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143 of 173 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Attempt at a Balanced View of Israel and Zionism, January 14, 2007
This review is from: The Case Against Israel (Counterpunch) (Paperback)
I always considered myself pro-Israel. But I struggled to see how the West Bank and Gaza settlements could be considered fair to the Palestineans. When I raised the issue with my pro-Israel friends, I was surprised that they were so angry at my even bringing it up. I also found it peculiar that they had so many arguments to justify the settlements, none of which I found persuasive. As I questioned their responses and pointed out how one-sided they were, completely ignoring what I thought were legitimate Palestinean positions, they practically accused me of anti-Semitism. I could not understand why an open discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of each side's positions in the Israeli-Palestinean conflict would make me anti-Semitic. I found it interesting that they essentially refused to answer when asked what they would do if they were Palestinean.
Then it dawned on me. The presentation of this issue in the American media and throughout our society is so one-sided and imbalanced that any attempt at a balanced and reasoned analysis appears pro-Palestinean. So I sought out a book on the issue which went through all of the issues my friends had raised in support of Israel to see how they held up to a more informed scrutiny than my own. This book provided just what I was looking for.
The author, Michael Neumann, is a Jewish professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. After a thoughtful and fair discussion of each side's positions, his ultimate verdict is that "Israel is the illegitiate child of ethnic nationalism. The inhabitants of Palestine had every reason to oppose its establishment by any means necessary. No one is required to submit to a sovereignty from which they are excluded, much less a sovereignty arrogated to one ethnic group and excluding all others. Given the life-or-death powers of the proposed state and the intentions of its proponents to maintain ethnic supremacy within its borders, the Palestineans were justified in taking the project as a mortal threat, and, therefore, to resist by any means necessary.***It is admirable to fight those who come to dispossess or dominate you rather than flee."
Neumann's point is not to argue that Israel has no right to exist, but that the Palestineans can fairly be said to have given up something if they agree to recognize Israel at its pre-1967 borders, and that Israel could be said to have succeeded even if it permits all of Gaza and the West Bank to become a sovereign nation ruled by the Palestineans without Israeli interference. And that under such a mutually satisfactory approach, peace is possible, assuming both sides agree that peace is the goal. This book showed me that I am pro-Israel, but that I disagree with the ardent Zionists.
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64 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Case Against Israel, April 1, 2006
This review is from: The Case Against Israel (Counterpunch) (Paperback)
A huge issue in our times and our world has been the injustice of an the Palestinians and Israelis. It is not an easy issue, either, in America, where there is a large Jewish population. Many Jewish radicals come from families who whole-heartily support Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and are used to being named as self-hating Jews. They are often torn between their own experience of growing up in a predominantly Christian nation as well as being apart of a people who have been persecuted mightily throughout the world, and that experience being used by Israel to justify their imperialist activities in the Middle East. Indeed, American Jews have been known to unquestionably support the actions of the Israeli government even more than Israelis themselves, who are more torn into different viewpoints. This is the experience this book, "The Case Against Israel", was written from, as the author, Michael Neumann, is a Jewish professor, who in the introduction states he has never been incredibly pro-Palestinian, teaching Philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada (close enough to America.)
It is also a touchy subject, because one certainly does not want to be accused of anti-Semitism as a non-Jew. I am not Jewish, making it difficult for me to get involved in this discussion without being shut-down as simply "not understanding the plight of the Jews" as has been said to me. The book, however, is a step-by step logical and moral counter to the arguments of Zionism and the government of Israel. It proceeds in a very calm but very encompassing style. The charge of anti-semitism is covered early in the book, noting that Israel does not represent all Jews and therefore it is not anti-semitic to criticize Israel, especially since the largest population of Jews lives in the United States and not in Israel.
The book is divided into two sections. The first is the argument against the ideology of Zionism, which is grounded in the pre-1947 founding of Israel. Neumann makes the point of stating the incredibly colonialist and imperialist nature of settling European Jews in any land, and arguing that the Zionist leadership saw the people of Palestine as non-existant or undeserving of the land, since Jews had lived there millennium before them (which is countered by stating that no one is really native of anywhere, since people existed in Palestine before even the ancient Israelites did.) He also makes the point that the Zionist movement leadership manipulated many poor Jews to move in the stead of more wealthy Jews. Following the horrific holocaust by Nazi Germany, the Zionist leadership actually placed fleeing Jews in even more danger by having them go to Palestine, where war was brewing between Palestinian people losing their land and the incoming settlers and refugees.
The second part of the book recognizes that after the 1967 war, Israel was in no more danger of being "driven into the sea", and therefore the shift of the Zionist ideology came to be supporting Israeli drives to take more land in Palestine. Many will argue that Israel must maintain its occupation to protect itself against Arab attack, and that is easily countered by stating the fact that Israel has not faced a united Arab world, which is itself sort of a fantasy, in a very long time. Indeed, the utter destitution that the Palestinians face as being permanent refugees in their own land leaves them with little choice but to resist, since it is the natural human need to resist attempts at bodily destruction of one's self and close ones. Logically, one cannot morally support the Jewish settlements which are funded by Israel and US tax aid.
There are many more arguments used by Israel's defenders which are refuted in a systematic rational manner within this book. A quick and enjoyable read, it is mainly based in Philosophy and sound arguments, and the author refuses to become emotionally overdrawn in any argument. For anyone with an interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict, this book is an absolute must read, since it carries some essential basic concepts and arguments that are so simple they are powerful, impossible for anyone with any sense of moral justice to ignore.
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79 of 102 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
reply to the 'Inconsistent, March 2, 2006
This review is from: The Case Against Israel (Counterpunch) (Paperback)
I wasn't hoping my book would win me a Mr. Congeniality award, and I won't complain about the obviously hostile reviews. But I do complain about the reviewer who accuses me of inconsistency ('Inconsistent'). Because he seems reasonable and moderate, someone might actually believe his wild claims.
(...)I by no means adopt a fascist definition of the state; I adopt a definition from the decidedly unfascistic Lawrence Krader, Max Weber and Robert Nozick, one which is quite standard among political theorists.
It is entirely false that I claim for the Palestinians a right of self-determination; I merely claim for them a right of self-defense which I explicitly say is available to everyone, including Jews.
Do I "forcefully argue that Palestinians have a right to self determination because they are a separate people"? I say: "...before the Zionists came, there were a bunch of people who lived in the area. Whether they were called Palestinians, whether the area was called Palestine, whether the people in this area considered themselves a people, Palestinian or otherwise, are all questions without the slightest importance when assessing Zionism." And, 'many pages' on, when I 'argue against the Jordanian option for the Palestinians', I say "Nor does any of this have anything to do with whether the Palestinians are in some cultural or anthropological sense a `people'."
(...) I leave it to others to explain how my book can be both "a consistent summary of Neumann's writings" and 'inconsistent'.
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