I must admit I was a little bit skeptical opening this book, due to its reputation for intolerance. But the very first page will make you realize just how important it is. This is a plea, a loud call to save Israel before it is to late. It is not the much maligned ignorant intolerant ranting that it is accused of. Rather this enlightening work, written by hand and smuggled out of a Ramle prison, calls for the separation of the Arabs and Israelis as the only hope to a true and lasting peace. Anyone who has been to Israel will understand that this is necessary. But for those still taken in by what Kahane called the `myth' of coexistence this book will explain in excruciating, terrifying detail the truth behind the coexistence of the 1920s and 30s, the endless riots and assaults on Jewish refugees and Jewish villages. Separate chapters detail the transfer of Germans from Poland and Czechslovakia after World War Two, as well as enlightening paragraphs on the India-Pakistan transfers of 1948 and the transfer in Cyprus in 1974 and even among the Turks and Greeks in 1921. But this book also tells the dismal stories of places where transfer did not take place such as Sri Lanka or Burma, where strife, hatred, intolerance and racism have resulted.
Of course it is easy to label this book hateful, for most of us raised in the West it will seem incredibly intolerant and primitive, but this book understands the truth about how things really are in 90% of the world. For anyone interested in the survival of Israel, for anyone wanting to understand the modern day Israeli right, and for anyone wanting a totally new view of the conflict this is a must buy.
Seth J. Frantzman
