Product Description

This collection of essays begins with a dissection of the "intifada" at the end of 1987 and deals with people and events through to 1994, when Israel began to withdraw from the disputed territories. Ineffective militarily, Edward Alexander notes, the "intifada" proved a potent propaganda tool: "The spectacle of young Palestinian Arabs (at least in the early stages of the uprising, before the violence became highly organized) facing Israeli soldiers won for the Arabs precisely the victory they had sought: it swung liberal, including (if not especially) Jewish liberal, sympathy decisively to the side of the Arabs and against Israel". The book criticizes the "body of ideas that lured Israel into the quagmire called the 'peace process'". The author excoriates prominent figures in politics, journalism, education and literature who express hostility to, or open hatred of, Jews, Judaism and Israel. Convinced that it is in the realm of ideas that the battle will be lost or won, Alexander has given special attention to "some of the more brazen and flamboyant combatants in ...the 'Jewish wars' - Edward Said, Patrick Buchanan, George Ball, Alexander Cockburn, Michael Lerner, Noam Chomsky". Recurring themes in the book are: the relations between the Jews of America and those of Israel; the incorporation of anti-Zionism into the ideology of "multiculturalism" and the conventions of literary discussion; the politically motivated "distortion and exploitation" of the Holocaust; the strategies of moral and political discrimination against Israel; the strategies employed by some prominent American and Israeli Jews to evade the implications of this discrimination; and the growing impunity with which antisemitism can be preached at both ends of the political spectrum. Alexander also reproduces some of the debate engendered by his essays in "Commentary" and "Congress Monthly".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3452477 in Books
• Published on: 1996-03-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Israel, anti-Semitism & Mid-East "Peace Process".
Through a collection of essays this book examines a number of issues involving Israel, anti-Semitism (hatred of the Jews) and the so called Middle East ‘peace process'.

The book investigates a number of prominent figures in the fields of politics, journalism & literature etc., who are describing as personally manifesting hostility and even open hatred of the Jewish people and Judaism. Amongst those mentioned are Edward Said, Patrick Buchanan, Michael Lerner, Noam Chomsky, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Relevant quotations and references are supplied in each case.

Beginning with a dissection of the "Palestinian intifada" which commenced towards the end of 1987 and covering events through 1994, the book describes how the Palestinian intifada proved an immensely potent propaganda weapon in engaging International sympathy against the Jewish state of Israel amidst what the book further describes as the "quagmire of the peace process". Although written in 1996, it will not take the reader long to discover that the contents are as applicable and relevant today as they were at that time.

The book analyses how the entire basis which allowed Israel and the International community to embrace PLO/Yasser Arafat as "participants" in the Middle East "peace process" were the PLO/Arafat's denunciation of terrorism, acknowledging the right of Israel to exist and an agreement to resolve ALL disagreements at the negotiating table without resorting to violence. These issues and the utter failure of Arafat/PLO to comply with these requirements are discussed in some detail in the contents of this work.

Reference is made to the media spectacle in 1993 on the White House lawn where Rabin, Peres, Clinton & Arafat shook hands etc.. The book also analyses how Yasser Arafat, LATER THE VERY SAME DAY, declared in Arabic on Jordanian television that all that he had actually done was to implement the "phased plan" for Israel's destruction.

The book describes how this same principle and public reference to the "phased plan" is frequently made to audiences in Arabic, but never in English. The book elaborating that the "phased plan" actually calls for the creation of a Palestinian state in ANY territory vacated/ceded by Israel, as a FIRST stage.

This "Palestinian state" then being used as a base/platform for what the book quotes as "continued armed struggle" against Israel. The book further describing the purpose of this "armed struggle" as "inciting a war" in which the neighbouring Arab states would annihilate a smaller, weakened Israel.

This work also addresses what it calls an "Internationally pervasive deformation of history" in relation to the Jewish state, something which can only serve to delegitimise Jewish claims to the land.

Also examined in some detail are what the book calls a "distortion and exploitation" of the Holocaust, including the promotion of "Holocaust denial". The book also studies what it defines as "universalising the Holocaust". A teaching cited as promoting an ideology that conceals the veritable & true identity of those who were the real victims of the Holocaust and which can be exploited for political expediency. The book also investigates what it describes as the "contribution of self-hating Jews" towards the ideology and politics of such anti-Semitism in these and other issues.

One of the essays also addresses the manner in which scores and scores of Palestinian civilians are increasingly being brutally murdered as "suspected collaborators" with Israel. The context of such atrocities is also examined.

The "equation of Jews with Nazis" is another subject examined. Something which is shown to actually antedate the establishment of the Jewish state itself. Author & politician Conor Cruise O'Brien is quoted as having traced such a policy to actually being a "British invention", where even in 1941 British official circles were using the epithet "Jewish Nazi state" to refer to "Jewish Palestine". Indeed, this commendable documentation of the extent to which anti-Semitism has spread & the manner in which it is still being used in so many modern domains, will serve to disturb most readers.

This is a valuable contribution to the library of anyone interested in studying the Middle East