Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

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.

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.