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A dramatic shift is taking place in Israel and America. In Israel, the deepening occupation of the West Bank is putting Israeli democracy at risk. In the United States, the refusal of major Jewish organisations to defend democracy in the Jewish state is alienating many young liberal Jews from Zionism itself. In the next generation, the liberal Zionist dream, the dream of a state that safeguards the Jewish people and cherishes democratic ideals, may die. In The Crisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart lays out in chilling detail the looming danger to Israeli democracy and the American Jewish establishment's refusal to confront it. And he offers a fascinating, groundbreaking portrait of the two leader...
A revisionist account of Zionist history, challenging the inevitability of a one-state solution, from a bold, path-breaking young scholar The Jewish nation-state has often been thought of as Zionism’s end goal. In this bracing history of the idea of the Jewish state in modern Zionism, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century until the establishment of the state of Israel, Dmitry Shumsky challenges this deeply rooted assumption. In doing so, he complicates the narrative of the Zionist quest for full sovereignty, provocatively showing how and why the leaders of the pre-state Zionist movement imagined, articulated and promoted theories of self-determination in Palestine either as part of a multinational Ottoman state (1882-1917), or in the framework of multinational democracy. In particular, Shumsky focuses on the writings and policies of five key Zionist leaders from the Habsburg and Russian empires in central and eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Leon Pinsker, Theodor Herzl, Ahad Ha’am, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and David Ben-Gurion to offer a very pointed critique of Zionist historiography.
The influence of human economies and cultures on ecosystems is particularly striking in the new worlds into which Europeans have expanded over the past five hundred years. Using a comparative and multidisciplinary approach, Beinart and Coates examine this neglected aspect of the history of settler incursion and dominance in two frontier nations, the USA and South Africa. They also seek to explain change in indigenous ideas and practices towards the environment, and discuss the rise of popular environmentalism up to the present day.
Two prominent Israeli liberals argue that for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to end with peace, Palestinians must come to terms with the fact that there will be no "right of return." In 1948, seven hundred thousand Palestinians were forced out of their homes by the first Arab-Israeli War. More than seventy years later, most of their houses are long gone, but millions of their descendants are still registered as refugees, with many living in refugee camps. This group—unlike countless others that were displaced in the aftermath of World War II and other conflicts—has remained unsettled, demanding to settle in the state of Israel. Their belief in a "right of return" is one...
Padraig O'Malley is the subject of the new acclaimed documentary The Peacemaker “A thoughtful autopsy of the failed two-state paradigm . . . Evenhanded, diplomatic, mutually respectful, and enormously useful.” —Kirkus, starred review Disputes over settlements, the right of return, the rise of Hamas, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and other intractable issues have repeatedly derailed peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Now, in a book that is sure to spark controversy, renowned peacemaker Padraig O’Malley argues that the moment for a two-state solution has passed. After examining each issue and speaking with Palestinians and Israelis as well as negotiators direct...
Traditionally, American Jews have been broadly liberal in their political outlook; indeed African-Americans are the only ethnic group more likely to vote Democratic in US elections. Over the past half century, however, attitudes on one topic have stood in sharp contrast to this group's generally progressive stance: support for Israel. Despite Israel's record of militarism, illegal settlements and human rights violations, American Jews have, stretching back to the 1960s, remained largely steadfast supporters of the Jewish "homeland". But, as Norman Finkelstein explains in an elegantly-argued and richly-textured new book, this is now beginning to change. Reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty ...
Eli Valley's comic strips are intricate fever dreams employing noir, horror, slapstick and science fiction to expose the outlandish hypocrisies at play in the American/Israeli relationship. Sometimes banned, often controversial and always hilarious, Valley's work has helped to energize a generation exasperated by American complicity in an Israeli occupation. This, the first full-scale anthology of Valley's art, provides an essential retrospective of America and Israel at a turning point. With meticulously detailed line work and a richly satirical palette peppered with perseverating turtles, xenophobic Jedi knights, sputtering superheroes, mutating golems and zombie billionaires, Valley's comics unmask the hypocrisy and horror behind the headlines. This collection supplements the satires with historical background and contexts, insights into the creative process, selected reactions to the works, and behind-the-scenes tales of tensions over what was permissible for publication. Brutally riotous and irreverent, the comics in this volume are a vital contribution to a centuries-old tradition of graphic protest and polemics.
By positioning the late Edward Said's political interventions as a public intellectual on behalf of Palestinian populations living under Israeli occupation as a form of intellectual resistance, Abraham moves to consider forms of physical resistance, seeking to better understand the motivations of those who choose to turn their bodies into weapons.
Israel's next great crisis may come not with the Palestinians or Iran but with young American Jews A dramatic shift is taking place in Israel and America. In Israel, the deepening occupation of the West Bank is putting Israeli democracy at risk. In the United States, the refusal of major Jewish organizations to defend democracy in the Jewish state is alienating many young liberal Jews from Zionism itself. In the next generation, the liberal Zionist dream—the dream of a state that safeguards the Jewish people and cherishes democratic ideals—may die. In The Crisis of Zionism, Peter Beinart lays out in chilling detail the looming danger to Israeli democracy and the American Jewish establish...
In a myth-busting analysis of the world's most intractable conflict, a star of Middle East reporting, "one of the most important writers" in the field (The New York Times), argues that only one weapon has yielded progress: force. Scattered over the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea lie the remnants of failed peace proposals, international summits, secret negotiations, UN resolutions, and state-building efforts. The conventional story is that these well-meaning attempts at peacemaking were repeatedly, perhaps terminally, thwarted by violence. Through a rich interweaving of reportage, historical narrative, and powerful analysis, Nathan Thrall presents a startling cou...