Product Description

Palestine is fast disappearing - fulfilling the objectives of Israel's founding fathers. Over many decades, Israel has developed and refined policies to disperse, imprison and impoverish the Palestinian people, in a relentless effort to destroy them as a nation. It has industrialised Palestinian despair through ever more sophisticated systems of curfews, checkpoints, walls, permits and land grabs. It has transformed the West Bank and Gaza into laboratories for testing the infrastructure of confinement, creating a lucrative "defence" industry by pioneering the technologies needed for urban warfare, crowd control and collective punishment.Leading journalist Jonathan Cook examines the many different guises in which these experiments on the Palestinians are being carried out. He also exposes the dismal failure of the Israeli left, human rights organisations and the global media to hold Israel to account. This is a powerful and controversial analysis of one of the most enduring and entrenched conflicts in contemporary world politics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33960 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'This is an impressive and timely book written by one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Palestine-Israel conflict. Its insight into the devastating impact of Zionist settler colonialism and its account of the current reality on the ground are unique. A must read for those seeking peace and justice in the Middle East.' - Nur Masalha, Director of the Holy Land Research Project, St Mary's University College (UK), and author of The Bible and Zionism (2007)'No one is a keener observer of Zionism's true goals, from its bald usurpation of land and resources to its bad faith about seeking real peace. The book provides an unusual depth of evidence and sharp analysis, and a devastating indictment of Zionism. It is a penetrating piece of scholarship and a gem of easy readability.' - Kathleen Christison, former CIA analyst and author of Perceptions of Palestine (1999)

About the Author
Jonathan Cook is the only western journalist to be based in Nazareth, the capital of the Palestinian people in Israel. He was previously a staff journalist on the Guardian and Observer newsletters, and has also written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly, Counterpunch and Aljazeeria.net. He is the author of Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State (2006) and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (2008).

Customer Reviews

A worthy succesor to Said?
Jonathan Cooks latest book is written about the plight of the Palestinian Peoples at the hands of the Israeli State.

The book is divided into two parts, the first contains a history of and reflections on Zionism - in practice as well as its myths. This includes some fascinating reflections on the provenance of the Jewish People themselves, including new research by an Israeli Historians/Archaeologists that seem to point towards a proselytising phase in Jewish History, and thinks it likely that the modern Jewish people originated from Turks (southern Russia), Berbers (north Africa) and Arabians (Yemen). This will no doubt be rabidly attacked (and apparently has been) for undermining the myth of return. It maybe that they were - in large part - never there in the first place?

Be that as it may, the contested history of millennia ago ought to be as nothing compared with the ongoing dispossession and destruction of Palestinian society and identity in what was Mandatory Palestine. The second part of the book details this, and brings the reader up to date with developments well into 2008 but stopping short of the attack on Gaza over Christmas 2008/9. There are stories of how the wall has divided Palestinians from each other and their land, of the continual Israeli theft of Palestinian land. Particularly moving, and relatively hopeful sections, document those brave Israelis who bear witness at Israeli Defence Force checkpoints in an attempt to curtail the violence and harassment of the Palestinians; and those Israelis who braved the violence of Jewish Settlers in the West Bank to help Palestinians gather in at least some of their olive harvest.

Cook also writes well of the plight of Palestinians within Israel proper (i.e. with in the pre-67 borders). It seems quite clear that they are second class citizens. A thread that runs through the book is what the Israelis call the "demographic problem" which bluntly put is that if the Israelis annexed the occupied territories then the Jewish part of the population would be more or less on par with the Palestinian. This more than anything explains the so-called disengagement from Gaza.

It is always a privilege to read clear, morally committed writing such as this, penned with a commitment to justice, truth and comprehending the reality of the long drawn conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Thoroughly recommended.