Image and Reality of the Israel: The Israel-Palestine Conflict [Paperback]

Norman G. Finkelstein (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 185984040X | ISBN-13: 978-1859840405 | Publication Date: September 1995

This study critically surveys the dominant popular and scholarly images of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Finkelstein opens with a theoretical discussion of zionism, locating it as a romantic form of nationalism that assumed the bankruptcy of liberal democracy. He goes on to look at the demographic origins of the Palestinians, with particular reference to the work of Joan Peters, and develops critiques of the influential studies of both Benny Morris and Anita Shapira. Reviewing the diplomatic history with Aban Eban's oeuvre as his foil, Finkelsetin closes by demonstrating that the casting of Israel as the innocent victim of Arab aggression in the June 1967 and October 1973 wars is not supported by the documentary record.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...this thoroughly documented book is guaranteed to stimulate and provoke. It will be required reading in the continuing war of the historians. (William Quandt - Foreign Affairs )

...the most revealing study of the historical background of the conflict and the current peace agreement. (Noam Chomsky - Guardian Weekly )

...a comprehensive critique of the Zionist premises of Israeli historical writing...new interpretations of the origins of the 1967 and 1973 Arab–Israel wars... (Middle East Report )

...a thought-provoking work which calls into question many accepted 'truths' associated with the Israel–Palestine conflict. (Middle East Journal )

Here is a book not to be missed. (Le Monde Diplomatique )

...both an impressive analysis of Zionist ideology and a searing but scholarly attack on Israel's treatment of the Arab's since 1948. (Lord Ian Gilmour - London Review of Books )

...hard-hitting and iconoclastic, but with...arguments securely buttressed by thorough and comprehensive research. (Middle East International )

...well-documented, scholarly...a valuable addition to any collection on the Israel–Palestine conflict. (The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine )

...will challenge the most cherished beliefs of Israel's supporters... (The Royal Institute of International Affairs )

...one of the best and boldest critical works on the Israel–Palestine conflict. (Millennium (Journal of International Studies) ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Norman G. Finkelstein is the author of A Nation on Trial (with Ruth Bettina Birn), named a notable book for 1998 by the New York Times Book Review, and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Verso Books (September 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 185984040X
• ISBN-13: 978-1859840405
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,341,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

434 of 518 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brave Man, April 12, 2002

By 

"harrifingers" (Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Paperback)

Norman Finkelstein is a brave man who has received a lot of flak for writing this book. One response that authors who criticise Israel always have to contend with is the accusation that they are motivated by anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. Jewish authors (Finkelstein is the son of Holocaust survivors)are additionally accused of being 'self hating' Jews. It's almost as if, in the eyes of Israel's unquestioning supporters, there can be no legitimate reason to criticise anything that Israel does. Maybe Israel, unlike any other country which has ever existed on Earth, is a perfect society which is completely above criticism - or is it?

The aim of this brilliant book is to ask questions about the view of Israel's history that Zionists would like the rest of us to believe. Many aspects of this history are hotly disputed so it's a perfectly legitimate area of study. Reading the book will probably challenge your preconceptions of the Arab-Israeli conflict and will make some people feel distinctly uncomfortable. But like nasty tasting medicine that ultimately does you good, it's essential reading for anyone who really wants to understand what's going on in that tragic part of the world. And the fact that all Finkelstein's opponents can do to counter his arguments is come out with the same old knee-jerk reactions says it all. Buy it!

109 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars detailed insight which is never discussed in the media, January 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Paperback)

This work is very important for people to read as it provides a worthwhile alternative view to Israeli history.

I can't determine from my own research whether the author is totally right or wrong in his thesis, but the one thing that I can say is that like all history, it is important to hear all sides of a story.

Anyone who believes (as portrayed in the mainstream media) that Israel is the font of reason and love in the middle east and simply wants to be left alone to exist, and that it is the Arab States (and Palestinians) which cause all the problems in the area must read this book simply to inform themselves of other perspectives. To believe what is said in the media these days, you would never know about the history of land encroachment etc by Israel. The settlements which are still expanding to this day were going on since 1948! These things came as news to me, and simply points to the need to inform oneself about history from both sides, including the Arab side. You very rarely (never?) see or hear this side of the argument in the US. It is that very fact which should indicate that reading this version of history is important - ignorance is the foundation of an unfair world.

Read this book!

112 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliantly written, thought provoking scholarly book. (From Shifra Stern), February 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Image and Reality of the Israel: The Israel-Palestine Conflict (Paperback)

Dr. Norman Finkelstein has written a brilliant and scholarly expose of
the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is not a dispassionate historian/scholar
nor does he pretend to be. He dedicates the book to his parents,
survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Nazi extermination camps:
"May I never forget or forgive what was done to them."

Finkelstein's keen intellect is breathtaking. His painstaking research
which supports the evidence how the "reality" of the causes of the
conflict is vastly different than the "image" presented to us by the media
is a marvel to behold.

My favorite chapters in the book are chapters 2 and 4.

In Chapter 2, he discusses Joan Peters book "From Time Immemorial"
and masterfully exposes it as a hoax. The crux of Peters' thesis was
that "Palestine was, literally, 'uninhabited' on the eve of the Zionist
colonization; and that if the Arab population did not materialize, literally,
ex nihilo in Palestine, it did surreptitiously enter to exploit the economic
opportunities that the Jews created when they made the 'desert bloom'." By that logic, most Palestinians were not even there in 1948 to be expelled from their homes.
The fact that such a threadbare hoax can be published in this country
is not surprising. But the fact that this book received accolades from
journalists and scholars alike, from such luminaries as Daniel Pipes,
Sidney Zion, Holocaust historian Lucy Dawidowicz, and Nobel
peace prize laureate Elie Wiesel, speaks volumes about the American
commissar culture. After the book went through several printings and
was exposed as an utter fraud in Britain, it finally prompted Anthony
Lewis to write a column for The New York Times aptly entitled "There
Were No Indians."

Perhaps the most illuminating part of the book is Chapter 4 entitled
"Settlement, Not Conquest." Finkelstein's dissection of how the
historical rhetoric and justifications for conquest are strikingly
similar -- "from the British in North America to the Dutch in South Africa,
from the Nazis in Eastern Europe, to the Zionists in Palestine" --
is both enlightening and comical.

Finally, it is noteworthy to mention Finkelstein's poignant observation
for those of us who want to see justice done to the Palestinians and
to all people who are suffering as a direct result of America's
diplomatic and military support to the darkest and most oppressive
regimes around the globe: "The plea of 'not knowing' cannot in
good faith be entered at history's bar. Those who want to know can
know the truth; at all events, enough of it to draw the just conclusions."
To buttress his point, he quotes Albert Speer's mea culpa at
Nuremberg: "Whether I knew or did not know, or how much or little I
knew, is totally unimportant when I consider the horrors I OUGHT to
have known about and what conclusions would have been natural
ones to draw from the little I did know . . ."

Thus, Finkelstein concludes: "Indeed, the [ordinary] Germans could
point in extenuation to the severity of penalties for speaking out
against the crimes of state. What excuse do we have?"
Perhaps, we may want to do some genuine soul-searching
as we ponder that question.