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A review by barry_x
The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge by Ilan Pappé
challenging
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.5
I bought this about eight years ago, but only started to read this recently (a bit of a determined effort to get through that 'to-be-read' pile). And yet, I started it just as Israel launched yet another genocidal attack on the people of Gaza, a horrific crime against humanity, an attack on a relatively defenceless population and a war crime as aid, water, food, fuel and electricity is withheld by the apartheid state. Thousands of civilians have died so far, including hundreds of children, and still the world seems to justify it, or claim that all the conflict started with the Hamas attack earlier in the month.
It's so depressing.
This book attempts to capture the ideas around the nation state of Israel, it's stories it tells itself about it's formation and history and how those ideas have changed since the 1940's. The book examines the politics of course, but the focus is more on what historians, academics, thought leaders and media creators have said about the nation since it's inception and how that has shaped narratives. Narratives that continue to dominate sadly.
A key comment about the book, is that other than discourse related to Edward Said's work on Orientalism all the voices discussed are Jewish, and all would describe themselves as Zionist, or post-Zionist.
The book starts on the 1948 war and formation of the state and discusses how narratives quickly formed about this 'war of liberation' and the unlikely heroes (chosen by God) fighting against both the British and the 'other' - the Palestinians who lived there and were ethnically cleansed from their homes. The book shows how the early shapers of the history of Israel completely ignored what happened to the indigenous population and how their interpretation in history books and atlases shaped a completely false perception. There are interesting chapters about early war films and how Palestinians were treated as a multitude of terrorist evil from day one, rather than victims.
Another highlight of the book is the analysis of Arab Jews (Mizrachi) from Iraq and other nearby nations and how they were essentially 'tricked' through terrorism and propaganda to not feel safe at home and move to Israel, where they were treated as second class citizens compared to European Jews. I'd read before about how African and Arab Jews have been subject to racism in Israel, but perhaps I had not picked up the nuance about how Mizrachi Jews sought to define their culture both as Arabic and Jewish, but not 'Arab', and how as a response to racism, they in turn turned to the right wing and Likund being a home for them. This chapter was by far the most interesting for me.
What won't be a surprise to many is a chapter about the weaponisation of the Holocaust and how it is used to both convey to the world that a Jewish state is necessary and also how Jewish people can never be safe elsewhere. The book makes challenging parallels to the actions of Nazi Germany and the Israeli state, seeing how the othering of another people, and the justifications for keeping people in ghettos can be made. It also draws parallels to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and Palestinian resistance and asks how can one action be terrorism and the other not? It mentions that one popular history book has more words on the Palestinian leader who fled to fascist Italy has more words written about him than Hitler, and also shares well known Zionist actions - their role in turning back boats if they contained Jewish refugees who did not want to emigrate to Israel and those famous quotes by David Ben-Gurion about preferring Jewish people to die rather than escape to another nation other than Israel.
There are a couple of chapters which present a ray of hope, and how the post-Zionist thought developed and the difficulty it had breaking through in academia and media. It seems that for a period in the 90's there was a glimmer that an alternative history and greater awareness was possible.
And then the book concludes with the emergence of neo-Zionist thought, and their role in the military, politics, education etc. How new thought has essentially rewritten the fables of the 1940's to now acknowledge what the early Israeli state did, but now, rather than pretending ethnic cleansing didn't happen, rather that it was necessary.
The book's epilogue concludes with the billions of dollars spent in the US by Israel in promoting it's image, especially with pink and green washing. The book notes, that despite this monstrous level of propaganda, much of the world still has a negative opinion of Israel.
What's most depressing is that since this book was published things have got worse for Palestinians, and it seems that whilst public opinion is still not on the side of Israel the major political blocs of the US, UK and EU are - there is still billions of dollars of military aid, and this month the worst excesses of war crimes have been waved through by politicians. They have blood on their hands.
Have things changed in Israel? It really is hard to tell. They have voted in continued right wing governments. The settler movement is still growing. The population there is still scared, not just by Hamas attacks, but the threat of an Arab other. And yet, I have seen people calling for peace, for justice, for healing and understanding. Outside Israel, the ideas of the post-Zionists are well known and supported, but the work isn't needed there, it's needed inside the nation.
As a book 'The Idea of Israel' acts as a quick history of the dominant narratives and counter narratives that formed a nation. It can be quite slow and dry at times, and isn't always engaging. At times it reads like a long 'literature review', and would demand that the scholar or activist do further research. I've read two of Pappe's books recently and I am left with the notion that on both occasions I have to read wider than what is presented.
It's so depressing.
This book attempts to capture the ideas around the nation state of Israel, it's stories it tells itself about it's formation and history and how those ideas have changed since the 1940's. The book examines the politics of course, but the focus is more on what historians, academics, thought leaders and media creators have said about the nation since it's inception and how that has shaped narratives. Narratives that continue to dominate sadly.
A key comment about the book, is that other than discourse related to Edward Said's work on Orientalism all the voices discussed are Jewish, and all would describe themselves as Zionist, or post-Zionist.
The book starts on the 1948 war and formation of the state and discusses how narratives quickly formed about this 'war of liberation' and the unlikely heroes (chosen by God) fighting against both the British and the 'other' - the Palestinians who lived there and were ethnically cleansed from their homes. The book shows how the early shapers of the history of Israel completely ignored what happened to the indigenous population and how their interpretation in history books and atlases shaped a completely false perception. There are interesting chapters about early war films and how Palestinians were treated as a multitude of terrorist evil from day one, rather than victims.
Another highlight of the book is the analysis of Arab Jews (Mizrachi) from Iraq and other nearby nations and how they were essentially 'tricked' through terrorism and propaganda to not feel safe at home and move to Israel, where they were treated as second class citizens compared to European Jews. I'd read before about how African and Arab Jews have been subject to racism in Israel, but perhaps I had not picked up the nuance about how Mizrachi Jews sought to define their culture both as Arabic and Jewish, but not 'Arab', and how as a response to racism, they in turn turned to the right wing and Likund being a home for them. This chapter was by far the most interesting for me.
What won't be a surprise to many is a chapter about the weaponisation of the Holocaust and how it is used to both convey to the world that a Jewish state is necessary and also how Jewish people can never be safe elsewhere. The book makes challenging parallels to the actions of Nazi Germany and the Israeli state, seeing how the othering of another people, and the justifications for keeping people in ghettos can be made. It also draws parallels to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and Palestinian resistance and asks how can one action be terrorism and the other not? It mentions that one popular history book has more words on the Palestinian leader who fled to fascist Italy has more words written about him than Hitler, and also shares well known Zionist actions - their role in turning back boats if they contained Jewish refugees who did not want to emigrate to Israel and those famous quotes by David Ben-Gurion about preferring Jewish people to die rather than escape to another nation other than Israel.
There are a couple of chapters which present a ray of hope, and how the post-Zionist thought developed and the difficulty it had breaking through in academia and media. It seems that for a period in the 90's there was a glimmer that an alternative history and greater awareness was possible.
And then the book concludes with the emergence of neo-Zionist thought, and their role in the military, politics, education etc. How new thought has essentially rewritten the fables of the 1940's to now acknowledge what the early Israeli state did, but now, rather than pretending ethnic cleansing didn't happen, rather that it was necessary.
The book's epilogue concludes with the billions of dollars spent in the US by Israel in promoting it's image, especially with pink and green washing. The book notes, that despite this monstrous level of propaganda, much of the world still has a negative opinion of Israel.
What's most depressing is that since this book was published things have got worse for Palestinians, and it seems that whilst public opinion is still not on the side of Israel the major political blocs of the US, UK and EU are - there is still billions of dollars of military aid, and this month the worst excesses of war crimes have been waved through by politicians. They have blood on their hands.
Have things changed in Israel? It really is hard to tell. They have voted in continued right wing governments. The settler movement is still growing. The population there is still scared, not just by Hamas attacks, but the threat of an Arab other. And yet, I have seen people calling for peace, for justice, for healing and understanding. Outside Israel, the ideas of the post-Zionists are well known and supported, but the work isn't needed there, it's needed inside the nation.
As a book 'The Idea of Israel' acts as a quick history of the dominant narratives and counter narratives that formed a nation. It can be quite slow and dry at times, and isn't always engaging. At times it reads like a long 'literature review', and would demand that the scholar or activist do further research. I've read two of Pappe's books recently and I am left with the notion that on both occasions I have to read wider than what is presented.