Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition

This book was jam packed with info. The first like 20 pages aren't even part of the official book but rather a compilation of different war crimes and atrocities israel commited that finkelstein sets out on the table with no sugar coating. Finkelstein did not mess around either, each of these war crimes he mentions he immideatly quotes, cites directly, or credits to trusted organizations such as the amnesty organization and Btselem if I remember correctly. Only downside I will say is his vocabulary is a bit too complex for me to understand at times so I get a bit lost, so if you wanna get an introduction to this conflict maybe start with one of his other books or get the ethnic cleaning of palestine by ilan pappe. If yall can put up with the vocab like I did tho, it's definitely worth a read.

Finkelstein has been the voice of Palestine for decades, and we haven’t been listening. But we’re listening now, bro! We are finally awake! Thank you for your integral role in making Palestinians free! I see the light! I finally see the light!!

Educational and informative.

To me, two distinct issues predominate consideration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of course has to do with the merits (whether political or moral) of their respective positions and claims. That is a most thorny issue, perhaps THE political Gordian knot of the 20th Century. The other has to do with the honesty and integrity of the arguments that are advanced for or against the respective positions. Many intelligent people rightfully feel uneasy about basing their arguments for or against the Jews or the Arabs solely on racial, religious, or ethnic grounds or on brute military power ("might makes right"). So they turn to history. Well and good - provided you get your history right, provided you don't allow your racial, religious, or ethnic identity to influence that history.This is where Norman Finkelstein and IMAGE AND REALITY come into play. Finkelstein's parents were both survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto and Nazi concentration camps. Yet his mother had, given her background, a somewhat surprising take on the Middle East conflict: her question was, "What crime did the Palestinians commit except to be born in Palestine?" A very trenchant question.In 1984, Joan Peters published the book "From Time Immemorial" which, essentially, denied that as of 1948 the majority of Palestinians had been born in Palestine. Peters's book was extolled in the United States. Among the members of the chorus were Martin Peretz, Barbara Tuchman, Saul Bellow, and Elie Wiesel. When published in Great Britain, however, the book was sharply criticized, even ridiculed, by scholars, and even in Israel it was dismissed as "sheer rubbish, except maybe as a propaganda weapon". Finkelstein calls it "among the most spectacular frauds ever published on the Arab-Israeli conflict" and as a threadbare hoax compares it to, ironically, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." One of the chapters in IMAGE AND REALITY is devoted to a painstaking critique of "From Time Immemorial", and it is devastating.Peters's scholarship and history appear to be so bad that her book might seem to be an easy mark, maybe even a straw man. But that's what makes so lamentable the reaction in the United States to the exposure of the flimflam. With but a few isolated exceptions, there was a massive cover-up among the liberal media. Of Peters's original endorsers, only two publicly acknowledged any lapses in her scholarship, and even they could not admit that her thesis had been discredited. Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of "The New Republic", alleged that the critical attack on Peters was part of a calculated leftist plot. And then, after the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000, "From Time Immemorial" was reissued here in the United States and soared to the top of the Amazon list.In the dichotomy of this book, Peters's thesis - that Palestine before the Zionists was "a land without a people" (and thus the pluperfect place for "a people without a land") - is the "image", whereas Finkelstein, in his chapter on "From Time Immemorial", presents the "reality". In other chapters Finkelstein addresses other "images", usually as presented in other noted publications: for example, that the Palestinian refugee problem of 1947-1949 was an inadvertent by-product of the war for independence and not an intended result; that the Zionist founders of Israel had benign intentions and did not envision or anticipate the use of force; that in both the June 1967 and October 1973 wars Israel was the unprovoked victim of Arab aggression. Finkelstein contrasts these images with what he contends is "reality".In these other image/reality pairings, Finkelstein is not as convincing to me as he is in exposing "From Time Immemorial". Part of the problem is that each of the subjects probably deserves book-length treatment. (This is also indicated by the copious and detailed footnotes - 82 pages of footnotes for 225 pages of text.) Another part of the problem is that Finkelstein's style is so tendentious. At times I question how fair and balanced he is. On one ancillary issue about which I happen to know a fair amount, he is neither fair nor balanced, and he "cherry picks" quotes to support his position. Furthermore, the book is not easy reading.No one should look to IMAGE AND REALITY for an overview of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not intended or structured to be such. Further, it is now somewhat dated. (It was originally published in 1995, and though this second edition contains about fifty pages of new material it is now almost ten years old.) But the book is a valuable counterpoint to some historical propositions often taken for granted by Zionist Israel and its supporters. Before I espoused any of those propositions, I would first want to have read and carefully considered what Norman Finkelstein has written about them.

Palestine is a place that was stolen, given by and occupied by foreigners who know nothing of the land. Mr Finkelstein, the son of holocaust survivors, tells it like it is. Must read!

For its small size this book possesses a wealth of resources. Finkelsteins exploration of the ideological continuity between America and Hitlers Nazi party is remarkable.I am amazed by those who claim Finkelstein is not "even handed" approximatly 1000 Israelis (half soldiers) and 6000 Palestinians (mostly civilians) have been killed. For him to give each account of violence equal time would clearly drastically distort reality, no pun intended. Finkelstein doesnt have to "portray" Israel as the aggressor, as Mr. Morris clearly shows in his work there was a well thought out plan of ethnic cleansing and subsequent deception on the part of Zionist leaders. All Finkelstein does is provide verbatim quotes of early Zionist leaders. It is against Ben-Gurion, Ariel Sharon and the like whom your anger should be directed against. They are the ones who have sullied Israels' image.

Norman Finkelstein has produced another thought provoking work which attempts to question so many of the ‘facts’ about this conflict.Finkelstein is a meticulous researcher and his conclusions demand serious thought and discussion. This book will not appeal to those who want a more ‘conformist’ view of the Middle East. It will be of interest to those who are eager to have a deeper understanding of the conflict and are less concerned with the ‘labels’; sadly in recent times the ‘labels’ seem to dominate all discussion about the Middle East. One is either ‘for’... or ‘against’..... Finkelstein goes beyond the superficial and questions the historical background with vigour and intelligence.

Excellent and fair-minded analysis of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. Criticism of Zionist myths.

An eye opening read for sure thank you professor Finkelstein

Item arrived as described and well ahead of the date I expected it on.

I value books that hit hard, books that go to the bottom of problems and demolish the myths and ideologies that have been woven around them in efforts to obfuscate historical truth. Finkelstein's "Image and Reality" is such a book. It relentlessly exposes the legends of the Near East conflict, esp. the Zionist version of the settlement of Palestine in the first half of the 2oth century. As the author meticulously demonstrates, the popularized version of Palestine as a land devoid of people consists largely of fabricated lies and political falsehoods. There lived, roughly , a quarter of a million Arabs in the area, none of whom left their home voluntarily in reponse to the impact of Jewish immigration. Most of them were systematially expelled by the Haganah and the IDF. As even Israeli officials have admitted,atrocities and human rights violations were committed that were nothing short of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. From the political accounts of Ben-Gurion to Joan Peters's bestseller "From Time Immemorial" the Jewish version of the Israel-Palestine conflict offers a biased picture that operates in the service of Jewish self-interests and ideology. Finkelstein, a dedicated truth-seeker, impressive scholar and conscientious albeit controversial historian, deserves praise for setting the record straight. Not only does he analyze and reinterpret the history of Palestine's settlement, he also corrects the prevalent notion that the successive wars fought by Israel against her Arab neighbors were purely self-defensive, preemptive strikes necessitated by the aggressive conduct of Eypt and Syria. Not so, says Finkelstein. Israel was, if not the aggressor so at least the provocateur always acting with the tacit approval of the American government.

High ability to dispel ambiguities surronding the subject! The author leaved no room for confusion or uncertainty in all chapters. Itruly recommande it.

Not even the best fabricator of truth can argue with the level of meticulous research that Dr. Finkelstein has presented here.. He writes, 'For, on the eve of Zionist colonisation, Palestine was overwhelmingly not Jewish but Muslim and Christian Arab'. Thanks to Amazon for printing this.