Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Ten Myths About Israel

Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappé

7 reviews

pmhandley's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

4.25

This was very informative and provides a very good history lesson. It is a useful read for countering Israel misinformation. It is fairly academic writing so I will admit, I found myself rereading sentences a lot to be sure I understood the material. I would not recommend it to someone who is just starting to educate themselves on Palestine for that reason, but it's a solid resource if you already have some familiarity. The author being an Israeli Jew makes it all the more powerful.

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lottie1803's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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apgodsen's review against another edition

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emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

This took me a while to get through just because it is so much information to absorb, but it was very much worth it. The author does a great job of breaking down all the intricacies of the genocide in Palestine and how it was created/perpetuated over time. I really appreciate the fact that it is discussed from the perspective of a historian because history in itself is a complex creature that can be, at times, hard to decipher. I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning about what is still happening in Palestine today. Prior to reading, I had felt strongly about the rights of Palestinians as a whole, but I now have a deeper understanding of what these people have been subjected to for so long.

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lo_a_scott's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

“Palestine was not empty and the Jewish people had homelands; Palestine was colonized, not ‘redeemed’; and its people were dispossessed in 1948, rather than leaving voluntarily. Colonized people, even under the UN Charter, have the right to struggle for their liberation, even with an army, and the successful ending to such a struggle lies in the creation of a democratic state that includes all of its inhabitants.”

This book discredits many of the myths created and perpetuated by Israel and Western countries, like the US and UK. Really great intro to the history of Palestine-Israel, that I highly recommend everyone read!

I’ve learned so much from Pappé’s work! Like how JFK was the last president to fight for Palestinians; Zionism and the search for creating a Jewish state began long before the Holocaust; and a major factor in the push for creating Israel was European Christians trying to solve the “Jewish question” and decided getting them out of Europe was the best choice?!

Ten Myths About Israel is informative, infuriating, and so many points made about Israeli actions (and the international support they receive) are still relevant 6 years after the book was published. This is one of those books that should be required reading! It’s an excellent starting point to learn more about the history of the region and unlearn what many people (myself included) have been taught about Israel-Palestine. I’ve also included some quotes to highlight some of the points Pappé makes and hopefully encourage others to pick it up!

“If Israel is just a democracy defending itself, then Palestinian bodies such as the PLO are purely terrorist outfits. However, if their struggle is against a colonialist project then they are an anticolonialist movement, and their international image will be very different from the one Israel and its supporters try to impose on world public opinion.”

“EU and US governments did not even condemn the 2012 attacks; in fact they repeatedly invoked “Israel’s right to defend itself.” No wonder that two years later the Israelis understood that they could go even further. Operation “Protective Edge,” in the summer of 2014, had been in the planning for two years; the abduction and killing of three settlers in the West Bank provided the pretext for its execution, during which 2,200 Palestinians were killed.”

“Zionism was, in a nutshell, a movement asserting that the problems of the Jews of Europe would be solved by colonizing Palestine and creating a Jewish state there.”

“From the legal infrastructure put in place at the outset of the war, through the unquestioned absolute power of the military inside the West Bank and outside the Gaza Strip, to the humiliation of millions of Palestinians as a daily routine, the “only democracy” in the Middle East behaves as a dictatorship of the worst kind”

“From the very beginning of the occupation then, the Palestinians were given two options: accept the reality of permanent incarceration in a mega-prison for a very long time, or risk the might of the strongest army in the Middle East. When the Palestinians did resist—as they did in 1987, 2000, 2006, 2012, 2014, and 2016—they were targeted as soldiers and units of a conventional army. Today we know too much about life under occupation, before and after Oslo, to take seriously the claim that non-resistance will ensure less oppression. The arrests without trial, as experienced by so many over the years; the demolition of thousands of houses; the killing and wounding of the innocent; the drainage of water wells—these are all testimony to one of the harshest contemporary regimes of our times”

“More brutally, many of these arrests are used as means to pressure people into collaboration. Spreading rumors or shaming people for their alleged or real sexual orientation are also frequently used as methods for leveraging complicity.” -FOR THE NEXT TIME ANY OF YOU WANT TO SAY ‘but Palestine would kill you for being queer, why are you defending them?’ As if Israel is okay with queer people?! FUCK OFF-

“Any criticism of this myth [two state solution] is often branded as anti-Semitism. However, in many ways the opposite is true: there is a connection between the new anti-Semitism and the myth itself. The two-states solution is based on the idea that a Jewish state is the best solution for the Jewish problem; that is, Jews should live in Palestine rather than anywhere else. This notion is also close to the hearts of anti-Semites. The two-states solution, indirectly one should say, is based on the assumption that Israel and Judaism are the same.”

“No serious discussion about ending human rights abuses in the region as a whole can bypass a conversation about the 100 years of human rights abuses in Palestine. The two are intimately connected. The exceptionalism enjoyed by Israel, and before that by the Zionist movement, makes a mockery of any Western critique of human rights abuses in the Arab world.“

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katharina90's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

A short, concise, not overly academic book that debunks several core myths about the state of Israel that are frequently peddled and parroted to justify the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

If you read it front to back, some of it may feel repetitive as there are overlaps between chapters, but the myth-by-myth structure allows you to skip around which I appreciate.

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dhiyanah's review against another edition

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challenging informative medium-paced

5.0

An important and accessible read to understand what has been happening to Palestine and why it can be difficult see it for what it is - a colonial project that has always involved genocide and displacement. I appreciate that the language used here isn't as heavy as expected so that even if you're not used to academic or analytical texts, it's still possible to follow the insights presented here. In the introduction the author writes that what he presents to us here can be contextualized to understand how political projects might utilize manipulation tactics in order to normalize and sustain abuse and cruelty cycles - I found this to be true. It provides a clarifying lens that can be applied to many momentums of oppression and disempowerment. Being able to see the trickery is a crucial step in repelling and resisting the inhumanity of it. A highly relevant read for these times.

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