Old wine, broken bottle
Subtitle: Ari Shavit's Promised Land
By: Norman G. Finkelstein
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 2014
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 97
ISBN-13: 9781939293473; 9781939293466
Copyright date: 2014
Subjects: Arab-Israeli conflict; Palestinian Arabs; Crimes against; Zionism; Human rights; Conflit israélo-arabe; Palestiniens; Crimes contre; Droits de l'homme (Droit international); POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Middle Eastern
Description: In brief chapters that analyze Shavit's defense of Zionism and Israel's Jewish identity, its nuclear arsenal and its refusal to negotiate peace, Finkelstein shows how highly selective criticism and sanctimonious handwringing are deployed to create a paean to modern Israel more sophisticated than the traditional our-country-right-or-wrong. In this way, Shavit hopes to win back an American Jewish community increasingly alienated from a place it once regarded as home. However, because the myths he recycles have been so comprehensively shattered, this project is unlikely to succeed. Like his landmark debunking of Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial, Finkelstein's clinical dissection of My Promised Land will be welcomed by those who prefer truth to propaganda, and who yearn for a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict based on justice, rather than arguments framed by anguish and schmaltz.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: If Zionism was to be, Lydda could not be; title: The real Israel is ... a shopping mall; title: For the first time in history, the Jews could have the ability to annihilate other peoples; title: Operation Cast Lead is an intelligent, impressive operation.