Customer Reviews

Quo Vadis, Israel?

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The author of this book needs a serious refresher course in history. For example, on page 37 he talks about how the mujahedin fighters were able to force the Soviet armies to leave Afghanistan, calling it, "the first Muslim military victory in centuries, in fact the first since Saladin, the greatest of Muslim heroes, had conquered Jerusalem in 1187 AD." This is completely false, ignoring the Muslim Ottoman conquests of a large part of Europe in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Ottoman armies reached the point where they laid siege to Vienna. His statement also ignores the victory of the Muslim Algerians in freeing themselves from French control in 1962.
Even worse than this are his statements on the first page.

"A very long time ago, so it appears to me, the Jews committed three fundamental mistakes.
First, they followed Moses into the desert instead of letting him wander off alone. In doing so, they adopted what the world subsequently determined to be a wrong religion. That was a fateful error inasmuch as it is common knowledge how dreadful a sin it is to adhere to a wrong religion."

This sets the tone for the rest of the book as it clearly establishes the author's position that Judaism is a "wrong religion."
In the latter part of the book, Nennhaus suggests that the solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict is to create a more "realistic" Jewish homeland in the Baltic regions, literally purchasing the land from the current owners. There is a map of this proposed new state on page 68, it would be bordered on the north by Lithuania, on the west by the Baltic sea, on the south by Poland and on the west by Russia. The region was formerly part of East Prussia that the Soviets took possession of at the end of World War II. After this idea is put forward, Nennhaus then moves on to describing the beauty of the area, the current economic status and who would finance the purchase and the move.
This idea has about the same stature as his knowledge of history and religious "correctness", there is very little grasp of reality. This is a very bad book.

Let me sum up this book: Poor logic, plethora of informational errors, numerous historical mistakes, author bias and a huge miscalculation on the costs involved.

At about 120 pages, the book is almost devoid of facts and its underlying premise if unreasonable, illogical, and quite simply foolish.

Quo Vadis, Israel? (Where are you going, Israel?) discusses the crisis between Israel and the Palestinian people, a crisis which seems to have gone on forever with no hope in sight.

The author gives a decent history of Jewish persecution along with the roots of Palestinian hatred. He states that peace can't happen if things stay as they are and have been. He believes that the answer could be in relocating the State of Israel to a geographic area where there is no hostility.

"Experimentally, let us suppose we wanted to create a society in which the irrationality of passionate hate with its associated unimpeded brutality is driven into its maximum.

How would we have to go about it? My suggestion is to follow the recipe, which history employed in Israel and Palestine during the past six decades.... It is not unreasonable to fear that this mountain of loathing and abomination will be an irremovable fact dividing the Israelis and Palestinians and that in the unlikely event that some day in the future permanent peace between them becomes reality, it would still not extinguish the flames of mutual aversion."

The book gives the reader a basic understanding of how anti-Semitism happened throughout the world. We discover some of the autocracies the Jews endured and how that led to Zionism.

"For Jews and non-Jews alike," Nennhaus says, "the State of Israel has become the source of disappointment and concern. The world has witnessed the never-ending tragedy that has befallen the Holy Land with its wars, bombings and intifadas, and the United States, in spite of its unmatched influence, has been unable to resolve the crisis." Using a number of potential scenarios, he asserts that any future efforts to make a peaceful solution will be unsuccessful.

I'm not sure Israel should expect the United States to provide an answer to its problems. We are condemned when we intervene and condemned when we don't.

I found the book interesting but rather one-sided. It was mostly a commentary. But certainly worth reading for those interested in this subject.

This original book seeks to answer the question: `Can the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be solved by moving Israel?' This is a daring question, but it is also startlingly absurd. However before the book enters into this virgin territory it first begins with a short series of chapters detailing the history of the Jewish people, Zionism and the `conflict' in the Middle East. The author begins by posing the question: `why anti-Semitism' and then answers it by claiming that the Jews are responsible for anti-Semitism because they followed Moses, thus deviating from other religions (how this is possible is not clear since Christianity relies on Judaism for its foundation), then the Jews were overly literate and created jealousy and lastly they dared to challenge Rome's authority and became a Diaspora. Next the author takes us on the very unoriginal and stereotypical path of claiming that Zionism saw a `land without a people' and that this therefore is the source of the conflict. It is a myth, one of the great myths of all anti-Israel literature, that Zionism believed Palestine was desolate and unoccupied. No serious Zionist leader believed this. Most pragmatic Zionists, such as Ben-Gurion, knew all too well of the Arab Palestinians.

The author presents a chart showing how most guerilla movements, like the Palestinians supposedly, have succeeded and thus he tries to prove that Israel's war against terrorism and the `militants' will inevitably fail. But his evidence is shaky here. The rebel movements against the Soviets all failed. The Shia rebels against Saddam and the Sikhs against India failed as did the Baluchis and Pakistan and the Tibetans in China. Aceh and the Communist Chinese failed against Indonesia. So did the Malayan rebels.

The book proposes that the area known as Konigsberg/Kalingrad, a barren piece of real estate sandwiched between Poland, Belarus and the Baltic states could be a `solution' for the Jewish problem in Israel. Hitler too proposed resettling the Jews in the `east'. According to the thesis by removing the Jews from Israel the `scourge of terrorism' and the "confrontation between Islam and the West" would fade away and "human civilization would have recovered somewhat from its god-awful transgressions of the past." Perhaps Jewish Israelis do not want westerners `solution'. Jews have suffered for the past 2,000 years at the hands of `solutions' imposed upon them by others, from the Catholic church to the Nazis to the terrorists. Most absurdly one wonders why only Israel and the Jewish people are targeted for `resettlement' on the simple basis that others hate them. The Blacks of the American south suffered terrorism at the hands of the KKK and yet no one proposed resettling them. Like Jonathan Cook's 'Israel and the Clash of Civilizations' this book blames Israel for all the world's problems and is thus completely biased and absurd.

Seth J. Frantzman

I started reading this book with great curiosity. How could one thin book give a solution to an age old problem, peace in the Middle East between Israel and Palestinians? As I read the background information, a sort of simplified primer(think cliff notes) on a complex topic, I thought this book might be going nowhere. Halfway through the book the subject of the "The Black Hole" is introduced; this is when it got more interesting and piqued my interest. This is the area near the Baltic Sea known as the Khaliningrad Oblast that has a history nearly as complex as the conflict( used to part of Prussia and former USSR) that drives the Palestinian Israel debate. I'm not sure if his solution would work but it is interesting. Now, if there were just some politicians that might want to lend an ear and get behind this proposal it just might work? Surely it is not working now. However, I have some problems with his proposal. I don't believe that Israelis would want to relocate(again) for ther sake of a Palestinian peace solution. Call me naive but I can't see it happening.Then again, in the words of John Lennon, "Imagine." I just don't know if this proposed solution would have the cooperation of the Israeli population? This book is good food for thought.

Dr. H Peter Nennhaus provides an erudite and totally focused overview of the failed attempts at creating peace between Israel and its closest and most contentious neighbor, the Palestinian Arabs. This author is knowledgeable and passionate in building a case, a very persuasive argument, an original, in fact, a radical solution to Israel's problem. It is this: move the country of Israel to a region of Russia called Kallingrad (which used to belong to Germany if memory serves right). Actually, his solution is to purchase this land, rich in natural resources that the Russians failed to develop ...

Being a realist, the author is clearly convinced, in its present location, Israel has little or no chance of living in peace. He does a super job of presenting matters from the Palestinian, Arab, Muslim perspective. Given the current radical Islamic tendencies in the world and jihadist events in recent times, lasting peace is unlikely. Using tongue-in-cheek dark humor, he shows the major problems Jews have faced ever since they were dispersed due to the Romans having destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. He provides a scholarly discourse of major historical events and wars in which Israel has been embroiled ever since inception as a nation. In a graph, he lists successful guerrilla warfare events worldwide proving the method works and Israel will hardly prevail against terrorist activities. The author then provides a brief modern and ancient history of the land proposed to be the new location for Israel. He gives logical, step-by-step "what if" scenarios for creating peace in the current region of Israel and provides percentages for the possibility of success, not very likely. The bottom line is creating a *new* homeland for the Jews. He provides solid arguments for Kalingrad becoming the new homeland. His presentation makes it look like world-wide investors would benefit as well.

Jam-packed with facts and logic, this small volume leaves a huge impact on the reader. Initially, the proposed solution of creating/moving a country seems ill-advised. Objections are numerous. Every Jew leaves the current country of Israel? Hardly likely ... Only the most Orthodox Jews remain behind and take their chances? It does not seem feasible. However, reading further in the book, and with greater contemplation, the idea grows into something - well, possible. Given the motivation, intelligence, and resilence of the Israeli people, eventually this reader concluded, why not? Only the people living in modern Israel can determine their fate. If they are tired of the police state actions required to engage in every day life, perhaps ... this unfathomable solution might become fathomable. This is a most highly recommended book for anyone interested on the subject of Israel and peace in the Middle East. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

Years ago with the escalating violence in the Middle east, I suggested to friends that if we gave Israel a new home it would stop the fighting. Half jokingly I recommended Montana. I was surprised to find a well thought out book written with a real solution.
Buy this book if you want to read about a well thought out answer to the never ending violence in the Middle East. The author is proposing the moving of Israel from the Middle east to the Baltic area in Europe currently controlled by Russia, the Kaliningrad Oblast formerly the northern third of the old provence of east Prussia. Yes, it is radical and would take support from the United States, European Union, and Russia. The author freely admits the complexity of this plan and the multitude of challenges involved. At the same time this is a probable solution with huge benefits to all. Israel's current geographic location ensures ongoing holy wars will continue indefinitely. All other options will continue to cause loss of human life. This solution will purchase land out right from the Russians, relocate the current inhabitants of the Oblast back to their homeland and lift them from poverty, it will give the Palestinians their land back, and put the new Israel in a much better territory for agriculture and into the Europen Union. Read the book, it is well written, realistic, and I believe a well thought out solution.

I sometimes run across some crackpot books on how to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This isn't one of them, since it is easy to see from reading the book that Nennhaus understands the gravity and the intractability of the situation in the Holy Lands only too well. Yet the author's proposal sounds almost bizarre, or, depending on your point of view, completely bizarre.

What Nennhaus, who is an American citizen from Berlin, proposes is that the Jews leave the Middle East and form a Jewish state in what is now Kaliningrad, a Russian Oblast on the Baltic Sea across from Sweden between Poland and Lithuania. Nennhaus argues (fantastically, some might say) that Kaliningrad's people, who are mostly Russian, can be persuaded to move to Russia and that Russia will give up its hold on Kaliningrad so that the Jews can take up residence there.

In a sense this proposal is born of a deep and abiding despair. Nennhaus argues (this time most cogently) that the Jews will never find peace in the Middle East and will eventually, for any number of reasons, lose their homeland west of the Jordan River. Through a greater Israeli Arab birthrate and the exodus of the educated Jews, the present state of Israel will become an Arab state eventually. (And of course there are other calamities possible, which I'll leave to the reader's imagination.) Furthermore, the present state of Israel, Nennhaus argues, is an artificiality foolishly imposed on the Middle East by the Western powers that will never be accepted by Muslims. The hatred that exists between Jews and Muslims will never be resolved and so there will never be peace in the Middle East--at least not for the foreseeable future.

I must confess that I personally see no way out of the morass that exists today for both the Palestinians and the Israelis. Many have tried and all have failed to find a solution. So why not take a look at what Nennhaus proposes, however outlandish?

Okay, I looked and found that (1) Most Jews are not about to leave the Holy Land. It's their Holy Land too. And to give everything to the Palestinians.... I don't think they will do that. Perhaps the improvements made on the land by the Jews could be paid for by petrol states like Saudia Arabia...? (Right. That will happen.) (2) Moscow is not about to give up Kaliningrad since it is their only open port in winter (although with global warming that may change). (3) The people presently living in Kaliningrad, although very poorly off as Nennhaus reports, are actually experiencing some significant economic growth as I write this. And anyway it is not so easy to just get up and leave the land of your birth and go to a place where your welcome is decidedly uncertain. (4) It's hard to imagine who will pay for all this.

Still, if--if!--this could happen it would probably bring greater happiness to everybody involved than what will probably transpire as things are now.

Another fantastic proposal (not from Nennhaus) is to make Palestine and Israel the 51st and 52nd states of the United States through some sort of division.

A very dark (but historically common) solution is for the stronger side to simply wipe out the weaker. Nennhaus mentions this possibility on pages 47-48 using the ironically grotesque phrase "The Final Solution" as his title for it. He gives it a less than five percent chance of happening.

Some interesting insights that Nennhaus offers along the way include the fact that guerilla wars are almost always "won" by the guerillas, or at least they are not defeated. Therefore, the "guerillas"--whom I would call terrorists--Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others, are not likely to be defeated. The terrible irony is that the Jews can win every battle, every "war," and still lose.

Nennhaus also points to the sad history of the Jews in Europe where they have been endlessly driven from here to there as second class citizens and scapegoated for any and all ills. He cites these three "mistakes" the Jews have made historically that have led to their troubles:

(1) Following Moses into the desert thereby adopting "what the world subsequently determined to be a wrong religion" and consequently becoming the target of "bloodletting, hatred, and abuse" from those who adhere to the "right religion." This is a very deep psychological and philosophic point that I haven't the space to address here, alas. But suffice it to say many Jews solved this by assimilating while others would not turn their backs on their religion. Of course the moral blame for the bloodletting, etc. lies with those of the "right religion."

(2) "...[T]eaching every boy and girl the art of reading and writing." This made the Jews economically successful and resented by the poor.

(3) "...[L]iving in the Diaspora" as vulnerable minorities.

The truth, some Jews will tell you, is that the real failure was in not being the majority religion and not having the superior numbers and military power. The primordial law of the sea is what prevails: the big fish eat the little fish (or at least make their lives miserable).

What has happened to the Jews is a terrible historical accident in my opinion and one that is a great shame since the tenets of Jewish culture are some of the most admirable in the world, and the talents of the Jewish people are legendary and have been of great service to humankind.