Has anyone read "How Israel Was Won"

[Febnyc]

With more than a little trepidation I am venturing into this forum, where many have entered and, it seems, few have left unscathed. But anyway, screwing courage to the sticking point...

Recently someone sent me the book called "How Israel Was Won." Author is Baylis Thomas and it was written in 1999.

Has anyone, either one of the resident experts on the subject of the Middle East, or one of the interested parties, like myself, read this book? If so, I'd appreciate comments on it.

Thanks.

[Ralph]

With more than a little trepidation I am venturing into this forum, where many have entered and, it seems, few have left unscathed. But anyway, screwing courage to the sticking point...

Recently someone sent me the book called "How Israel Was Won." Author is Baylis Thomas and it was written in 1999.

Has anyone, either one of the resident experts on the subject of the Middle East, or one of the interested parties, like myself, read this book? If so, I'd appreciate comments on it.

Thanks.

*****

No, but you've intrigued me. To Alibris or Abebooks I now go.

[Ralph]

Just ordered the book from Amazon. Looking forward to discussing it.

[Febnyc]

Thanks, Ralph. I'll be interested in your take on this book.

Maybe discuss at Bengal Tiger?

[Ralph]

Thanks, Ralph. I'll be interested in your take on this book.

Maybe discuss at Bengal Tiger?

*****

Or somewhere like it.

Amazing how willing Amazon is to take orders from me.

[Corlyss_D]

With more than a little trepidation I am venturing into this forum, where many have entered and, it seems, few have left unscathed. But anyway, screwing courage to the sticking point...

Recently someone sent me the book called "How Israel Was Won." Author is Baylis Thomas and it was written in 1999.

Has anyone, either one of the resident experts on the subject of the Middle East, or one of the interested parties, like myself, read this book? If so, I'd appreciate comments on it.

Thanks.

I've never heard of it either. Thanks. It sounds like a good companion to Richard Ben Cramer's How Israel Lost: The Four Questions. I bought it last fall after hearing his heart-felt talk on C-SPAN. Cramer was a correspondent in the Middle East and won the Pulitzer in 1979 for his reporting. The four questions are:

1. Why do we care about Israel?
2. Why don't the Palestinians have a state?
3. What is a Jewish state?
4. Why is there no peace?

The thrust of the book is that the Arabs have been largely successful in portraying Isarel to the world as the New Nazi regime, going from "the plucky little state that could" to brutal oppressors in just 30-40 years. He attempts to explain how this wretched state of affairs came about, describing alliances among people and organizations on both sides of the conflict that profit from the status quo and explaining why it will be so hard to invent a new paradigm. Of course, he wrote before the upheaval resulting from Arafat's death, which naturally changed the landscape almost as much as the American invasion of Iraq.

Say, you think we could start our own book club?

[Ralph]

With more than a little trepidation I am venturing into this forum, where many have entered and, it seems, few have left unscathed. But anyway, screwing courage to the sticking point...

Recently someone sent me the book called "How Israel Was Won." Author is Baylis Thomas and it was written in 1999.

Has anyone, either one of the resident experts on the subject of the Middle East, or one of the interested parties, like myself, read this book? If so, I'd appreciate comments on it.

Thanks.

I've never heard of it either. Thanks. It sounds like a good companion to Richard Ben Cramer's How Israel Lost: The Four Questions. I bought it last fall after hearing his heart-felt talk on C-SPAN. Cramer was a correspondent in the Middle East and won the Pulitzer in 1979 for his reporting. The four questions are:

1. Why do we care about Israel?
2. Why don't the Palestinians have a state?
3. What is a Jewish state?
4. Why is there no peace?

The thrust of the book is that the Arabs have been largely successful in portraying Isarel to the world as the New Nazi regime, going from "the plucky little state that could" to brutal oppressors in just 30-40 years. He attempts to explain how this wretched state of affairs came about, describing alliances among people and organizations on both sides of the conflict that profit from the status quo and explaining why it will be so hard to invent a new paradigm. Of course, he wrote before the upheaval resulting from Arafat's death, which naturally changed the landscape almost as much as the American invasion of Iraq.

Say, you think we could start our own book club?

*****

We can start our club. Just send me one dollar and the names of four books you want me to read. That's the introductory offer. Then each month (actually every 2 weeks), you'll automatically be billed for each book I've read during the preceding time period.

[Febnyc]

I've never heard of it either. Thanks. It sounds like a good companion to Richard Ben Cramer's How Israel Lost: The Four Questions. I bought it last fall after hearing his heart-felt talk on C-SPAN. Cramer was a correspondent in the Middle East and won the Pulitzer in 1979 for his reporting. The four questions are:

1. Why do we care about Israel?
2. Why don't the Palestinians have a state?
3. What is a Jewish state?
4. Why is there no peace?

The thrust of the book is that the Arabs have been largely successful in portraying Isarel to the world as the New Nazi regime, going from "the plucky little state that could" to brutal oppressors in just 30-40 years. He attempts to explain how this wretched state of affairs came about, describing alliances among people and organizations on both sides of the conflict that profit from the status quo and explaining why it will be so hard to invent a new paradigm. Of course, he wrote before the upheaval resulting from Arafat's death, which naturally changed the landscape almost as much as the American invasion of Iraq.

Say, you think we could start our own book club?

Well, it's interesting that you use Cramer's theory about the Nazification of Israel (or, perhaps more correctly, of the Zionists). I don't want to tip my hand on the Thomas book, especially since Ralph promises to buy me a buffet lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant where he'll give his unadulterated opinion over a mango lassi, but it seems to me that author Thomas has swallowed that theory - hook, line and sinker. However, you're right on with such a timely comment. 'Nuff said.

[Corlyss_D]

We can start our club. Just send me one dollar and the names of four books you want me to read. That's the introductory offer. Then each month (actually every 2 weeks), you'll automatically be billed for each book I've read during the preceding time period.

Ralph, you are one of the funniest people I know.

[Corlyss_D]

Well, it's interesting that you use Cramer's theory about the Nazification of Israel (or, perhaps more correctly, of the Zionists).

I didn't mean to imply that Cramer buys into it the 'Nazi' analogy, but he certainly is appalled at the idea that that is how Israel has come to be viewed. I first heard it from an article in National Interest a couple of years ago. I thought it was so rediculous that I was surprised a discussion of it made its way into such a respected journal. But I know now that it is a popular idea and has often become the language in which the 'new anti-Semitism' is discussed.

I don't want to tip my hand on the Thomas book, especially since Ralph promises to buy me a buffet lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant where he'll give his unadulterated opinion over a mango lassi, but it seems to me that author Thomas has swallowed that theory - hook, line and sinker. However, you're right on with such a timely comment. 'Nuff said.

I got that impression from reading the reviews on Amazon. They took my order too. I have a feeling that I would much prefer Dan Kurzman's Genesis:1948.

[Febnyc]

Or Lapierre and Collins in O Jerusalem.

I did not take it that Cramer espoused the Nazification idea. But, in his own naive way, with a unrelieved bias, Baylis Thomas sure comes close in his book. It's an eye-opener - subtle, ostensibly well-documented (although it really is not at all) and insistent.

[Corlyss_D]

Anent this discussion, there's an interesting piece @
http://www.techcentralstation.com/032905C.html

The Israel-Nazi Slander in Historical Context

By Rory Miller Published 03/29/2005

The historian Yaacov Shavit once argued that the main question to be debated within Jewry in the wake of the Holocaust was whether "Nazism [was] an inherent feature of the European essence or was it a diverted characteristic, an historical accident?" It is one of the great historical and intellectual perversions of our times that many westerners are now asking the same question about Israel and Zionism as Jews asked about Europe.

From polls in Germany in which 51% of respondents expressed the view that Israel's current treatment of Palestinians is similar to that meted out to the Jews by the Nazis, to posters in Paris reading "Hitler has a son -- Sharon"; from information signs in the Spanish town of Oleiros, flashing "Let's stop the animal!!! Sharon the assassin, stop the neo-Nazis", to banners in a Dublin march demanding an end to the Palestinian holocaust and equating the Star of David with the Nazi swastika. Wherever we look we are being bombarded by attacks on Israeli "storm troopers" pursuing "SS tactics" and engaged in "Blitzkrieg" operations.