Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question [Paperback]

Christopher Hitchens (Editor), Edward W. Said (Editor), Ibrahim Abu-Lughod (Contributor), Janet L. Abu-Lughod (Contributor), G. W. Bowersock (Contributor), Noam Chomsky (Contributor), Norman G. Finkelstein (Contributor), Muhammad Hallaj (Contributor), Rashid Khalidi (Contributor), Peretz Kidron (Contributor), Elia Zureik (Contributor), Edward Said (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1859843409 | ISBN-13: 978-1859843406 | Publication Date: September 13, 2001

This book shows how the historical fate of the Palestinians has been justified by spurious academic attempts to dismiss their claim to a home within the boundaries of historical Palestine and even to deny their very existence.

Blaming the Victims demonstrates with cold precision how the consistent denial of truth about the Palestinians by governments and the media in the West has led to the current impasse in Middle East politics. Controversial, forceful and above all honest it attempts to redress a sustained crime against historical truth in order to make a more rational political future in Palestine possible. With a new introduction by Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens and contributions by Norman G. Finkelstein, Peretz Kidron, Noam Chomsky, G.W. Bowerstock, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Rashid Khalidi, Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Muhammad Hallaj and Elia Zureik.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The aim of these exhaustive, detailed essays and book reviews is to highlight what Said, a professor at Columbia, calls in his introduction the "grotesque, almost parodistic garishness" of pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian scholarship in the West, particularly in the U.S., where, he says, "it is as if even the narrative of Palestinian history is not tolerable." In one piece, Said examines the reception of Joan Peters's book, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine, which argues that most of the Arabs in Palestine in 1948 were recent arrivals from other parts of the Arab world: despite widespread enthusiasm in the U.S., the book was greeted with embarrassed disavowal in Israel and a critical thrashing for shoddy methodology in Britain. Hitchens, a columnist for the Nation, attempts to debunk the longstanding Israeli argument that Palestinians left their homes in 1948 because Arab governments made broadcasts urging them to do so, not because Israelis forced them out. Noam Chomsky maintains that in the 1980s, in the U.S., terrorism as applied to the Middle East "refers to terrorist acts by Arabs, but not by Jews, just as 'peace' means a settlement that honors the right of national self-determination of Jews, but not of Palestinians." Other contributors argue that there was an Israeli policy in 1948 of expulsion of Arab civilians, discuss the characteristics of Palestinian population over the centuries, and so on. This is a challenging book.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“These forcefully argued treatises will be as enlightening as they are disturbing for anyone with an interest in Middle East politics.” (ALA Booklist )

“The wide-ranging scope and demythologising structure of Blaming the Victims makes it especially relevannt at the present time when the actions of the state of Israel seem to contradict received opinion as to its nature. The book provides a great quantity of information, analyses it convincingly and, through an imopressive body of notes on primary and secondary literature, points the reader in the direction of further information.” (Middle East International )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Verso (September 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859843409
• ISBN-13: 978-1859843406
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #905,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars comprehensive, October 12, 2009

By 

J. ABDO - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question (Paperback)

This is an excellent and must read on the conflict, but it is very academic, I should warn you. It reads like a textbook rather than human interest, so it is hard to get into, but it is worth the trouble.

This is a great explanation of the often neglected Palestinian point of view. The Israeli position is always well supported, understood and explained in our media and government; you will be a step ahead of the majority by reading this book since you will know both sides.

In a world where criticism of Israel = anti-Semitism, you have to do yourself a favor and read this book!

41 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refuting the false scholarship of hate, July 29, 2005

By 

Dan Willard - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question (Paperback)

This is an excellent book. Edward Said, in a collection of material, demolishes the scholarship of hate as practiced in Israel. That scholarship reached its absurd peak when Israelis started writing books to prove that Palestinians simply didn't exist and were never a majority in what is now Israel and occupied territories. What Said misses is that in the end, the stupidity and basic lie of the scholarship has only led to damage the Israeli cause internationally. In essence, its a self-destructive activity. The only consumers of it being Bible Belt Christians Conservatives in the rural and southern united states and at best the fringe of the right wing in Israel.

Do what they might, they can't undo the basic reality that the first census conducted after the creation of palestine showed a population of over 600,000 non-jews and 83,000 jews. And every other census before and after shows a stable and growing palestinian population over time. So what can they do when the basic facts are so firmly against their claims? They go to "scholarly works" like the travel accounts of Mark Twain to prove that the land was utterly empty until they arrived.

The true reason for all this scholarship in the end is to justify Israel's actions in expelling palestinians by force in 1948 during the war. Its well documented that in 1948 that even the villages the palestinians had lived in were erased with dynamite so that no trace of the homes of those who had lived in what is now Israel for centuries would remain.

The other purpose behind the scholarship is to prepare Israel mentally to accept the preferred solutions of the far right to the problem of palestinians. That solution is "transfer". Rounding them up in trucks and pushing them over the border into other countries. To prepare people for that step, its necessary to have a record of scholarship to "prove" that these people have no association with Israel and are just arab migrants who can be dumped anywhere.

From the book, its possible to learn the worst of the Israeli scholars like Joan Peters. Its then possible by looking at how seriously the scholarly fraud written by Joan Peters is treated to seperate out real Israeli historians with credibility from those who are unethical political operatives.

The problem of recognition of the reality of both Israel and Palestinians is core to peace. As palestinians had to accept Israel's existance, that there was no going back to 1947, so too must israelis discard the nonsense scholarship produced that aims to prove that Palestinians are not a people, have no history and do not exist.

Reality isn't to be found in the census of 1830, reality is that there is a large population of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza today that Israel can neither expell nor absorb. Everyone knows what the solution is going to be and its going to be international compensation for Palestinian refugees for their losses and an independent state of Palestine in the occupied territories.

26 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, May 23, 2006

By 

David Kamper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question (Paperback)

This collection of essays draws from a wealth of scholars to support the existence of Palestine before and after the rise of Zionism. The authors therein never once resort to the name-calling tactics of Zionist supporters, but rather intelligently dissect the Zionist agenda and put it to shame as the bigoted movement it is.