Another brilliant book by this critic of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.
The book is divided into three sections: myths about the past and the genesis of the state; myths about current situations and myths about the two state solution.
In the first section, there are some rather shocking bits of information that I was unaware of:
- Zionism began essentially as a European Christian powers projects and initially received little support from Jewish leaders - it was seen as a back door colonialist policy for dealing with the Middle East (which it in fact is)
- in the 30s, the Zionists tried to form an alliance with the Nazis to help them fight the British in the Mandate territories!
In the second section, he clearly outlines how and why the Israeli state is a colonial power and essentially a project of ethnic cleansing, by looking at patterns of land confiscation, abrogation of basic rights, persistent harassment and use of military and extrajudicial punishments.
In the section on Gaza, he also outlines his reasons for seeing the Israeli actions as a form of genocide, based mostly on the number of deaths and the overwhelmingly civilian nature of those deaths.
Throughout the book, Pappé also underlines how elimination of the Palestinian population has always been the goal, and how Israeli governments have never entered into peace negotiations in good faith.
A well-written book - direct and to the point.
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