Zionism and the Fin de Siècle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky by Michael Stanislawski, University of California Press, pp282, price £12.95 History is in the mind of the beholder – until someone discovers new material which undermines passionately held truths. Michael Stanislawski, a Professor at Columbia University, has had access to the … Read more
Divided Against Zion by Rory Miller. London, Frank Cass. 275 pages. £20.00 Anyone here in London who reads the liberal/Left press these days despairs about their fundamental ignorance – not only about Israeli history and Zionism – but also about Palestinian-Arab politics. That’s why it is refreshing to read Dr. Rory Miller’s book about the … Read more
Teaching Conflict and Controversy: A New Course in Israeli and Jewish Diaspora Studies The Israel-Palestine conflict is undoubtedly a controversial subject where there are no absolutes. But it is also extremely interesting – and it is this fact that has attracted students from very diverse backgrounds to my course on Zionism at the School of … Read more
One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate by Tom Segev. Translated by Haim Watzman. New York, Metropolitan/Henry Holt. 612 pages. $35/NIS 149Tom Segev writes good books – and this is no exception. They are hybrids between academic endeavour and journalistic seduction. The outcome is a resurrection of subjects which have been turned … Read more
From Herzl to Rabin: The Changing Image of Zionism (Holmes and Meier) pp. 283 This book is in fact an updated version of Amnon Rubinstein’s From Herzl to Gush Emunim and Back: The Zionist Dream Revisited which was published in 1984. If the original was catalyzed by Rubinstein’s reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, … Read more
Faisal Bodi’s determination to think the unthinkable this week (Jan 3) in advocating the disappearance of Israel does not break a taboo, but it does represent a psychological leap from wishful thinking to respectable argument. It is, in reality, a sanitised reading of the Hamas platform (the major Palestinian Islamic grouping) which rejects the two-state … Read more
Eighty years ago, the guns fell silent on the killing fields of France and Belgium. The seemingly pointless slaughter of millions and the defeat of Imperial Germany initiated the growth of revolutionary movements, including both Fascism and Marxism-Leninism, and propelled them on the road to power. The break-up of great empires permitted small nations to … Read more
Lord Jakobovits in Conversation by Michael Shashar. London, Vallentine Mitchell, 202 pages. £19.50Michael Shashar completed the last of his interviews with the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain shortly before Immanuel Jakobovits died a year ago. In one sense this book of conversations paints an autobiographical landscape, but it is … Read more
The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After by Edward W Said 345pp, Granta, pounds 15Edward Said is an eloquent advocate of the Palestinian cause in the west, but he is also a hate figure for both the Israeli right and American neo-conservatives. Like Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionist Zionist movement, Said … Read more
Shlomo Ben-Ami sounded exasperated. “We are a society living at a high decibel level without a moment of rest,” Israel’s Internal Security Minister said in a newspaper interview last week. What Israel needed from its leaders were the kind of “fireside chats” President Roosevelt used to give to Americans. But instead of calming influences, … Read more