Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948

Rating:
Summary: Straighhtforward, honest and fearless....
Review: Despite the many detractors of this book, this book is a wonderful and honest piece on the current situation regarding Palestine and Israel. All the facts are documented, and character attacks put out by the reviewers before me show the brainwashed and rejectionist mentality that effects western academia and media. This book goes well with Norman Finkelstein's book Image and Reality of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict and Fateful Triangle by Noam Chomsky. It seems that whenever scholars or people speak out against the unlawful practices of the Israeli government, people are labeled as anti semites and this and that. This cant be applied to this author or noam chomsky or norman finkelstein. All of them are Jews and all of them have documented the evidence. So instead of attacking this book based on rejectionist literature and models, confirm it from the sources its drawn on

Rating:
Summary: Honest, Unbiassed, and Challenges the Popular Notion
Review: Despite the many detractors of this book, this book is a wonderful and honest piece on the current situation regarding Palestine and Israel. All the facts are documented, and character attacks put out by the reviewers before me show the brainwashed and rejectionist mentality that effects western academia and media. This book goes well with Norman Finkelstein's book Image and Reality of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict and Fateful Triangle by Noam Chomsky. It seems that whenever scholars or people speak out against the unlawful practices of the Israeli government, people are labeled as anti semites and this and that. This cant be applied to this author or noam chomsky or norman finkelstein. All of them are Jews and all of them have documented the evidence. So instead of attacking this book based on rejectionist literature and models, confirm it from the sources its drawn on

Rating:
Summary: at last
Review: For me this book begins to answer many of the questions I've had about the conflict, including:

(1) why have Palestinian negotiators been so "stubborn" about agreeing to deals in which Israel returns up to 90% (or 97%, depending on what you read) of the land?

(2) why are extraordinary sums of U.S. tax dollars going to support such clearly visible oppression and killing of innocent people?

(3) why is Israel allowed to ignore all U.N. resolutions and keep international inquiries at bay?

(4) what are the U.S. media not telling us?

This book does NOT answer how those in the U.S. administration who fanatically decry destruction of a human embryo as "murder" can justify and support bulldozing homes with living human men, women and children inside.

(One reviewer of this book concerns herself almost entirely with the supposedly contradictory choice of the date 1948 rather than 1967 in the subtitle, but the author clearly states that she chose 1948 because that was when the current ethnic cleansing began.)

Many of us have seen the photograph of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein (BEFORE Saddam became a 'bad guy'?). That image haunts me. What is the potential of Ariel Sharon, who openly flaunts his power and has at his fingertips numerous weapons of mass destruction?

Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading from Irrefutable Source
Review: I am ordering two more copies of this book to lend to friends. It is essential reading from a respected Israeli academic for anyone wanting to have a real understanding of current Israel/Palestine problems and a reasonable resolution.
Reconciliation is difficult unless based on truth and it is the truths presented here - confirmed to me by other Israelis as well as by my observations - that have been systematically avoided by persistant propaganda that have impeded it.
It is ironic that the greatest long-term threat to the safety and security of Israel and Palestine is those Americans who most loudly and vociferously support Sharon's stated efforts to purge the entire land of Palestinians.

Rating:
Summary: Very Agressive pro-palestine view....
Review: I wanted to read a book on the israel/palestine issue. I've seen it on the TV, but I wanted a ring side view of the whole thing. For a beginner like me, I dont know if this was the book to read first. This is more of a book for people who are already aquainted with the basics. As a beginner book on the subject I would like a book which takes a neutral stand and explains both sides of the story. This book altho is a pro-palestine book written by an israli who is supposd to be one of israel's foremost critics on the israel's policly towards palestine. The book deals with

* The Oslo talks, Camp david, Beilin-Abu Mazen plan
* The Abu-Mazein plan
* Sharon's agressive military policy
* Ehud Barak's deceptive oslo talks.
* The peace process (clinton parameters),
* The Jenin Refuge camp massacre (with giant bulldozers..killing palestinians alive under their
own roofs)
* Inhumane conditions in the gaza strip and West bank.
* Lebanon's Hizabollah terrorist organisation.
* Israel's "Defensive shield" operation.
* Arafat as a weak and compromising leader.
* Issue of drawing state of palestine and dividing Jerusalem as capitals of both states.

On the whole this is a very sympathetic book from palestine point of view which says Isreal is purposely following a propoganda and wantedly administering self orchestrated terrorist bombing on civilians (authorised as per Israel Military) so as the gain an excuse to launch offsenive and extensive use of force counterstrikes against the palestinians in their enclosed electric fenced and caged refugee camps with air to surface warfare. Tanya claims the Israel's outlook into the whole affair is the mission of ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the Jewish community.

Altho this is the first book I have read on the subject, I dont get the
image of the jews as being a warlike aggressive people. The Jews were persecuted by the Nazis and then hearing of the accounts of the Jews persecuting the palestinians does not immediately sink in. I will need to read a book written by the other side to even come to some form of satisfying mental picture of this whole diaspora. Of significance in the book is the shocking rendition by Tanya through newsreports and correspondants of the so called " Jenin Massacre"

In short this book paints the picture of the Israeli's as ruthless agressors who will stop at nothing short of wiping out the palestinians and I for one need to read a lot more before I can reconcile this with the menatal picture I had all along which was Israel against the rest of the terrorist harboring nations: Syria, Lebonan and Jordan

Rating:
Summary: Refreshing Honesty and Wisdom
Review: Professor Reinhart presents a history of the Israel/ Palestine conflict with coincides with at least four other books on this subject. Her power is to write cogently and clearly on the key elements in the Zionist taking of most of British mandate Palestine. She argues clearly and persuasively that it is in the interest of both parties that Israel withdraw from the Occupied Territories and thereby permit a viable Palestinian state on these 22 % of the mandate Palestine. A must read for any person wanting to understand the genesis and unfolding of the conflict. Her suggested resolution is persuasive to this reader.

Rating:
Summary: A devastating critique of Israel?s occupation
Review: Reinhart offers a brilliant analysis of Israel's aggressive and merciless policy toward the Palestinians. As has always been the case in the past, those who dare criticize Israel somehow always end up being called self-hate Jews, traitors or even anti-Semitists. Needless to say, this is a highly efficient strategy, the goal of which is to deter people from criticising the infallible and omnipotent Israelis. Reinhart, being a Jewish woman, has already been labelled a self-hate Jew and in many cases even a traitor. In this book, Reinhart carefully reviews the previous peace processes and explains why they all failed and what Israel and U.S. actually offered at Camp David. Contrary to a popular belief, Israelis did not offer to dismantle the already existing settlements or to stop building new settlements. Also, Reinhart exposes the myths about the peace process and rectifies the grossly misrepresented and distorted images of the peace plan as presented by corporate American media. According to Reinhart, because Israel anticipated a refusal by the Palestinians, Israel deliberately offered little. A refusal by the Palestinians is then automatically attributed to their intransigence and belligerence. The Palestinians are then portrayed by the mass media as war-mongering terrorists who strongly oppose the existence of the state of Israel while Israel comes off as generous and peace-loving. In spite of the U.N. resolution calling upon Israel to immediately withdraw from and stop building new settlements in the occupied areas, Israel continues building new settlements in a flagrant violation of international law and yet the mass media keep blaming the Palestinians. Any reasonable human being finds this extremely unjust and cynical. To be able to truly understand the plight of the Palestinians, one has to know what it feels like to be oppressed, devoid of hope and powerless. As Tanya points out, Israel feels omnipotent having the U.S. on its side while the Palestinians have no one to turn to for help. Imagine what it must feel like being unable to change anything, imagine being stopped by Israeli police every single day on your way to work and finally imagine a life over which you have no control. Now, imagine that your oppressor is much more powerful and armed than yourself, what can you do? Nothing. You can urge the U.N. and the rest of the world to put an end to your misery. However, the mainstream media keep telling the whole world that it is your fault and that you must change, no matter that you are the victim. Reinhart brilliantly accounts for the unfathomable suffering of the Palestinians, for their despair and hopelessness. Reinhart also briefly discusses the U.S. role in the conflict as a dishonest broker that always unconditionally sides with Israelis. In fact, following an atrocious attack by Israelis in which many Palestinian civilians were killed, the U.S. senate approved $2.76 billion in financial aid to Israel. Few people wonder why the U.S. supports Israel given Israel's extensive record of human rights violations. Had the U.S. truly wanted to obliterate terrorism, then it would not have backed up autocratic and oppressive regimes. Tanya's book is by far the most exhaustive and devastating critique of Israel's oppression; it is extremely well written and argued. There is something special about such a noble mind which cannot be described in words. Thank you Tanya for your honesty, courage, empathy but above all a great dedication for the weak and the victimized.

Rating:
Summary: Majorly biased
Review: The book is majorly and unprofessionaly biased towards the Palestinian view. There seems to be little if no consideration of WHY Israel acts the way it does. As such, it portrays Israel as an aggresive predator state and somewhat questions its right to exist. Clearly, the author has no understanding whatsoever of Middle Eastern political history, and her ignorance is sadly reflected in this account.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading and counterproductive
Review: The history presented here is basically bogus. That is the main problem with the book. Oh, sure, there is no consideration for human rights, not for Arab rights nor Jewish rights. But the big problem is a lack of honesty, after which any recommendations that are made become suspect.

What is the best way to end the war of 1948, in which five Arab nations tried to get rid of Israel, a nation that formed because it was the only way to defend Jewish rights of life, liberty, and property in the region? In my opinion, I think some way needs to be found to get Israel's neighbors to grant the Jews of Israel these basic rights! But you'll never see this issue in Reinhart's book.

Rating:
Summary: Undisputible facts
Review: This is dynamite, I love it. I have been a friend of Israel's policy for a long time, mostly because of it well oiled military force (air force to be precise) and everything they've done. A purely professional, military opinion.
But it is reveling to read Tanya Reinhart, an expert on theoretical linguistics at Tel Aviv University, put forward all these facts about the conflict that has been hidden from the world community for more than half of a century. She also reveals what she calls "The Oslo Apartheid" and compares it with South Africans Apartheid system. It enlightes you I promise. It is objective and very well written.
She makes it clear that only an immediate and unconditional withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza can bring peace to the area. And she also states that in a 2002 survey 77 percent of Palestinians still agree that "both Israel and Palestine have the right to live in peace and security."
One of the most chocking facts are that the Israel's military force(taking order from the country's leaders), which is one of the most powerful in the world, also backed by the United States, deliberately shoots civilian Palestinians, not to kill, but to wound them and to practice. United States is of course the rouge state here. They block every UN resolution just to please the Jewish lobby in Washington D.C. And because of that Israel can continue to laugh at the UN Resolutions and crimes against the Geneva Conventions. It's a fact Serbians that committed war crimes face the Haag tribunal, but what about Israeli leaders, and of course Hamas terrorist.
To make peace USA HAVE to stop support Israel with money and guns. But as a student of international relations and political science at Halmstad University I recommend this book, it's great.