Rating: 
Summary: A great new offering from Chomsky
Review: Chapters 1-5 and the bulk of the final chapters of 6-9 are about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first five are based on Chomsky's 1974 treatise "Peace In the Middle East." In Chapter one based on a harangue delivered at MITin 1969 attacks the concept of "retaliation" as contributing to security.He goes over the tribalalistic policy of "retaliation" launched by the Irgun and how their atrocities contributed to the escalation of violence. Of course, the mainstream Yishuv and its army, the Hagannah committed alot of atrocities too. I know Chomsky recognizes this and would probably today not repeat the rather kindly view of the Labor zionists and their intentions that he takes in Chapter one.Israel is a state where non-Jews cannot own 92 percent of the land within pre-1967 Israel. Israeli Arabs lack the great resources in education, employment, housing, land that accords to Israeli Jews because of their exclusion from military service. He gives the example of the Druze Israeli army vetran who was not allowed to open a business in the Jewish town of Karmiel which had been expropropriated from Israeli Arabs on the grounds that it would be a military base but then it was converted into a Jewish settlement. He writes that Uri Davis, the Israeli activist was sentenced to 5 months in prison for entering this settlement without a permit. He goes over some early Israeli "fact-building" in the territories. He quotes John Cooley of the Christian Science monitor on the expropriation of thousands of acres of Palestinian land in Gaza. He quotes a report that most of the village of Aqraba on the West Bank was defoliated and its land handed over to a nearby Jewish settlement. He quotes a report of the mayor of the village of Kafr Kassem visiting the Knesset to protest the expropriation of most his village's land. This was the village of course where 47 Israeli Arabs were massacred in October 1956 as they came back from their fields for violating a curfew which had been announced an hour before. Now on to the discussion of the conflict in Chapters 6-9. Israel refused Sadat's offer for a separate peace in February 1971 on terms indistinguishable from the Camp David Agreement of 1979 because as Chomsky quotes General Haim Bar Lev, Israel thought it could hold out for more. The near apopalyctic outcome of October 1973, convinced Israel and its U.S. patron that Egypt had to be removed from the conflict. But Israel continued to convert the occupied territory into an exclusivist Jewish utopia while the Israeli economy enjoyed the stimulus from increased military production and the captive export market in the territories. Israel began deliberately bombing Lebanese civillians and Palestinian refugees, often without any provocation of PLO shelling, in Lebanon in the 1970's for as former foreign minister Abba Eban explained there was a "rational prospect" that after being bombed these civilians would pressure the Lebanese government and PLO to come to Israel's terms. The Begin/Sharon invasion of Lebanon in 1982 initially killed close to 20,000 people and thousands more were killed in such operations as Shimon Peres's 1985 "Iron Fist" campaign against what the Israeli commander called "terrorist villagers" daring to resist the occupation of their country. The arrangements of the peace process, he quotes Ehud Barak's last foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami in a 1998 book in Hebrew, was that of a "permanent neocolonial dependency." He quotes from the Israeli business press, Israeli business jubilation about setting up factories in the territories so miserable Palestinians can be exploited without Israeli elites having to deal with the demands for decent conditions by unionized Israeli workers. They have thus been dissapointed by the necessity of the Israeli state to institute "closures," the economic and social strangulation of Palestinians that began in March 1993, long before Hamas suicide bombings, but that's what has to be done to make Palestinians accept Israeli-imposed arrangements. Israel increased settlebuilding in the West Bank by 50 percent during Rabin's last government, Yossi Beilin bragged on Israeli tv in 1997. They did alot of what Netanyahu was being denounced for but, Beilin said, "quietly and with wisdom" without the crude rhetoric and tactics of the Likud which causes such PR problems. The Har Homa plan, he notes, was released by the Labor government in February 1996 and planned to go forth exactly in the manner a year later as Netanyahu did. He quotes Michael Kleiner, head of the far right Land of Israel party as pointing out as Netanyahu's government announced its implementation of the E-1 program, that Benyamin Ben Eliezer when he was head of the Labor government's housing ministry had started it with Rabin's approval. The E-1 program is the building of Jewish settlements and bypass roads in the Central West Bank that connect with Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and metropolitan areas within Israel. It cuts the West Bank in two and blocks Palestinian access to their cultural center in East Jerusalem.
E-1 is something that is visible, Chomsky writes, if one actually looks at a map of Ehud Barak's supposedly ultra-generous offer of July 2000. The Palestinian "state" envisioned in that plan groups the Palestinians into several cantons that are isolated from one another: in the north (centered in Nablus), in the Center (centered in Ramalla), in the South (centered in Bethleham), with the city of Jericho isolated by itself in the East. In Gaza Israel would retain the Southern coast and in the middle the settlement of Netzarim, the latter being an excuse to retain all sorts of jew-only roads that cut up the strip and to retain a military presence there. He notes that Israel bombed Lebanon in December 1975 and killed 50 plus Lebanese villagers in retaliation for a UN resolution calling for a Palestinian state and recognition of Israel which the U.S. would veto in January 1976 but which had the support of the Arab states and the PLO. The PLO even wrote that resolution claimed Haim Herzog as he warned they did the 1981 Fahd plan (indistinguishable from the March 2002 Abdullah plan Chomsky notes)which Israel rejected.
Israel he writes is useful to the U.S as a gendarme in the region that protects the status quo, against any threats to the U.S. backed oil producing dictatorships in the region.
Rating: 
Summary: A valuable perspective to a complex problem
Review: Despite what the previous reviewer implies by attempting to label this book as anti-jew/anti-american, there are no simplistic answers to the complex multi-perspective problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. BOTH sides are at fault and both sides need to own up to their complicity, and one can either continue to take sides and cast blame based on past slights and offenses or one can proceed to attempt to move forward into the future intent on finding a solution to this miserable situation that has affected the security of not just the region but the world. Chomsky argues that "socialist binationalism offer the best long-range hope for a just peace in the region". Don't just read one book that supports your bias at the expense of others if you are going to attempt to gain some real insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...Chomsky is one of the leading voices on the left, but I also recommend balancing his viewpoint by checking out some of right-leaning conservative David Horowitz's commentaries on his Frontpage site ...read it carefully and you may be surprised at the revealing statements made by some of Israel's earliest leaders that hint at agendas not usually discussed and highlighted by more mainstream commentators and historians putting forth "official" versions of this convoluted story. Suffice it to say that both polar opposites, Chomsky on the left and Horowitz on the right, have intelligent and valuable insights to add to the discussion...the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. For an entirely Israeli-hawk viewpoint then go ahead and read Netanyahu's "A Durable Peace" as the previous reviewer recommends...but to only read that alone is akin to wearing blinders while denying any other perspective. I don't entirely agree with Chomsky, nor Horowitz, nor Netanyahu...but since we are reviewing "Middle East Illusions" I would like to quote from the lengthy introduction a few points that I find reasonable, intelligent, and thought-provoking: --"These essays were written in the period 1969-1973, in the belief that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs were pursuing self-destructive and possibly suicidal policies, and that, contrary to generally held assumptions, there were - and remain - alternatives that ought to be considered and that might well contribute to a more satisfactory outcome...These alternatives presuppose a willingness on the part of each of the local parties to recognize the essential element of justice in the demands of the other." --"I am well aware that to Palestinians and Israelis such discussions may seem hopelessly abstract, if not downright immoral. Palestinians may ask how it is possible to compare the rights of the oppressor and the oppressed, the foreign settlers and those whose homes they have taken. Israelis may contend that one cannot balance the simple desire to live in peace in the state established by decision of the United Nations against the demands of those who resort to violence and terror and who threaten the very existence of Israeli society. It is a simple exercise to construct a brief for each side. Some seem to take comfort in this fact, oblivious to the consequences of the positions that they advocate and refusing to comprehend the pleas of their adversaries." --"The Jewish national movement, Zionism, was a product of European "civilization". Palestinian nationalism, as distinct from more generalized Arab nationalism, was in large measure a product of Zionist success. Between the two World Warsw, the local conflict intensified in bitterness and scale as Jewish immigration took roots in Western Palestine, bringing economic development and material benefits while often dispossessing Arab peasants through land purchase and boycotting their labor and produce. The motives for the latter policies were complex. In part, they can be traced to chauvinism and an "exclusivist" ideology, byt in part they also relfected the dilemmas of socialists who hoped to build an egalitarian society with a Jewish working class, not a society of wealthy Jewish planters exploiting natives. The Uishuv was faced with a profound, never resolved contradiction. The most advanced socialist forms in existence, the germs of a just and egalitarian society, were constructed on lands purchased by the Jewish National Funds and from which Arabs were excluded in principle, lands that were in many instances purchased from absentee landlords with little regard for the peasants who lived and worked on them. --"These contradictions did not pass without recognition. One of the earlist settlers wrote in the Hebrew periodical HaShiloah in 1907 that Zionism should "avoid a narrow, limited nationalism which sees no further than itself...Unless we want to deceive ourselves deliberately, we have to admit that we have thrown people out of their miserable lodgings and taken away their sustenence. Zionism" should be based on "justice and law, absolute equality, and human brotherhood." He was reprimanded for his "Diaspora way of thinking" and told that "the main thing we should take into account should be what is good and effective for ourselves." Commenting on this interchange, Aarohn Cohen observes "Here we already have in embryo the essence of the debate that was to characterize discussions within the Zionist movement over the years." --"Given the commitment to a Jewish state and the belief in Israeli military and economic supremacy, it is not surprising that there was no serious political challenge to the policy of incorporation of the occupied territories. Even some Israelis who were opposed to these policies felt that they were forced on Israel by the refusal of the Arab states to negotiate. Implicit in thise judgement is the belief that no Israeli initiative toward the Palestinians could prvide the basis for security and regional peace. In fact, for many Israelis the question does not even arise. They simply adopt the position of Minister of Information Israel Galili: "We do not consider the Arabs of the land an ethnic group nor a people with a distinct nationalistic character" As Prime Minister Golda Meir put it: "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist"...This is a convienent position for Israelis to assume, since once it is adopted, moral issues vanish." --"General Peled has explained over and over again that the new 1967 boundaries did not increase the security of Israel; quite the contrary, demilitarized zones might leave Isreal in a better position from a strictly military point of view. Those who make a fetish of security, he argues, have been concerned " not with Israel's security but with her territorial dimensions." --"There is much loose talk about "security guarantees" that confuse these issues further. Thus it is claimed, correctly, that superpower guarantees are unreliable and that it is impossible to count on the United Nations. Therefor, it is urged, Israel must be in a position to guarantee its own security. But in this world Israel will never be in a position to guarantee its own security, no matter what its borders may be and no matter how massive its armaments. Guarantees of security do not exist. In the long run, Israel's security rests on relations with its neighbors. The policy of annexation rules out long-term security as unobtainable and thus virtually guarantees further military conflict and the ultimate destruction of a state that can only lose once. The annexation policy also maximizes the short-term threat, by stimulating irredentist forces in the surrounding states and gaining them international support. The short-term threat was regarded as slight in the past few years - mistakenly, as the October war revealed." --"...history will perhaps realize the worst fears of early Zionist leaders, such men as Arthur Ruppin, who was in charge of colonization in the 1920's and who warned just fifty years ago that "a Jewish state of one million or even a few million (after fifty years!) will be nothing but a new Montengro or Lithuania." He warned that Zionism must no longer pursue Herzls "dipolomatic and imperialist approach" and must recognize that "Herzl's concept of a Jewish state was possible only because he ignored the presence of the Arabs." As always Chomsky documents his information diligently from repected sources. I personally believe that Israel has a right to exist, and I am not ignorant that it is under intense international pressure while being the victims of immoral suicide attacks on a regular basis...but the Israeli policy-makers need to confront the reality of the manner in which their actions are contributing towards co-creating and adding fuel to the fire of a volatile situation. S. Hassel
Rating: 
Summary: Same old lies and distortions by Chomsky
Review: If you also saw the outline and skimmed some of the text, you would know enough to not buy this book. Blame American, Blame British Colonalism, Blame the Jews. Most of Chomsky's view of the middle-east comes from a hidden racist mental view of the arabs. They must be so helpless, so dumb, so easy to trick, that any problem they have must be someone else's fault. For a more balanced view of the how to bring peace to the middle-east, get "A Durable Peace". In one section of the outline it looks like he is vilifying Ariel Sharon. The left love to vilify Sharon, for some 20 year old event where christian arabs killed muslim arabs, and somehow Israel should have known about it and prevented it. Give me a break. That's the big crime of the century? On the section on lebanon he only brings up Israelis "faults". He fails to mention that the PLO and Syria killed 100,000 lebanonese before Israel was ever involved. I also have a problem with the title. The middle east is about 98% Arabs by land and people. 95% of the wars in the middle east are Arab against Arab. The middle-east would be a 95% more peaceful place if the arab had democracies and stopped fighting.
Rating:
Summary: Same old lies and distortions by Chomsky
Review: If you also saw the outline and skimmed some of the text, you would know enough to not buy this book. Blame American, Blame British Colonalism, Blame the Jews. Most of Chomsky's view of the middle-east comes from a hidden racist mental view of the arabs. They must be so helpless, so dumb, so easy to trick, that any problem they have must be someone else's fault. For a more balanced view of the how to bring peace to the middle-east, get "A Durable Peace". In one section of the outline it looks like he is vilifying Ariel Sharon. The left love to vilify Sharon, for some 20 year old event where christian arabs killed muslim arabs, and somehow Israel should have known about it and prevented it. Give me a break. That's the big crime of the century? On the section on lebanon he only brings up Israelis "faults". He fails to mention that the PLO and Syria killed 100,000 lebanonese before Israel was ever involved. I also have a problem with the title. The middle east is about 98% Arabs by land and people. 95% of the wars in the middle east are Arab against Arab. The middle-east would be a 95% more peaceful place if the arab had democracies and stopped fighting.
Rating:
Summary: unique perspective
Review: Like "From Terrorism To World Peace" by Dr. Charles Meister, this book is for those who want more of a balanced perspective on issues in the Middle East than the one the popular news delivers - or the one that "specialists" or "scholars" on the issues put forth. Chomsky offers interesting viewpoints that effectively peel back some of the layers of vitriol that normally get in the way. Like Eco taking on Americana or D.H. Lawrence taking on psychoanalysis, we get an enlightened perspective from an outsider with fresh eyes. For such a complicated subject, this approach often generates the most worthwhile insights.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Balanced and Tedious at times.
Review: Middle East Illusions by Noam Chomsky is worth at least half a read. By the time you reach the middle of the book you can pretty much understand his arguments. Chomsky makes a few major points in this compendium of works. For starters he points out that Israel cannot be a democracy and still be Jewish. This is a point that somehow is never debated on United States "news" nor in the rags we call newspapers. Perhaps we never debate this issue because the hard-right and the soft middle have decided that to do so would be "anti-semitic" and betray the conservative US Jewry. It is interesting to note that Chomsky was attacked for being a Marxist-Lenist hell bent on destroying Israel and afraid of a socialist democratic state. This of course is the semantic game that enables anti-Arab sentiment to become legitimate. Through the use of Holocaust guilt and outright suppression of speech and ideas the Zionist movement denies the ability for a true discussion which could lead to a solution for the peace process. The aged works Chomsky produces pay attention to the wrongs committed by Arab states and gives due respect to the need for Jewish peoples to be safe. But this need for security he argues will never be satisfied until all parties learn to live together. A Binationalist solution seems a good place to start, but the ultimate solution is for Israel to become a true democracy. The world cannot allow for a Jewish state to exist, Judaism is a religion not a state, the state of Israel cannot be controlled by one clan it cannot be a theocratic state. While we patrol the world stifling radical Muslims and decrying totalitarianism, the Unites States supporst a racist state known as Israel. Or maybe not. Read this book and decide for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: A heart-breaking, must-read book.
Review: Noam Chomsky is a highly controversial intellectual. In an age where it is almost a crime to criticize our country, America, and Israel, it is predicable that people will hate him and try to tear his book apart. One editor commented that this book left out the riots against Jews before the creation of the Jewish state. What the editor doesn't understand is that this book is about current Middle East illusions and that the essays go back about 30 years. Hence, the riots wouldn't have anything to do with the Middle East situation today, just as the holocaust doesn't have anything to do with the Middle East situation today. Would anyone of sane mind consider a criticism of a black rapist wrong because we had slavery in America? If you want a better understanding of the Middle East and why September 11th happened, I'd recommend reading this book. This well-documented book will take you into the conflicts of the Middle East. It will also give you a very clear view on what role our country, America, has played. However, if you can't bear reading anything bad about America or Israel, then you'll hate this book and its author. You can-without even reading this book-make comments on how this book is just anti-Semitic and unpatriotic. The only downfall of this book is that it's not fully accessible to a person of the general public wanting an insight into the situation. For example, this book will expect that you will understand what happened in South Africa. Consequently, those that aren't already well-read into the discourse, might feel alienated because the author makes analogies that the reader might not understand. Thus, I must unfortunately give this wonderful book four stars instead of five.
Rating:
Summary: Is It Time for UN Intervention ?? Probably Yes.
Review: Recently I started to read Chomsky's books. At first with a critical eye - pen in hand writing down errors and things I thought could be looked at from a different conclusion. After 100 pages or so of reading I put down the pen and realized that any rational person for the most part would have to be in for all practical purposes 100% agreement with what he thinks. His views are an extreme minority view in the USA but he is also one of the few people that somehow could see through all the hazes of rhetoric and propaganda and see the actual situation. The USA has in fact acted illegally for decades invading one country after another and trying to impose the American view of democracy on smaller countries. Such actions if justified require the support and consensus of international institutions, no matter how inconvenient that concept might be for Britain and the USA. Where I start to depart from his logic (but not completely) is the area of the Middle East and Israel. If one reads the translations of various Arab documents there is a strong connection between the Muslim faith, the Arabs as a whole, and the local groups - this being the "Palestinians" or Arabs living in and around Israel. The political writings when translated seem quite unambiguous. These documents are the basic political framework of organizations such as Hamas. They convey clearly a determination never to negotiate with Israel, never to accept any state or government not based on the Muslim religion, and that the Jews and Christians are to be converted to to Islam or killed or expelled until the land is again 100% Muslim. For me that is pretty strong stuff, sounds a lot like our old friend Adolf Hitler, and there is not much room for misinterpretation here. It is simply and grossly naïve to keep having rounds of peace talks and various conferences. I see only two solutions. Either the situation remains in deadlock at a low boil "as is" or alternately some international body such as the UN must impose a legally binding political solution that guarantees a Jewish State and a separate and geographically continuous Muslim Palestinian state. The US can lead but cannot act alone to support Isreal. Jack in Toronto
Rating:
Summary: a look at the past with today's perspective
Review: the book is mainly focused on Israel-Palestine conflict and although and the coverage dates back to even 1920s although not in full datails. To make a point clear: Chomsky is not a historian but an analyst and again in this book he is presenting a detailed and analysis of the issue. first 5 essays of the book are from his back-dated (1974) book "Peace in the Middle East? Reflections on justice and nationhood." The following 4 essays were written pre-Sep 11 and the last essay is post-Sep 11. Not easy to read as Chomsky jumps from one issue to another but still a realistic and detailed analysis of the facts of Middle East, Israel and Palestinian issues - with reference to variety of mostly Israeli resources usually unpublished or avoided by media kartels. Contrary to his other books, there is more reference to other people's views (both Jewish and Arab) then his own views - still declaring his perspective in the middle of the lines though not in an assertive way. No matter what people say about Chomsky (to be an anti-Semites and anti-imperialist etc etc...) or no matter which side you take on this issue, this is a must-read for people who are interested in Middle East. It is especially striking and painful to see nothing has really changed for the last 30 years in the Middle East.
Rating:
Summary: Well Worth a Read
Review: This book offers a good analysis of the ME conflict. As always, Prof. Chomsky come to the table with a list of references about a quarter size of the book, and a cool logic when looking at the ME. In addition to analyzing the ME situation over 3 decades of writing, he also explores prospects for peace (then and now) and looks at the likely out comes. I gave this a 4 because I have read better by this man, but it is still worth a read. And Take Note: This isn't a book of history on the Israel-Palestine conflict, rather an analysis, a reader would best be served to read up on the past before purchasing this book.
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