arab state (treaty of Balfour). At this point the European Jews stated coming due to Russian persecution. After the Second World War the British tried to set up a two independent states. This failed and culminated with the Yum Kippur War where Syria and Eygpt invaded. While Israel won, the gave all the land back they gained, which is unprecedented for a defensive war. In 2000, the Prime minster Barak tried to make a deal with Arafat by giving Palestine its own state with a capital in Jerusalem and 30 billion in reparations. Arafat turned it down because he perfected War.
TL;DR Israel is a nation of returning Jewish immigration and has made multiple attempts at peace.
> What is the source for what you are claiming?
1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris
Also, I think it's interesting that the framing of the conflict is presented as a foregone conclusion: The U.S. military against the Tea Partiers. Setting Man against Man, as in "Let's You & Him Fight"
Hmmm... who thought that one up? I wonder if it's those people who wage war by way of deception
Why not All Americans vs. The Zionist Machine that has hijacked our Republic?
Every person willing to educate themself on the matter should read this book The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
And view this presentation by the very same person
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXAm-OylQQ
Thanks to the National Archive, You're welcome.
There is no doubt that there is Anti-Semitism, or at least harsh Anti-Zionism in the Arab world.
But do Jewish attacks and Israeli attacks and Israeli gang attacks and Israeli sponsored terrorism ever make the news? No.
Israel is a modern state created by use of terrorist attacks.
https://www.academia.edu/1449704/Jewish_Terrorism_and_the_Creation_of_the_State_of_Israel
https://www.amazon.com/State-Terror-Terrorism-Created-Modern/dp/1566560683
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism
Not to mention it is the world's leader in Cyber Terrorism also.
There is also the highly curious case of ISIS, a global terrorist organization which carried out attacks in Sri Lanka, France, UK, etc but never even touches Israel, one time even apologizing to Israel, and seems to only support the zionist cause 🤔
I thought Palestine dosent exist neither do Palestinians so what changed? Israeli apologists and there mental gymnastics. It’s kind of Ironic you call Palestine a terrorist state when Israel was literally founded by terrorism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/assessing-role-of-terrorism-by-jewish-underground-in-founding-of-israel/2015/03/13/9ac811fe-b938-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6c9728f1dcfd
https://www.amazon.com/State-Terror-Terrorism-Created-Modern/dp/1566560683
As long as you attribute this hatred of Israel to Islam or a cultural defect of some sort you will never stop it. To get an idea you might start by reading this new book:
https://www.amazon.com/State-Terror-Terrorism-Created-Modern/dp/1566560683
"This new book shows how the use of terror by supporters of the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine was systematic, routine, and accepted by Jewish leaders as necessary to achieve their aims. At the height of the British Mandate in Palestine, terrorist acts were carried out at a frequency and with an intensity that has been largely forgotten, even though daily newspaper headlines in the US, Britain, and Palestine spoke of bombings, assassinations, and massacres against Arabs and British civilians, as well as soldiers. Suarez tells this story using the terrorists' own accounts in secret internal papers boasting of their successes, and quoting from contemporary intelligence briefings and secret diplomatic correspondence."
Israel historian Ilan Pappé had this to say about this book:
"A tour de force, based on diligent archival research that looks boldly at the impact of Zionism on Palestine and its people in the first part of the 20th century. The book is the first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence and terror employed by the Zionist movement, and later the state of Israel, against the people of Palestine."