Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine [Paperback]

Ghada Karmi (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0745320651 | ISBN-13: 978-0745320656 | Publication Date: May 20, 2007

Two rabbis,visiting Palestine in 1897,observed that the land was like a bride,"beautiful,but married to another man". By which they meant that, if a place was to be found for Israel in Palestein,where would the people of Palestine go? This is a dilemma that Israel has never been able to resolve. No conflict today is more dangerous than that between Israel and the Palestinians. The implications it has for regional and global security cannot be overstated. The peace process as we know it is dead and no solution is in sight. Nor, as this book argues, will that change until everyone involved in finding a solution accepts the real causes of conflict, and its consequences on the ground. Leading writer Ghada Karmi explains in fascinating detail the difficulties Israel's existence created for the Arab world and why the search for a solution has been so elusive. Ultimately,she argues that the conflict will end only once the needs of both Arabs and Israelis are accommodated equally. Her startling conclusions overturn conventional thinking-but they are hard to refute.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ghada Karmi's storytelling eloquence is celebrated. Now the sheer power and sense of her analysis throws down a challenge to those who claim the 'problem' of Israel and Palestine cannot be solved. She shows it can. -- John Pilger Ghada Karmi's storytelling eloquence is celebrated. Now the sheer power and sense of her analysis throws down a challenge to those who claim the 'problem' of Israel and Palestine cannot be solved. She shows it can. -- John Pilger The demise of the two-state solution makes Ghada Karmi's work a compelling read. Her book is well-written and extraordinarily honest. Her bold vision of a single egalitarian state for Palestinians and Israelis is the only way to break the current log jam and bring an end to Apartheid Israel -- Dr Nur Masalha, Reader in Religion and Politics, Director of the Centre for Religion and History and of the Holy Land Research Project, St Mary's University College, University of Surrey The demise of the two-state solution makes Ghada Karmi's work a compelling read. Her book is well-written and extraordinarily honest. Her bold vision of a single egalitarian state for Palestinians and Israelis is the only way to break the current log jam and bring an end to Apartheid Israel. -- Dr Nur Masalha, Reader in Religion and Politics, Director of the Centre for Religion and History and of the Holy Land Research Project, St Mary's University College, University of Surrey Ghada Karmi's direct and incisive prose is a welcome contribution to a field overburdened. ... The book introduces in the most convincing manner the merit of the one state solution as a settlement that would benefit all concerned: the Palestinians wherever they are, the Israelis and the Middle East as a whole. -- Ilan Pappe, author of A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples Two rabbis visited Palestine in 1897 to examine its suitablity as a Jewish state and observed that the land was like a bride 'beautiful but married to another man'. These days the conflict ... has implications for the whole world. Karmi, one of our most renowned commentators on the Isreali-Palestinian conflict, has some startling ideas and conclusions in this fascinating book. -- Hampstead and Highgate Express

About the Author

Ghada Karmi is one of the world's most renowned commentators on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a well-known figure on British radio and TV. Born in Jerusalem, she was forced to leave as a child in 1948 and grew up in Britain where she became a physician, academic and writer. Currently, Karmi is a research fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. She is the author of several books, including her most recent, widely acclaimed memoir, In Search of Fatima.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pluto Press (May 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745320651
• ISBN-13: 978-0745320656
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,079,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully told with unfettering conviction, April 17, 2008

By 

Hanna Hagström "Sean Kenny" (Rep of Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine (Paperback)

This book is a must read. The author begins speaking of the two rabbis who approached the so-called "land without a people" in 1898 and observed how beautiful a place it was but that it was 'married to another man'. Karmi focuses on the point that the 1948 'Nakba' has over time been sidelined in negotiations and mainstream media to be replaced by more recent 'realities on the ground' caused since 1967 in the occupied (now "disputed" due to weak journalism) territories. There is also some extremely interesting early European Jewish history in the opening stages of the book, later only to be wiped out by the apathy of Europe and the horrors of the Nazi holocaust.
Karmi's summary of the timeline from this date through the first Camp David accords to the 2006 Gaza implosion is told beautifully. Each time she describes the internal inefficiency that paralysed the Palestinians from coherent action in talks, she explains how Israel rejected every attempt by the Arab states who compromised for peace and preferred to do separate deals with them individually fragmenting their unity. Eventually the Arab states must take responsibility for their weakness.
This was a diplomatic coup for Israel but aded to the catastrophic situation in the occupied territories.
Karmi uses UN Resolutions, international law, and the International Declaration of Human Rights throughout the book as a basis for her argument and her greatest achievement in the end is to suggest various alternatives and solutions to the situation. She provides analysis of why each might fail and succeed, but she is the first author since Richard Crowley's 'Dispatches from the Middle East' that has succeeded in suggesting plausible answers. Both authors have produced the finest accounts of the conflict I have read, and both acknowledge that no Peace Treaty between the two sides can hope for LASTING success, unless it starts on the foundation of equality and most importantly justice.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Solution for an Enduring Dilemma from a Renaissance Type Scholar and Activist, May 31, 2008

By 

Mahmoud N. Musa (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine (Paperback)

A Solution for an Enduring Dilemma from a Renaissance Type Scholar and Activist

Nineteenth Century Europe witnessed the height of nationalism and colonialism. Almost every nation ventured out to conquer a piece of the world, believing that any land not inhabited by Europeans is figuratively empty. And why not the Jews? Central and East European Jews, of Turkic/Slavic stock, commonly known as Ashkenazim, and currently constituting 80% of world Jewry, established their first colony in Palestine in 1882. That same year, the British invaded and occupied Egypt, and the colonialist Cecil Rhodes established a colony in south eastern Africa naming it after himself (now Zimbabwe).
It is said that the leaders of the Zionist Movement dispatched two rabbis to report on the country of their colonialist ambition. The rabbis reported back: "The bride is beautiful, but alas, she is already married to another man", meaning that the country was well- populated. That did not deter the leaders who persisted with their project to create a colonial-settler state, to be named Israel, and in the process cleansing out most of its endogenous population. Thus the enduring dilemma of what is to be done with the Palestinians and resolve this conflict that continues to cause so much misery for the whole population of that area and threaten world peace. This is the meaning of the title of this book.
The relationship of an author to her book is akin to that of the mother to her daughter. Thus a brief introduction of the author is worthwhile. Ghada Karmi, the nine year old of a prominent scholar, was more fortunate than most of those who were driven out of Jerusalem. Her family landed in England in 1949. If every cloud has its silver lining, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinians had its positive effects. Losing their land and homes, they turned to education as their means of survival and source of pride.
Ghada seems to have internalized this culture par excellence. She first qualified in and practiced medicine, and followed this with a doctorate in History of Medicine, and continues to teach, research and consult on these subjects. At the same time, she has been continuously involved in politics as a scholar and activist. I know of a man who would be proud of Dr. Karmi. He is Rudolph Virchow, the great German physician and scientist, and a leader of the 1848 revolution in Germany and Europe. When asked how he justified taking time from his medical pathology research to be active in politics replied: " Politics is medicine on a large scale".
This book is the latest of several books in and scores of articles written by this author. One of these books is an autobiography entitled "In Search for Fatima". Consider this fact: this memoir is rated as 9 on the Flesh-Kincaid Readability Index, meaning that it can be understood by a reader with 9 years education. In contrast "Married to Another Man" is rated 16. Few authors can be so versatile.
Eloquent, assertive and attractive, Dr. Karmi gained access to high political circles. This book benefits from her first-hand experience. It is also a scholarly and well- documented treatise. Even the most informed will find new material in it. The book is divided into seven chapters, an introduction, and an epilogue. Each chapter can be read on its own, but all serve as a useful background to understand the dilemma and the logic of the proposed solution. Two of the chapters are on the cost of Israel to the Arabs and the Palestinians.
Two others delve into the reasons the Jews and the West established and continue to sustain Israel. A chapter is titled " The Peace Process", and another discusses the various solutions that have been proposed, including the two-state proposal. The book culminates with a chapter arguing that the only logical solution is one democratic state for all those who live on the land of historic Palestine and Palestinian refugees.
To those who are pessimistic about finding a satisfactory solution to this enduring conflict, the author answers that this pessimism is unwarranted if one thought through the logic of the situation. To those with quick accusations of utopianism, anti-Semitism , or even treachery, she counters that such judgments are a lazy way out of having to think about ideas that conflict with what has become familiar, conventional and also serves vested interests. It is worthwhile taking the time to find out.

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly researched and one-sided, August 14, 2011

By 

Mommykins (Massachusestts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine (Paperback)

This is a great book for those who hate Israel and hate Jews even more. It has all the requisites - made-up 'facts', un-sources (a newspaper and date is not a 'source'), and absurd conclusions (Jews 'collaborated' with the Nazis? on what planet?).

The author also conveniently leaves out important and well-known facts such as -there were massacres of Jews by Arabs well before 1948 (including the infamous Hebron massacres where Arabs tortured and murdered innocent families), both Hamas and Fatah are genocidal totalitarian regimes (read their charters and the news), the 'Palestinian' people do not exist; they are a made-up invention designed to give an excuse for the Arabs to ethnically cleanse the West Bank (even their own leaders admit this!), etc.

Of course the author knows all of these things, but telling the truth would ruin the fantasy she is selling to clueless Westerners.