Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

This book heavily pushes the one state solution, although in the afterwords it's said that the author leaves this up to the people involved to decide on the best decision.   This author emphasizes how palestinians would want to live in peace next to the Jews because they say so, ignoring the facts on the ground that even before Israel was created, Arabs were murdering Jews or at best lived with them as dhimmis, with the Arabs allowed to decide such simple things as if Jews were allowed to go out in the rain.   

As for palestinians?   They didn't exist as an Arab people before Israel did, so there can be no contextual history as to how they treated Jews.   In fact, before Israel, Arabs despised being called Palestinians; it meant being called a Jew.   Jews are, in fact, the original Palestinians.  Look at the original Palestinian things: airways, run by Jews, owned by Jews, funded by Zionints, soccer team named after Jews, all Jewish players, flag with the Star of David and blue and white although in a different configuration than Israel's current flag.   Read the old headlines about Arabs invading Palestine, aka the British Mandate of Palestine.

Hell, read the quotes by palestinian leaders who claim they're all from Syria, Egypt and Jordan.   (That's why they have last names that are Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian.)  I can'd deny that they've created a new identity as palestinians, but this was to eradicate Israel and Jewish self-determination.   They've failed, and hopefully they will continue to fail at this.  I mostly believe that there are many innocent people trapped alongside corrupt leaders and terrorists, who had the misfortune to be promised that they'd defeat Israel and the Jews, but were lied to again.   Just like when Arab leaders told their citizens to leave, they'd defeat the Jews and then take over Israel.   The Arabs left, but their leaders never defeated Israel. 

So, a bit of a tangent, but the point stands: much of this is starry-eyed naivety, in which Hazan nods his head: nod, nod, of course hamas aren't terrorists, nod, nod, of course you want to live with the Jews in peace, nod, nod.   He will claim pro-Zionists are biased, but forgets to check any of his bias.   He paints an ugly picture of Judea and Samaria; the Jews there can be very alt-right, as far as Israeli politics go, and I condemn their attacks on palestinians.   However, I sigh a world-weary sigh: perhaps if palestinians weren't trying to strip all Jewish history from Judea and Samaria, starting by erasing these areas by renaming them "the west bank", or trying to stop Jews from visiting holy sites within Jude and Samaria, there might be less hostility.   An argument, I should point out, that Hazan himself makes at points: if palestinians had the ability to do thing and go places, there would be less 'resistance.'   There's never terrorism, there's 'resistance.' 

The forward was laughably inaccurate, by someone just as blinded by the palestinians and just as biased.   Not polemic?   This might be the most polemic thing I've read recently, including articles.   Unbiased?   It's unabashedly unbiased, using the 'aw, shucks, I'm not biased at all' schtick to trick uninformed readers into believing this absolutely massive steaming pile of bullshit.  

From a French Jew no less.   That's how antisemitic France has become; the Jews are leaning right into that.   I'll be taking Zionist things out the library next time, I think, if I can find similar books.  I really enjoyed the on-the-ground aspect; it wasn't dry, or boring, or anything that needed to be backed up with anything other than a small amount of notes at the backs of the three chapters, one for each area Hazan visited.   (His prose was simple and clean, and I really enjoyed how easy and fun and quick that made this reading, too.)

I didn't have the time to go back and check out everything else on Israel again, mostly because I got a call and had to rush to checkout and call someone back.   I plan on going back tomorrow and returning at least two books and spending an hour or two just looking at all the pretty, pretty books on Israel...  

Because delving into palestine has made me realize how much I absolutely crave reading about Israel.