Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State [Paperback]

Jonathan Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0745325556 | ISBN-13: 978-0745325552

What does Israel hope to achieve with its recent withdrawal from Gaza and the building of a 700km wall around the West Bank? Jonathan Cook, who has reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the Second Intifada, presents a lucid account of the Jewish state's motives. The heart of the issue, he argues, is demography. Israel fears the moment when the region’s Palestinians – Israel's own Palestinian citizens and those in the Occupied Territories – become a majority. Inevitable comparisons with apartheid in South Africa will be drawn. The book charts Israel’s increasingly desperate responses to its predicament: -- military repression of Palestinian dissent on both sides of the Green Line -- accusations that Israel's Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian Authority are secretly conspiring to subvert the Jewish state from within -- a ban on marriages between Israel’s Palestinian population and Palestinians living under occupation to prevent a right of return ‘through the back door’ -- the redrawing of the Green Line to create an expanded, fortress state where only Jewish blood and Jewish religion count Ultimately, concludes the author, these abuses will lead to a third, far deadlier intifada.

Editorial Reviews

Review

‘Timely and important … by far the most penetrating and comprehensive [book] on the subject to date. … This work should be required reading.’ --Nur Masalha, Director of Holy Land Studies, St Mary’s College, University of Surrey, and author of The Politics of Denial (2003)

 

‘An original and powerful book.’ --Ilan Pappe, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Haifa University, and author of A Modern History of Palestine (2004)

 

‘Very impressive … Some of his findings will astound even the knowledgeable reader.’ --Salim Tamari, Director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies

About the Author

Jonathan Cook, a former staff journalist for the Guardian and Observer newspapers, has also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. He is based in Nazareth.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Pluto Press (April 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745325556
• ISBN-13: 978-0745325552
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #852,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

166 of 182 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely a must read!!! July 26, 2006

By LD Lewis

Format:Paperback

As someone who has been covering the Israeli/Palestinian conflict for six years and comes up against the sheer racism and coordinated efforts of PR Zionism, this book is invaluable. The apartheid system that Israel embraces, the euphemisms and omissions clandestinely hidden in its claims of democracy which hide its overt racism, Cook documents to a T.

This book exposes the ugly side of Zionism and Israel, the racism and disregard for non-Jewish human life those of us who write on this issue have known about and often get labeled anti-Semitic for exposing. But far more chilling is the similarities to how America now operates.
The similarities to Homeland Security, the NSA and even our own police forces being used to spy upon our own citizens frighteningly obvious in this statement by Haifa University professor Ilan Pappe, found on page 79:
"My fear even before the outbreak of the intifada was that the Shin Bet, (CIA in Israel) was under-employed in the occupied territories because of the withdrawals agreed under the Oslo Accords. The security apparatus (in Israel) is huge, and a lot of people work for it--50 percent of academics for example, are employed in some capacity as advisers or counselors--so there's a lot of interest in keeping it going.
Because the service still had the same manpower and the same means at its disposal, it needed to change target--and to justify this change of target it had to come up with a new story; that there had been a fundamental change in the way the Palestinians inside Israel were behaving. The Shin Bet argument was that Israel needed to increase the involvement of the secret services inside Israel, that the police could not operate alone. They had to prove there was a sinister side to the activity of the Palestinian minority that could only be deciphered by the secret service and could only be confronted by the secret service." Emphasis in original

This 'sinister action' that Israeli Arabs were undertaking? They began protesting for equal rights, the same rights to property, employment, education, housing, opportunity, civil services and safety enjoyed by the Jewish citizens of the state. In short, using the tactics made famous by Martin Luther King and Gandhi, they lobbied through peaceful demonstrations for a state that recognized all its citizens, not just those of the Jewish faith. For doing so, often Israel's Arab citizens are maimed, beaten and killed.
To prevent peaceful demonstrations and the achievement of equal rights by a minority, the state of Israel turned on its own citizens and made them the enemy within. Now imagine what happens in the United States when Americans begin to realize our constitutional rights have been completely discarded and we begin to peacefully organize to get them back. Now we, those of us wanting rights become the enemy within because we become a threat to the status quo and state.
Blood and Religion enables Americans to dispel many myths about Israel and it provides the missing pieces as to why the conflict in that region, the root cause of unrest in the Middle East continues. But more importantly, the eerie similarities to the increased militarization of our own society and scapegoating of `others' whether liberal or conservative, legal or illegal, Arab or Jew, Hispanic or Black make this a must read for any American who cares about our republic, our rights and our morality. If we're not careful, we could become Israel and this is not in the best interests of our nation, people or the world. Let us learn from the mistakes and hatred of others thus saving ourselves from becoming as they.

62 of 67 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Context For the Occupation: A Must Read! November 8, 2006

By Howard B. Lenow VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I think that anyone who wants to understand the context for the current Occupaton of Palestine should read this important analysis. Most people are unaware of the pervasive discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel that is institutionalized in Israeli society. As an American Jew who has spent time in the West Bank and Israel as part of human rights delegatations, I have seen the impacts of the very structure of Israeli society that treats its Palestinian citizens as second class. Jonathan Cook explores the complex web of Israel's government by Ministry and Regulation, in the absence of a Constitution and under the all encompassing justification of security above all, regardless of the impact on the human rights of its non-jewish citizens. Give this book a chance and it will open your mind and provide a shocking perspective on what it really means to operate a "Jewish" State rather than a society dedicated to equality for all its citizens.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A different take and a solid read February 19, 2007

By R. Goff

Format:Paperback

Jonathan Cook's Blood and Religion offers a different perspective on a problem if continuing import. Rather than focusing on the Israel/Palestinian problem as a dispute between two "states," Cook focuses on the internal problems in Israel regarding the disposition of Israeli Arabs and non-Jewish citizens and their contradictory role in Israeli society. Although officially "Israeli citizens," they are demographic "enemy's within," due to the legal mandate of Israel as a "Jewish State." As Israel is not a nation of its citizens, but a Jewish State, what if non-Jews became majority? What if they had political parties which could represent them effectively? What if they could change the nature of Israel from within using democratic means? According to Cook, this is the real threat that Israel faces with the issues of the "right to return," the extremist settler movement, and the decision to build a wall and limit the movement of Palestinians. Israel can't remain both Jewish and retain the cloak of democracy without tightly controlling the non-Jewish population in the area.

In some respects the situation is similar to the American South during the heyday of Jim Crow. The only way to keep a "white man's democracy" was through the systematic denial of rights to African Americans. Of course, there was no "black state" created in the US south (akin to Bantustans in South Africa), however, voter intimidation, violence, residential segregation and gerrymandering generated a similar result.

Overall, the book is interesting and well written and offers a different perspective on the problem. It is a little repetitive and some of the chapters could have been pared down, but overall it is a good read.