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Title: Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State
Author: Jonathan Cook
Publisher: Pluto Press, London
Year: 2006
Pages: 240 (paperback)
For readers unaware of the Palestinian presence in today's Galilee, Hassan Nasrallah's apology to Palestinian victims in the conflict with Israel must have come as a shock. Reading a new book by Jonathan Cook, a former Guardian (UK) correspondent, will not only help to introduce those with no knowledge to the Palestinian situation inside Israel's 1948 borders, but also provide a much-needed new angle to analysis for those familiar with the dilemma facing indigenous non-Jews living in the Jewish state.
Twenty percent of the Israeli population is Palestinian - later generations of 100,000 who succeeded in staying in their homeland after the Israeli occupation of 1948. A large proportion of these live in the northern Galilee close to the Lebanese border - two thirds in their original villages, and the rest as refugees close to destroyed villages, squeezed into the overcrowded spaces remaining for Palestinians. Two young boys killed in a Katyusha attack in Nazareth (An-Nasirah: Nazareth is an ancient town in the North District in Israel. It is a center of Christian pilgrimage) lived in the neighborhood of Saffafri, a community of displaced Palestinians from the village of Saffuriyya destroyed in 1948. A brutal irony is that many of their Saffuriyya relatives were facing the full force of Israeli bombing in camps and towns of South Lebanon.
Not a Passing Symptom
| 62% of Israeli Jews are unwilling to rent an apartment to Arabs. |
Palestinians living inside Israel are far from welcome as an "ethnic minority." An August survey of Israeli Jews revealed 62% are unwilling to rent an apartment to Arab-Israelis (Haaretz 24/08/06). In his book published just prior to the recent conflict, Jonathan Cook argues that such discrimination against Arab-Israeli citizens is far from being a "passing symptom" of the conflict, but on the contrary, that Israeli opposition to creating an inclusive democratic state for all its citizens should be conceived as a root cause. Living as he does in Arab Nazareth, Cook is not just a journalist or an academic who dives into a situation only to return to the comfort of London or Washington the next month.
The problem with Western journalistic coverage and current academic political and sociological writing regarding Palestinians in Israel is that they address the issue of discrimination as if it fitted into the same model of racism as discrimination against the Pakistani minority in the UK or against African-Americans in the US. Legal failings and social exclusion are not seen as part and parcel of the whole Palestinian national problem, but simply as an issue of discrimination against a "non-Jewish minority" in Israel. When the international community gathered in Madrid in 1991 to lay the foundations for the flawed Oslo process, Palestinians inside Israel were dismissed as an "Israeli domestic concern."
The Glass Wall
| The metaphor "glass wall" symbolizes Israel’s success in separating its Palestinian citizens from the Jewish majority. |
In Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State, Cook gives detailed analysis of the conduct of the Israeli Jews toward Palestinian citizens to draw far broader conclusions about the direction of the Middle East conflict and the nature of the Jewish state itself. The author uses the metaphor of a "glass wall" to symbolize Israel's success in separating its Palestinian citizens from the Jewish majority, while at the same time convincing the world, and Israeli citizens, that a "Jewish democratic" state is open to everyone.
Since prestate days, Israelis have clung to the philosophy of the "iron wall": Only harsh physical force - land mines in the Golan to zigzagging concrete walls in the West Bank and Gaza - would keep Arabs at bay. Supported by detailed evidence, Cook argues that despite appearances, the "glass wall" presents an even greater obstacle to Middle East peace than manifestations of the "Iron Wall" in 1967 Occupied Territories.
The glass wall … is designed to intimidate and silence its captive Palestinian population; but unlike the iron wall it conceals the nature of the subjugation in such a way that it is seen as necessary, even benevolent. By understanding the glass wall, we can know what really matters to Israel: Not just the use of unrelenting force to guarantee its control of the region and its Palestinian inhabitants, but also the protection of its image as an island of enlightened democracy in the Middle East.
Six chapters then take the reader across the fundamental issues, from demography to disengagement. Why did Arab voters choose to boycott Barak in an election which secured Sharon's place as Prime Minister? And if indeed they have the vote and Arab MKs are in the Israeli parliament, how can they complain that Israel is not a democracy? These important issues, which both university courses and media largely fail to address, are taken head-on.
A Chauvinistic Jewish State
| Israel is increasing its ideological battle to merge the image of the "terrorist" outside, with the Arab enemy within. |
Cook goes for the jugular of "disengagement." Rejecting the idea that unilateral action to tighten walls around Gaza is a step in the direction of a lasting peace, Blood and Religion highlights the dangers of promoting ethnic separation which creates "a staunchly chauvinistic Jewish state searching ever more ruthlessly for ways to maintain its ethnic purity and exploit its Palestinian neighbors behind their glass wall." As Israel turns inwards, the pressure on the "outsiders," Palestinian citizens, is sure to mount. Noting the increased role of Shabak, the internal security service, in monitoring Arab citizens, the author contends that Israel is increasing its ideological battle to merge the image of the "terrorist" outside, with the Arab enemy within.
This book is both for those who only just registered the existence of Palestinians on the "wrong" side of the border, and those who have spent many years engaged in the situation.
Cook presents a coherent argument that a focus on Israel's treatment of its Palestinian citizens is central to understanding obstacles blocking a peaceful resolution to the conflict. He is not afraid to make bold claims in a subject area where all too many writers are frightened to publicly join the dots. The deliberate choice to support analyses almost exclusively with words of Israeli politicians, academics, and media, rather than Palestinian or international critics makes the disturbing conclusions even harder to dismiss.
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