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Rating: 
Summary: 5 Stars Is Not Enough!
Review: "The Other Israel" is truly a gem and will probably be the best read of the year. Not only for the historic perspective given, but also for the way these writers have literally bared their souls on a subject they feel so strongly about. In today's oversimplified coverage of the Middle East conflict that we see on the media, "The Other Israel" will take you on a journey to places you've never been before, and may very well make you doubt what you once believed. These 37 essays are a contribution by Jewish novelists, historians, journalists, activists, as well as several military officers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories. All who hope that their voices will be heard around the world, and especially by their own people who, like most in America, will have their perceptions shaped by what the government tells them, what they see on the media, and often more than not, what they don't see. As a collective, the essays represent a growing discontented movement within Israel itself that questions the morality of the occupation, the mindset upon which it has endured, the terrible hardship on the Palestinian people, and the effect on Israeli society as a whole. No longer able to ignore their moral convictions, and acutely aware of the turmoil beset both sides, these writers expose the failings of the past peace processes, the myths that have been perpetuated over the years, and the apartheid conditions the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has created. They condemn what the occupation has done to the moral fiber of their military, along with not only the price they pay as a society, but with their standing in the world community as well. None of these essays are terribly long, and some are amazingly short. But they are sophisticated in that they manage to convey complicated accounts of history along with deep personal perspectives in a relatively short amount of space due to the exquisite writing. Almost all are haunting. Some are point-blank in your face accusations and I was caught off guard, but I witnessed more in these pages then any documentary video I've seen on the subject. If these pages don't strike some deep nerve within you then nothing will. As you read, it will become apparent that these essays took much courage on the part of the writers, knowing full well that they might, at the very least, be labeled as `self hating Jews' and at the very worst, traitors by the hard right Zionist wing. The essays were written last year just falling short of the current roadmap process, but nonetheless will still give an incredible insight into what has been going on over there. Often the writings depict the internal struggle within the authors themselves. On one hand there is a great need to be part of the greater Jewish solidarity, the wish for their country to live peaceably and prosper, while on the other as one essayist points out, the anguish that comes from "knowing all this, yet crying little, and keeping quiet too often."
Rating:
Summary: Better Title: LIFE AFTER PEACE NOW
Review: During the late eighties to mid nineties, one of the defining political movement was "Peace Now" the broad based, umbrella groups seeking peace with the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab nations. With the assasination of Rabin, the advent of suicide/homicide bombings, the new intifada, and collapse of peace talks at Camp David and Taba, "Peace Now" is now a shadow of its former self and its not hard to meet disillusioned Israelis who once supported its goals but now want nothing to do with it. The fact was and is that "Peace Now" while broad in its heydey was very shallow in its position. Together with Meretz and Labor "doves" they sought friendship first and justice toward the Palestinians later; not realizing that that it could only be justice first and then friendship. This crucial misunderstanding defines the failure of the traditional peace groups/parties in Israel. (The fact that they scrupulously avoided ever criticized Israeli government policy.) Fortunely there still is a hard core of "peaceniks." At perhaps 20-30% of the population they are a minority, but they are a substantial minority. The groups they make up include "Gush-Shalom" the hard core "Peace Bloc" which calls for a two state solution and a sharing of Jerusalem, "Ometz Lesarev" ("Courage to Refuse") the conditional objector movement of reservists who refuse to serve in the occupied territories, Rabbis for Human Rights, B'Tselem the Palestian-Israeli human rights organization, Ta'Ayush the cooperative movement of young people of Jewish and Arabic backgrounds participating in non-violent direct action and reliefl efforts in the occupied territories, the Campaign against Home Demolitions, the Women in Black, among others. This anthology covers a generous cross section this opinion, not usually covered in the US media: from "new historian" Avi Schlaim, to veteran "muckraker" Uri Avnery, to hard hitting journalists Tanya Rheinhart and Amira Hass, to several members of the "refuser" movements. The contents of the this book will challenge many recieved notions that govern the coverage of Israel/Palestine in the US media, including the nature of the occupation, the bad faith with which Oslo was carried out, the true responsibility for the failures at Camp David and Taba. The editors strove for comprehensiveness, but I still can think of two glaring omissions: Ran HaCohen whose column "Letter from Israel" appears (and is archived) on antiwar.com, and Stephen Langfur, author of CONFESSION FROM A JERICHO JAIL, who was a precursor of the "Ometz" movement and is presently editor for Challenge Magazine, where his continuing work on the rights and conditions of Arab workers and their role in the context of globalization is quite remarkable. There is also something of a generational bias in the selection, material from Ta'ayush and Between the Lines magazine are unaccounted for. While biographies for the contributors are included in the back of the book a list of organizations and websites is not. Shame! Several other caveats, little in this book is new to anyone who is "up" on the Peace movement in Israel. Indeed most of this material is availabe online at the websites of gush-shalom, seruv.org, the Israel Committe Against Home Demolitions, globalresearch.ca. It's there if you know where to look, on the other hand its very convenient to have it all in one place. Also, the pieces in this volume are very much of the moment, hence it will of necessity become very dated, very quickly. Still for anyone who doesn't know that there is a peace movement in Israel (or worse still that it died in 2000) this book will be an an excellent starting point. Get one for yourself and another for the next person you meet how goes of on how Arafat "walked away" from "Barak's generous offer."
Rating:
Summary: Israeli Patriotism Reaches Heroic Levels In This Book
Review: Finally, a book written by insiders in regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Certainly a rare find. This book is actually a compilation of papers/essays/letters written by numerous authors all of Israeli Jewish decent. Noted authors include Uri Avnery who fought in the '48 war and served in the Knesset, Ishai Menuchin who is a Major the Israel Defense Forces reserves, Dr. Yigal Shochat who served as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force during the War of Attrition, as well as numerous well-known and published professors of Political Science, all of whom teach at universities across Israel. The book subverts many myths about Israeli politics in the OPT, but it does not do so in a black and white manner as so many other books do. It is a critical analyses of how certain decisions by those in power are creating a threat not only to Israeli citizens within Israel proper, but also a to Israel's democracy itself. This book criticizes key flaws in Israeli politics in regard to the Palestinian issue and provides solutions in their place; rather than simply attack Israel for all it's worth. In addition to the logical, critical, thought-provoking, Jewish-perspective information this book provides, it also serves to effectively undermine anti-Semitic attitudes towards Israel. Many other books simply criticize Israel without providing alternate solutions given from Israeli Jewish perspectives.. those types of books end up in the hands of some anti-Semites who use the text (most often taken out of context) as metaphorical ammunition. This book is no such source for such idiocy. To criticize one's own government is nothing new, but to do so in such a well-articulated manner, without ostracizing 1000s of years of Jewish culture, and all the while defending democracy while putting your public reputation on the line is not only genius; it's heroic. Read this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this book
Review: If you like lies, revisionist history, falsehood, and numbers without statistics to back them up, then this is the book for you. I would recommend Myths and Facts by Bard, From TIme Immorial by Joan Peters, and any book by Bernard Lewis.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Jeff Halper goes through an outline of Barak's allegedly ultra-generous offer to his Quisling Afrafat at Camp David in July 2000, the myth of which has been such a powerful ideological justification for the current terror against Palestinians. He shows that this offer was probably somewhere around 90 percent of the West Bank. However the substance of the agreement was that the West Bank would be permanently divided up into several cantons of Palestinian population centers which have no contiguity with one another. Situated in between and blocking access for Palestinian areas to each other, are and would be under the offer, most of the Jewish settlements, the settler bypass roads, Israeli army posts and so on. Halper laboriously examines the countours of "Jerusalem" "Greater Jerusalem" and "Metropolitan Jerusalem." Israel, of course, does not define Jerusalem in its 1967 borders or Greater Jerusalem or Metro Jerusalem as part of the West Bank though such areas comprise a good percentage of the Central West Bank. This Jerusalem "block" effectively cuts the West Bank in two, consisting of strategically located Jewish settlements, a great many of them built by the Rabin-Peres-Barak governments. Halper notes that what Barak offered at Taba in January 2001 was somewhat better than at Camp David: Smaller settlement blocks, control over some bypass roads, control of the Jordan valley, but calling for Israel to access the Jordan Valley or the Palestinian controlled roads if it feels the need for security reasons. Israel still would completely control Palestinian water supplies, foreign affairs and dominate its economy. Barak abruptly cut off these negotiations before the elections of February 2001 and declared the continuing negotiations to be "null and void." Tanya Reihnart points to the old Allon plan of 1968 which called for Israel to annex around 40 percent of the West Bank i.e. taking all the best land and strategic areas while giving Palestinian population centers some sort of autonomy where they can work for Israeli bussinesses and pick up their own trash or preferably, immigrate away. Other Israeli leaders have always thought that the "limited autonomy" of the modern Allon plan of Oslo gave too much to Palestinian nationalist aspirations. Sharon other writers note, is continuing to murder Arabs as he has been doing all his illustrious career but he his simply retrying his old plan against the PLO in Lebanon in 1982, to try to use such overwhelming, continuous violence against the Palestinians to crush all their hopes, so that perhaps the territories will be "diluted" of Palestinians, from immigration or death. The rest who manage to stay can be slaves of Israel or be killed. Other writers such as Amira Hass, Gideon Levy and Halper give on the ground reports from the territories of day-to-day lives of Palestinians. In particular spending time observing first hand the ubiquitous checkpoints which exist for no reason other than to detain Palestinians as they try to travel a mile for three hours and engage them in various harrassments and sometimes even manage to help kill sick people and newborn babies by refusing to let ambulances through to get to hospitals. There are some writings from some of Israel's prominent military "refusenicks." Perhaps the most interesting is by Assaf Oron. He served for a period in the notorious Giv'ati brigade which terrorized Gaza during the first Intifada and he partook in some of its least violent human rights violations. But he gradually did some reading and realized some things and would thereafter only allow himself to be posted to gaurd forlorn radio transmitters or gaurding bases and so on. One of the commanders of the brigade Effi Eitam had a notorious feitish for personally beating Palestinians but now he is leader of the National Religous Party and a minister in Sharon's government and along with many of his colleagues discoures on the "cancer" of Israel's Palestinian citizens and hints heavily of his desire for a repeat of 1948 vis a vis the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Refusenick Sergio Yahni writes an "Open Letter" to the director of extrajudicial assassinations and defense minister in the Sharon-Perse government,Benjamin Ben Eliezer and places responsibility for creating the suicide bombings on him and his fellow gangsters. Another writer points to a poll which shows that the majority of Israelis think that "targeted assasinations" do nothing to stop Palestinian terrorism or will increase it. However a majority of the respondents supported such policies.
Rating:
Summary: The Other Israel
Review: The Other Israel is a valuable means for achieving peace in the Middle East, and its publication could not have come at a more urgent time. While some of the writings may date quickly because they deal exclusively with current day situations, there are others that will not whither with time. Although it is full of intelligent stories, essays, anecdotes, and arguments that make it worth your reading.Please ignore those who label this book as thinly-veiled anti-Semitic trash. Opposition to the Israeli government is being silenced this way. There is no link between criticism of a nation and it's military and a harboring of racist beliefs about that citizens that make up a country. I highly recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: A book written by : THE REAL CHOSEN ONES .
Review: This is truly a book written by the REAL CHOSEN ONES.
The TRUE JEWS. People of God. Full of humaness, integrity,truth and a highly evolve soul.
These are writers that have an ease to put down on paper, what comes from their souls.
These are the people ALL us humans, MUST look up to.
As a Christian, these Israelite-Jews, through their actoions and writings, broguht tears to my eyes and a wrenching to my soul.
This is a MUST read for all in the globe.
Words, cannot describe the excellence in humanity of these writers.They have RENEWED my faith in that truly, there are still Jews, that are the CHOSEN ONES.
A book written with a NAKED TRUTH that few may be able to handle.
This book was written by True messengers of God.
From a Christian to the these Israelite-Jews writers: My reverence to you all !
God bless you !
Rating:
Summary: Hermetically sealed
Review: This slight 200-page book is one of the best proofs I have seen to date that journalists consider all Israeli actions both falsely, and in a vacuum. The book ostensibly concerns the Jewish presence in disputed areas. Yet the authors speciously claim Israel never offered Arab sovereignty there. Actually, Israel (and before that Zionist leaders) offered to recognize a sovereign 23rd Arab state at least 6 times through history--in 1937, 1948, 1967, 1977, 2000 and 2001, the last two under Arab fire. Each time, they were rejected. Segev, Anthony Lewis, Jeff Halper, Amira Hass and other essayists make highly selective use of facts, incessantly invoke PA terminology and support Palestinian Authority "resistance," -- the PA euphemism that includes blowing women and children into tiny bits of flesh in cafes, pizza parlors and supermarkets. They don't acknowledge Israel's internationally established and recognized right to statehood. They don't acknowledge the most basic human right--to live free from fear or terrorism. They don't acknowledge the Arab wars and terrorism that have ceaselessly attempted to extinguish Israel's Jewish presence from the state's first moment. Segev's forward discusses "the catastrophe that befell the 700,000 Arabs who emigrated, fled or were banished from their homes." He complains of Jewish "deception," while neglecting clear PA intentions to annihilate Israel, as stated in at least 36 clauses of the Palestine National Charter, which the PA has never revised or revoked (contrary to Segev's false contention). Segev is equally oblivious to the bellicose, Islamist PA Constitution and relentless official daily PA articles, sermons, editorials, cartoons, music videos and school lessons that intentionally cultivate hatred for Jews and Israel, to induce mass murder. Any Ha'aretz reporter should know, these genocidal documents and incitements violate the 1951 UN Genocide Convention, Oslo accords I and II, Hebron Protocol of January 15, 1997, 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights--and give Israel unconditional rights of self-defense. But Segev doesn't. Segev also ignores the rights of over 1 million Jews driven from their homes in Arab lands in coordinated, preplanned government attacks throughout the Middle East from 1920 through 1979, often at the cost of their lives. This oversight is critical, since Segev and company invoke U.N. resolution 194 as if it covered only Arab refugees. But resolution 194 refers to "refugees," not "Arab refugees" alone--and thus applies equally to Mizrahi Jews, and millions of their descendants, who comprise roughly half Israel's Jewish population. Jewish victims of Muslim religious apartheid spent 55 years building new lives in a Jewish state. This does not diminish their equal right to recompense for houses, business, livelihoods and assets forcefully taken from them. By ignoring Mizrahis, Segev and company falsely suggest that Israel was created by European Jewry, and conclude its sovereignty is therefore illegitimate. But Israel is as much a state of Middle Eastern Jews as others--and no more beholden to artificial moral constructs than any other democratic nation with democratically promulgated statutes. The book unquestioningly accepts the supremacy of Arab claims over all other rights and claims. It examines Israel under a false moral magnifier, focusing exclusively on results, not the conflict's causes. But accuracy requires acknowledgment of Arab league and states' monolithic rejection of resolution 194, which merely suggested a "right of return"--only to those willing to "live at peace with their neighbors"--and resettlement and compensation for the rest. Israel cannot legitimately be faulted for Arab refusals of normalcy, nor collective Arab refusals to resettle Arab refugees as Israel did Middle Eastern Jews. Concerning terror attacks since 2000 "against densely populated Israeli targets," the essayists neglect PA establishment since 1993 of a popular suicide culture. They barely notice illegal PA arms buildup, repression or corruption, much less the spike in Arab terrorism after 1993, that violated Oslo I and II provisions to unconditionally halt all violence and incitement. Forget that until 2000, Israel handed over land and governmental responsibilities, despite increases in terrorism and Jewish civilian casualties. Forget, lest readers believe Palestinians bear responsibility for their misery, or that Arab villages were "locked down" only after a decade of PA refusal to combat anti-Israel violence. No, Segev accuses Israelis of reverting to "a tribal, isolated, emotional, and nationalistic mood." New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis carries this untenable position further, unquestioningly accepting PA dogma that Jewish "settlements" are the sole source of disagreement, although they consume less than 4% of the territory disputed. This specious argument forgets 1948 to 1967, and hundreds of Israeli civilians murdered in 3,500-plus cross-border Palestinian and Syrian Arab terror attacks--launched from the Jordan River's "West Bank," Egyptian controlled Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Israel then had no Jewish "settlements." It forgets thousands of Jordanian shells rained on Jerusalem in Tel Aviv in 1967, and former PA "Prime Minister" Abu Mazen's May 1974 order to murder 21 Ma'alot children and gravely injure 68 others (Jerusalem Post, Nov. 1, 1999). Jeff Halper disparages Israel's by-pass roads, forgetting they were built only to avail residents of terror-free highways, not to destroy a potential Arab state. To these writers, the illegal 1948 Jordanian and Egyptian occupations of now-disputed lands bear no mention. The result is a hermetically sealed vacuum, in which Arabs bear no responsibility. This essentially racist viewpoint absolves Arab leaders and states of all sins, including Arab ethnic cleansing of Jews from disputed areas in 1922, '29, '39 and '48, and 1948 removal of 100,000 Jews from East Jerusalem, two thirds of its population, to suddenly render a predominantly Jewish city "traditionally Arab." It falsely absolves Arab theft of large disputed tracts that Jews had purchased or owned rightfully under the 1858 Ottoman Land Law. These Israeli essayists are "patriots" only by a myopic definition that whitewashes Arab wars and terrorism and blames Israel alone. To all others, this book's gross misrepresentations negate Israel's legitimacy, which seems to be the point. --Alyssa A. Lappen
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