I picked this book up in I think the Vancouver downtown Chapters, but I can no longer find any evidence of it on Chapters or Amazon.ca! It’s a shame because this was an interesting read.
I’ve been curious about the struggle between Israel and Palestine for a long time. The suicide bombings made headline news too many times to count, and I remember the “peace negotiations” from the early 2000s. After watching Munich, I became even more curious about this guerilla war. This book, by Paul Middleton, is a narrative that describes the history of Jews from BC (although the focus is from 1850s) and how they alienated the Palestinians.
After reading the book, I feel my views in the past were very naive. Based on media reports, I saw that Israel was the democratic, stable state in the Middle East; and all the other Middle East nations were plotting to take their western ideals down. And that’s exactly what they want you to think. Did you know that Israel wasn’t a nation until after the second World War? In the 1800s and early 1900s, they were scattered around the world; until a group of Jews decided to settle in their Promised Land and with some shrewd negotiations and propaganda, turned that into their own independent state! The people they displaced were the Palestinian Arabs, and as you can expect, they’re not very happy about it.
Israel vs Palestine was a quick read, and I suppose you could get the same information from Wikipedia; but it’s worth it to read something about these issues to really understand that background, and just what the media wants you to think.
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