On Palestine

Two respected scholars, advocates for justice for Palestinians, because most Americans, and others, hear only the Israeli side of the history of Palestine-Israel. I've read several of ProfessorIlan Pappe's historical studies on the subject. Native-born Israeli and educated in Israel, as well as other universities, Pappe is nevertheless an objective, unbiased scholar who educates the reader about the history of injustices suffered by Palestinians at the hands of Zionist Jews, going back to the 1890's, and at the hands of the British beginning with their colonialism in the early 1900's--see the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British overlords promised all of Palestine would be given to the Zionist Jews, without consulting the Palestinians who comprised the vast majority of the residents on the land, maybe about 85 %.In a similar way, in November 1947 the fledgling United Nations approved the Partition of Palestine by which the Zionist Jews, mostly recent immigrants from Europe, would take over more than half of Palestine--again the long-time Palestinian residents were not consulted, even though they still made up the vast majority of Palestine's population. So when David Ben Gurion declared the establishment of the political, military state of Israel in May 1948, and enforced the Partition of Palestine, it is understandable that the injustice done to the Palestinians resulted in resistance and conflict between the Palestinians and the Zionist Jewish colonizers.

This is a great insite into Palestine and Isreal history and political powers around it.

I became interested in the Middle East after 9/11. I first read the history of each country via my old Britannica encyclopedias circa 1970. Since I was friends with several engineering students sent by the Shah of Iran in his efforts to modernize the country. Those people were very much like traditional Americans, respecting the girls they dated without trying to get sex, fun-loving, etc....They were abandoned upon the demise of the Shah. When the US decided to invade Iraq, I was stunned, as it reminded me of the old red coats against the hidden gorilla forces of the US. Washington said 8 Saudis caused the 9/11 destruction, and I wondered what that had to do with Sadam Hussein....The lie that weapons of mass destruction was eventually exposed, but only after the US military had destroyed most of the country, and killed untold numbers of innocents. No true Christian can approve of such barbarity, much less cause it...I read the history of Israel and "Against Our Better Judgment" gave the entire history of it. The US has now destroyed much of the Middle East in its 'War on Terror'......Why? Why has such unhinged people as John McCain now demanded WW3 against Russia simply because Russia is supporting a legitimate government in Syria? The American people are now being led to believe all Arabs are evil, even though many in my area are average middle class families living in peace. Before Israel was created, Christians and Arabs had gotten along for centuries in Palestine. This book is a welcome addition to the warning bell being sounded around the world that the US is now the evil empire bent on total world dominance. Americans have been brainwashed so thoroughly by media and government schools (using textbooks by the same corporate demons who control the media) they don't even know their own history. How many have learned that Pearl Harbor was a ploy by Roosevelt to get the US into WW2 on the side of Stalin? Yet several documentary books have been published thanks to the FOIA law and the decades that have passed since then....As TEA Party and Occupy Wall Street activists were demonized by the press and anyone in Washington who points out the total corruption gets the same treatment. The American people have lost their government a long time ago. The only prop holding up the 70-year-long genocide in Palestine is the US government.

Set in a conversational format, the discussions between the author & the key speakers lend a lot of context to the Palestinian issue & even though this book was published in 2015, it holds a lot of relevance today as it addresses the past , present & future of the Palestinian state

The info in this book rings true today

This book offers a great discussion and critical analysis of historical facts by two of the greatest scholars on Palestine.

Chomsky, Pappe, and Barat have assembled an unvarnished discussion of the current horrors in Gaza and the West Bank imposed by Israel. They are Jewish eyewitnesses who point out all the injustice of the Zionist concept that requires brutal ethnic cleansing to achieve their ultimate goal of an Israel that includes all the land of historic Palestine but contains few Arabs. While grinding to that goal, Israel participates in pseudo peace talks intended only to stall while their campaign of settlement, crushing economic and military assaults advance toward that goal. With Barat's direction, Chomsky and Pappe engage in a thoughtful discussion of why a two-state solution is unlikely to be possible and why only a single, secular and democratic state can prevent Israel from leading to its own destruction. Don't think you understand the Israel-Palestine situation until you read this book.

The book seems hastily put together from bits and pieces of dialog between the individuals featured. While there is no question of the validity of the claims, there is not much insight to build on for one who would be in a position to change a dirty piece of history.