Rating: 
Summary: The case for Apartheid and ethnic cleansing
Review: The book panders for the supporters of Israel that crave for constant and loud enforcement for their extreme religious zeal. It offers no solution for the century-long conflict. The author acts as a lawyer defending a case of Apartheid and ethnic cleansing by confounding historic events and reaching conclusions that are futile at best. This book regurgitates the same polarized arguments made by all fanatic Israeli figures, which ended them in such impassable state of no peace. He confuses Islamic dogma with the actions of the governments of Arabic and Islamic countries, which are imposed on their peoples. For example, in page 101, he mentions the Yom Kippur War, in Ramadan 1973, to prove that Muslims initiated a war in a holly month in violation of the spirit of Koran. He misses the fact that that war was about governments fighting over land, while Islam in its heart aims for spreading justice and God's words, not material possession of estates. Islam condemns entitlement based on class and elevates those who do good for greater cause, regardless of material gains. The Case for Israel is already written by blood, brutal racial cleansing, and overzealous religious fanaticism. The solution of two states for two people is unrealistic. Even if Israel builds high, impenetrable, physical walls around the West bank, and a deep underground tunnel between Egypt and Israel, what is skipping the minds of the engineers of Zionism is the insurmountable faulty rationale of defending an illicit and illegal state with mere physical means. Those could be overcome over the years by the overwhelming masses of the opponents, while sound moral mission stands the test of time. The Muslims' hatred for Israel is based on the fundamental fact that Apartheid is the main tenet of establishing the racist state of Israel on the their own land and forcing them to become refugees. Israel's mission in the Middle East is not about spreading a noble mission of democracy or godly justice, but rather about irrational religious zeal. That conflicts with the mission of Islam that conquered the world to spread justice, equality, abstinence from alcohol, and breached personal hygiene, through five daily prayers that required body cleansing for facing God in prayers. That mission attracts millions of new converts every decade more than what Judaism has attracted in five thousand years. If Israel alters its mission from Apartheid into human equality, then, and only then, it would not require nuclear defense, building physical barriers, or other means of military power to ward off hostility. That same faulty rationale has failed nazi Germany to survive the thousand years that was claimed by its founders. The fear of tipping the scale in favor of the Muslim majority, had the "right of return" be granted the Palestinian refugees, is hypothetical. To support this argument, I mention Mohamed Ali the emperor of Egypt between 1805-1840, who was an Albanian yet was able to rule Egypt, in addition to his grandsons that lasted from 1840 until 1952. Establishing two states will not solve the underlying problem of committing aggression against the Palestinians. If the Jews cannot forget the promise land for five thousand years, why would the Palestinians differ? If God promised the Jews with the Land of Abraham, the God of Muslim's is worshipped by more people than the God of Judaism. While the two-state solution might win both people few decades of catching breath, it will not eradicate the deep sense of injustice of practicing Apartheid. The author has wasted the opportunity to realize that the American model of "one man one vote" and "separation of church and state" has proven to work better in uniting different races, while the model of Apartheid has miserably failed in South Africa and in the United States, and will undoubtedly fail in Israel. The only solution for the Middle East conflict is to learn from history that oppressing the masses of people is counter-productive. Racial equality and compensation for past aggression and injustice is the key for peace.
Rating:
Summary: The Case for Israel is: Apartheid
Review: The author of this book labored hard and long in analyzing historic events and reaching conclusions that are futile at best. He confuses Islamic traditions with the actions of the governments of Arabic and Islamic countries, which are imposed on their peoples. For example, in page 101, he mentions the Yom Kippur war in Ramadan 1973 to prove that Muslims initiated a war in a holly month in violation of the spirit of Koran. He misses the fact that that war was about governments fighting over land, while Islam in its heart aims for spreading justice and God's words, not material possession of estates. Islam is anti-state and pro-globalism. The Case for Israel is already written by blood, brutal racial cleansing, and overzealous religious fanaticism. When a group of people uses the Bible as a real-estate document to displace other people from their land, and replaces them by outsiders, that is a reprehensible case to be made. The solution of two states for two people is unrealistic. Even if Israel builds high, impenetrable, physical wall around the West bank, and a deep underground tunnel between Egypt and Israel, what is skipping the minds of the engineers of Zionism is the insurmountable faulty rationale of defending an illicit and illegal state with physical means. The Muslims' hatred for Israel is based on the fundamental fact that Apartheid is the main tenet of establishing a state on the their own land and forcing them to become refugees. Israel's mission in the Middle East is not about spreading a noble mission of democracy or godly justice, but rather about irrational religious zeal. That conflicts with the mission of Islam that conquered the world to spread justice, equality, abstinence from alcohol, and breached personal hygiene through five daily body cleansing for facing God in prayers. That mission attracts millions of new converts every decade more than what Judaism has attracted in five thousand years. If Israel alters its mission from Apartheid into human equality, then, and only then, it would not require nuclear defense, building physical barriers, or other means of military power to ward off hostility. That same faulty rationale has failed nazi Germany to survive the thousand years that was claimed by its founders. Establishing two states will not solve the underlying problem of committing aggression against the Palestinians merely because they happen to live in a land that was mentioned in the bible. If the Jews cannot forget the promise land for 5 thousand years, why would the Palestinians differ? If God promised the Jews with the Land of Abraham, the God of Muslim's is worshipped by more people than the God of Judaism. The author has wasted the opportunity to realize that the American model of "one man one vote" and "separation of church and state" has proven to work better in uniting different races, while the model of Apartheid has miserably failed in South Africa and in the United States, and will undoubtedly fail in Israel. The only solution for the Middle East conflict is to learn from history that oppressing the masses of people is counter-productive. Racial equality and compensation for past aggression and injustice is the key for peace.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased, but inherently sound
Review: Alan Dershowitz wrote a defense on Israel which, like any good advocate's, makes his clients position seem somewhat better then it really is. But while, acting as a jury, one should notice the problems that Dershowitz fails to point out, the heart of Deshowitz's argument is sound: Israel is frequently unfairly singled out for attack, and some of the most prominent critics of Israel make bogus or exaggerated claims. Professor Dershowitz makes his case easier for him by defending Israel from a position supportive of the two-state solution. Dershowitz is of course correct that the only hope for a reasonable outcome in the Middle East is both parties acceptance of that solution, and rejection of other utopian or dystopian ideas. Although the majority of Israelis almost certainly support, at least in theory, the two-state solution, there is a significant minority which objects to it vehemently. One of the fallacies that many of Israel's critics, and sometimes its defenders fall for is to see Israel as a monolith. Much of Deshowitz's case is not for Israel but for the two-state solution, and for the Israelis who support it. Thus, to the extent that former PM's Yitzhak Shamir's position, for example, represents Israel, Dershowitz defense of Israel does not apply. Perhaps a better title for the book, although not a very catchy one, would have been "The Two State Solutions, the (Israelis) who support it, and the (Palestinians) who don't". In 32 chapters, Dershowitz attacks arguments which make Israel seem like the aggressor in the Middle East. Sometimes the questions Dershowitz doesn't ask are as significant as the ones he does. He asks, for example, whether Israel was responsible for the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War (is wasn't), but not whether Israel was responsible for the 1982 Lebanon War (it was). Furthermore, Dershowitz spends only two pages on the question of whether the settlements have been a major obstacle to peace. Although Dershowitz is correct in pointing out that settlements can and have been evacuated, he fails to mention the effect of the settlements, usually populated with the most extreme right winger Israelis, heavily defended by the IDF, on the Arabs in whose neighborhoods they are placed. The settlements supported either explicitly or implicitly by every Israeli government since Rabin's first prime-ministry in 1974 and up to today's Sharon's government, are a source of constant tension which makes Palestinians hate and resent Israelis. Dershowitz denies that Jews took advantage of the Holocaust for political gains (ch. 7), even though the Jewish discourse about the Arab-Israeli conflict is, naturally enough, filled with reference to the Holocaust from both left and right (as Peter Novick might have said 'To Each His Own Holocaust'). Dershowitz also elaborates on the connection between Arabs, and especially the Jerusalem Mufti Al Husseini, and Nazism. I think he overstates the connection, which was natural at the time. Arabs and Nazis had two common enemies: the British and the Jews. Stranger bedfellows existed - Dershowitz fails to mention that Zionists and Nazis cooperated when their ends corresponded, in promoting Jewish immigration to Israel in the early 1930s. Yet although Dershowitz overstates his case, and overlooks arguments which make Israel look bad, the main claims of his thesis stand: First, various Israeli governments and leaders, from Haim Weitzman in the 1910s to Ehud Barak in 2000, has offered Arabs to partition Israel, and several generations of Arab and Palestinian leaders have opposed. Arafat's refusal to accept Barak's offer in Camp David in 2000, or to give a counter proposal, was a tragic mistake of judgment, and Arafat, Clausewitz's best (indeed only) disciple in the middle east, compounded the error by launching the El Aqsa Intifada - a failed continuation of a bad policy by different means. Second, for reasons which have not yet been sufficiently explained, Israel receives extensive and unfair criticism far beyond virtually any other country. Israel's actions, although often failing the moral ideal, are far better then actions by other countries, given the extent of the attacks on it. Nothing Israel did is anywhere as bad as the US's actions in Japan, Germany, Vietnam or Iraq; as French actions in Algiers or Belgian action in the Congo, or as Russian actions in Chechnya -let alone the behavior of so many Arab regimes which are quick to condemn Israel. Israel, like any other nation, requires criticism when its specific policies are wrong or dangerous. But extreme criticism, which challenges Israel's right to exist and signals it out to condemnation among the nations, is not only wrong, it is ineffective. The best of Israel's critics are the ones who recognize its right to exist, and who make specific recommendations to help Israelis and Arabs co-operate. Israelis obviously rarely pay close attention to far off the mark critiques which liken it to Nazi Germany, and to the extent that Arabs do, it drives them away from moderation and into fanatic hate. Such criticism, thus, is worse then a crime - it is a blunder.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: As someone who did not know much about Israel, and had only read Israel portrayed in a negative light, I found this book to be an excellent resource and most enlightening.
Rating:
Summary: Proof
Review: There is a verse in the Quran which states the following: "...Produce your truth if you are truthful". The Quran challenges Muslims to evaluate the arguments and evidence that the non-Muslims produce. It challenges non-Muslims to produce the proof and implied in that challenge is another challenge, the challenge for the Muslim to evaluate the evidence. (What is the point of challenging someone to produce proof if you wont evaluate the evidence and arguments which are presented?) My father used to tell me that, "when two people always agree it means that only one person is doing the thinking". Don't let someone else do the thinking for you. Read the book for yourself and weigh the evidence in your own mind.
Rating:
Summary: Simply great book
Review: I have been reading a lot of books on Israel and middle east including those by Thomas Friedman and Bernard Lewis. This one is by far one of the top 2. Israel is one country I have always been in love with after ofcourse India. So I may be a little biased. But this book clearly makes a compelling case for Israel. As such I never believed that israel is committing any excesses. Recently Sharon has come uder fire from the so called saviors of Arabs and particularly European Union. This is simply for oil. It is my firm belief that Israel has done nothing wrong ever.
The fault lies with Palestine and Arabs squarely. Period. Israel is the only democracy in that region (after turky). International community must do its best to lean on palestine particularly Arafat and ask him to rein in the militants like hamas, hizbullah and Islamic jihad.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read, though somewhat repetitive
Review: "The Case for Israel" lifted a tremendous load from my back. While it's easy to see that the world's one-sided condemnation of Israel is unjust, it's much harder to formulate a good, clear explanation WHY it is unjust. Dershowitz does a masterful job of stating the case that Israel has a right to exist, and that though she isn't always right, she has a matchless track record of upholding Palestinians' rights and dignity even while defending herself from the ones that have chosen terror as their weapon. The book devotes each chapter to one myth about the state of Israel. Such myths include, "Israel is guilty of genocide," "The Palestinians are ready to compromise, but Israel refuses," and many more. Dershowitz illustrates each myth using a quotation from enemies of Israel including Yasser Arafat, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and others. Then he offers a clear, logical argument debunking the myth. Two things make the book just a little repetitive. First, the anti-Israeli myths have large overlap. Does Israel commit genocide? Does she have expansionist aims? Is she the moral equivalent of Nazi Germany? Many of these myths really demand the same answer. Thus we are reminded repeatedly that Israel voluntarily returned Sinai (with its oil fields) to Egypt, voluntarily returned land claimed by Jordan, offered the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a promise of peace (which Syria refused), and offered self-rule, including control of the Arab quarter in Jerusalem, to the Palestinian Authority, only to see Arafat reject the offer without so much as a counter-offer, and kick off the "second intifadah." Reading these same facts again and again, in response to the many overlapping attacks against Israel, is both a weakness and a strength. It can make the narrative drag at times, but it also serves to reinforce the core argument: Israel's record on human rights is one of the best in history--it is hardly one of the worst in history as Israel's critics love to claim. The whole is held together by Dershowitz's beautiful, crisp writing. I heartily recommend it to everyone. Buy several, and give them to your children and friends in college!
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: I can't tell you how highly I think of this book. It should be must reading. Morgan Norval
Author of "The Fifteen Century War, Islam's Violent Heritage"
Rating:
Summary: great story-teller, five stars
Review: another masterful contribution to the annals of jewish-american
fiction
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant stuff
Review: This is a great book that should be required for any political science or history class. My Palestinian-born political science professor never required or recommended this book and I now know why.
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