Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

Description:

About this item:

2014 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Notable Book AwardIn Goliath , New York Times bestselling author Max Blumenthal takes us on a journey through the badlands and high roads of Israel-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under the siege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of the Palestinians deepens.Beginning with the national elections carried out during Israel's war on Gaza in 2008-09, which brought into power the country's most right-wing government to date, Blumenthal tells the story of Israel in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo peace process.As Blumenthal reveals, Israel has become a country where right-wing leaders like Avigdor Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu are sacrificing democracy on the altar of their power politics where the loyal opposition largely and passively stands aside and watches the organized assault on civil liberties where state-funded Orthodox rabbis publish books that provide instructions on how and when to kill Gentiles where half of Jewish youth declare their refusal to sit in a classroom with an Arab and where mob violence targets Palestinians and African asylum seekers scapegoated by leading government officials as "demographic threats."Immersing himself like few other journalists inside the world of hardline political leaders and movements, Blumenthal interviews the demagogues and divas in their homes, in the Knesset, and in the watering holes where their young acolytes hang out, and speaks with those political leaders behind the organized assault on civil liberties. As his journey deepens, he painstakingly reports on the occupied Palestinians challenging schemes of demographic separation through unarmed protest. He talks at length to the leaders and youth of Palestinian society inside Israel now targeted by security service dragnets and legislation suppressing their speech, and provides in-depth reporting on the small band of Jewish Israeli dissidents who have shaken off a conformist mindset that permeates the media, schools, and the military.Through his far-ranging travels, Blumenthal illuminates the present by uncovering the ghosts of the past,the histories of Palestinian neighbourhoods and villages now gone and forgotten how that history has set the stage for the current crisis of Israeli society and how the Holocaust has been turned into justification for occupation.A brave and unflinching account of the real facts on the ground, Goliath is an unprecedented and compelling work of journalism.

Review

"[A] bold and shocking book, presenting persuasively a major theoretical and polemical argument about Israel almost completely at odds with the image most Americans have of it... Even those generally well-informed about Israel and its occupation of the Palestinian territories will have their views challenged by Blumenthal's sharp eye and deadpan factual presentations."
The American Conservative

"[A] scathing critique of the Jewish State... Supporters of Israel should be encouraged to read this book...As Israel's greatest supporters, American Jews who care at all about the future of the country need to understand what's happening within the borders."
The New York Observer

"I would like to send a copy [of Goliath] to every Jew I know...This is the sort of book that even if you want to diss it, you can't dismiss it."
Charles H. Manekin, Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland

"Blumenthal's new book offers an unflinching look at the racist reality of Israel that America's establishment media simply does not have the guts to confront."
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada

"Brave reporting of a sad, even tragic tale. Makes me wish he wrote for the New York Times."
Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government

"Erudite, hard-hitting, [Goliath has] the potential to influence American public opinion on Israel..."
Rayyan Al-Shawaf, Mondoweiss

"[Blumenthal is] genuinely interested in the truth, and knows that the truth in politics often lurks in those dark caves of viciousness... [Goliath is] the kind of book that you just open to any chapter and quickly get a sense of both the particular and the whole. You'll find yourself instantly immersed in an engrossing family romance-one part tender, one part train-wreck-and wish you had the entire day to keep reading. Put it down, and pick it up the next day, and you'll have the exact same feeling."
Corey Robin, associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

"A rich, roiling examination of 'the State of Israel during a period of deepening political and societal crisis' ... Blumenthal is an enterprising reporter."
Kirkus Reviews

"There is much in its gruesome vignettes of modern Israeli hypernationalism in action ... heart-wrenching."
David Shulman, New York Review of Books

"[A] bold, personal and unapologetic book."
Salon

"Goliath is a particular kind of exposé-minded, documentary-broadside journalism whose place we generally recognize and respect... Blumenthal has made a sobering prima facie case that there are extreme forces [within Israel's current political-social dynamics] to be aware of, and reckoned with more fully that American discourse usually does."
James Fallows, The Atlantic

"Goliath...shows in forensic detail the reality of the Israeli mainstream's embrace blatant racism against Arabs and Africans."
Antony Loewenstein, TheGuardian.com

"[A] heart stopper... Goliath is a threat to the Israeli status quo...because it tells too many inconvenient truths."
Larry Gross, Director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication

"Max Blumenthal's Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel is the most important political and investigative journalist book of 2013."
TarheelDem, Firedoglake Reader Diaries

Book Description

Review:

4.9 out of 5

97.78% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and interesting

L. · 2 September 2024

Look into the strange world of Israel's occupation of Palestine. Reading this with the benefit of hindsight is illuminating.

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read!

S.L. · 28 November 2013

This well-written book contains a detailed chronicle of the situation in Israel/Palestine and provides the historical context to understand it. Max Blumenthal's analysis is informed and insightful, leading to the conclusion that the only just solution to the injustices in Israel/Palestine is a bi-national state where everyone is treated equally, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. Significantly, he demonstrates how the injustices in Israel/Palestine did not start with the occupation, recounting the well-documented process of ethnic cleaning that enabled the foundation of the state of Israel. The quotes from military commanders and political leaders justifying massacres and mass displacement of the indigenous Palestinian population are chilling. Blumenthal illustrates the continuity between the actions and attitudes of the past and the occupation and settlement policy of the present.Fascinatingly, he quotes Condoleezza Rice's initial misgivings when Tzipi Livni, then foreign minister, rejected the rights of Palestinians' to return to the land and property that had been confiscated from them when the state of Israel was founded. Rice said `I must admit that though I understood the argument intellectually, it struck me as a harsh defense of the ethnic purity of the Israeli state when Tzipi said it. It was one of those conversations that shocked my sensibilities as an American. After all, the very concept of American rejects ethnic or religious definitions of citizenship. Moreover, there were Arab citizens of Israel. Where did they fit in?' Rice managed to resolve these contradictions in her own mind by accepting the idea that there was something singular about a Jewish state that made these distinctions and their enforcement acceptable. But her initial misgivings were correct - how can there be a free pass for ethnic cleansing and apartheid? These are the terms used by Jewish and Palestinian activists to describe the situation in Israel and the occupied territories. They are highly loaded words but, sadly, they are accurate descriptions of what has happened and is now happening in Israel/Palestine.The book also discusses social and class divisions amongst Jewish Israelis with the privileged Ashkenazi community (who gained the most from the confiscation of Palestinian lands and property at the foundation of the state of Israel) at the top of the social pyramid and people with Mizrahi, Russian and Ethiopian Jewish origins at the bottom. Blumenthal shows how these divisions have been manipulated to create support for repressive measures against Palestinians and the recent wave of non-Jewish immigrants. He compares this situation to the US, referencing Jim Crow and anti-immigrant sentiments.There have been many inaccurate reviews, which have attempted to smear the book and its author. None, however, have addressed the actual irrefutable evidence of past and present ethnic cleansing that the book documents. On a positive note there are a growing number of brave Jewish and Palestinian activists who are challenging the status quo and demanding, through non-violent means, a state where all are treated equally.

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside Israel

P. · 27 September 2014

In Israel's latest assault on Gaza more than 2000 Gazans were killed, over 500 of which were children. While Palestinian families were mourning their dead, flag-waving Israelis were chanting in the streets of Tel Aviv: "There is no school tomorrow in Gaza, because there are no children left. Ole, ole, ole."The fanatical hatred emanating from that crowd was chilling and left the viewer wondering what is going on in Israel these days?Max Blumenthal's book answers that question. It is divided into many short chapters and each chapter is like a piece of a jigsaw that looks at one specific aspect of Israeli and Palestinian life and society. From the arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, an experience in itself, Blumenthal takes us on a journey through Israel and the Occupied Territories. Along the way we meet a broad range of people from all walks of life.In Haifa, for example, we encounter a young Palestinian woman, who had opened a café which had an easy-going bohemian atmosphere and became a favourite hangout with both, young Palestinians and Israelis. The café had one rule: "No uniforms allowed." However, the café's fate was sealed when one day an Israeli soldier in uniform with a gun slung over his shoulder walked in and demanded a drink.Then there was the eighty-nine-year-old Holocaust survivor who rented rooms in his house to three Palestinian students. When in December 2010 a group of around 50 state-sanctioned Israeli rabbis issued a religious edict, urging Israelis not to rent to Arabs and other non-Jews, this old man became the target of hate messages, which were regularly pinned to his door, denouncing him as a traitor.In a chapter on the West Bank, Blumenthal describes the protests and demonstrations against the separation wall. In order to get information on the protest leaders the Israeli army raids Palestinian homes in the middle of the night. They then arrest children from as young as nine years old at gunpoint, who are taken to a military prison and interrogated by the army or the Shin Bet, the internal security service, until they are ready to supply the required information. This can involve beatings, blindfolds and having a loaded gun pointed at them. According to a soldier who served in Hebron "they always cry, s*** in their pants."At the end of the book a picture has emerged of an all powerful Israeli state which brutalises a virtually defenceless Palestinian population. The state and the media combined have whipped up a hysterically racist atmosphere in Israeli society. Internal dissenters are bullied, intimidated and threatened, and this even applies to Holocaust survivors. The international media are only reporting the tip of an iceberg. The EU and even more so the US government are looking the other way, pretending not to see or hear anything while supplying the Israeli military with the next batch of fighter jets, tanks and missiles.Goliath is an important book and a must-read for anybody who wants to understand what's happening in Israel/Palestine today.

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful addition to debate

D.G.S.K. · 23 February 2014

An excellent and informative book, in the main fairly balanced and calibrated. Should please every liberal Zionist and every Palestinian sympathiser.

Excellent work. Very educational.

A.C. · 9 February 2024

Great book! As someone who grew up in Israel, I can confirm that the general attitudes of the Israeli public described in this book are right on point. The book illustrates Israel's policies towards Palestine and the role that Zionism plays in shaping policy. Highly recommended to anyone trying to understand what led recent events in Israel.

Congratulations to the Author of this IMPORTANT , well written and researched book!

P. · 16 February 2014

This is a hard book to put down, but I found I needed to come up for a breath of fresh! clean air a few times. And I started it with a distinctly pro-Israeli worldview.I cannot believe this book describes the country my Jewish then to be husband and I visited in 1997 or early 1998. I vividly recall the hours at the airport talking to a series of interrogators about why we're there. NOTE: My husband was 62, a professor of medicine invited to give a talk in Haifa! and I was 48, dressed like the lawyer I was, yet security questions went on in excess of 1.5 hours. SAME thing on our return home, ( and why did it matter then)????Yet my frustration was nothing compared to the experiences of Palestinians who wait at checkpoints at least twice a day to go thru checkpoints to farm their fields and tend orchards. A small point in this sprawling, fascinating book, but one that impatient Americans can relate to.We were not there in a peaceful time. within an hour of my arrival in Tel Aviv, as I stepped toward the beach outside the Hilton Hotel, a truck full of of soldiers with M-16s(.????)--- assault rifles-- poured out of a truck and ran down the broad sidewalk. Something similar happened each day we were there.I read a great deal to prepare for that trip, including both Tom Segev's books ( as well as biography of T. Hertzl, Zionism, history of the Balfour Agreement WWI in the Middle East. In general, WWII, the Holocaust , essentially the history of the European Wars in the 20th Century and their consequences, and on and on. I write this not to impress, but to establish my credentials for reviewing this book.As I said, every good thing has been said by other reviewers, but one thing that especially struck me was the government's (and society's) persecution of it's own Jewish citizens for any degree of dissent from what have become the state's present ethno-fascist policies. Senator Joseph McCarthy and president Nixon's deep suspicions of his own people, with the accompanying wiretaps, bullying, surveillance, etc., seem almost moderate when compared with 6 hour interrogations of dissidents, and seizure of their computers, at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport.And these are liberal leftists, not anarchists or terrorists-- the sort of people my husband and I are.Economic blacklisting, removal of prominent professors, scholars and intellectuals from positions in which they could teach young Israelis to think for themselves, the demotion of Mr Segev's from his once HIGHLY regarded status as journalist and historian, the enforce of "groupthink" by lower class and Russian thugs---- as a good liberal pro-Israel (with some misgivings about Palestinian repression) American I am SHOCKED by the Israel described by this book, and grateful that Mr. Blumenthal wrote it. Now I know! and what I learned is unforgettable.Americans spent serious dollars supporting Israel, and should know what they are REALLY supporting, as opposed to the Israeli image created by their enormous public relations machinery.A MUST READ indeed.

Israel, was ist aus dir geworden?

O.V. · 19 December 2014

"These are the stories of people living under a regime of separation, grappling with the consequences of ethnic division in a land with no defined borders“ (Max Blumenthal)Der US-amerikanische Historiker, Journalist und Bestsellerautor Max Blumenthal hat sich insbesondere mit der Politik der Republikanischen Partei und Israels auseinandergesetzt. Sein Vater Sidney Blumenthal war Assistent von US-Präsident Clinton, von daher ist der Sohn gut vernetzt in der politischen Elite der USA und auch Israels, aber ebenso in der alternativen Szene.In Deutschland wurde Max Blumenthal durch das sogenannte Toilettengate bekannt, als er im Deutschen Bundestag zusammen mit dem Israeli David Sheen den Linken-Politiker Gregor Gysi bedrängte, um Antworten auf tatsächliche oder vermeintliche Diffamierungen zu bekommen. In der deutschen Presse wurde Blumenthal dann u.a. als „irrer Israel-Hasser“ beschimpft, was ihm überhaupt nicht gerecht wird.Dieses Buch beschreibt die Politik und Geschichte Israels sowohl aus der Sicht der Zionisten als auch der vertriebenen Palästinenser und der nichtjüdischen Israelis. Blumenthal hat viel Zeit in Israel und Palästina verbracht und unterschiedlichste Menschen interviewt. An diesem Buch hat er vier Jahre gearbeitet. Als jüdischer US-Amerikaner, der Hebräisch und Arabisch versteht, hatte er dabei persönlichen Zugang zu erzkonservativen, kriegerischen Politikern und als linker Aktivist auch zu arabisch-israelischen Demonstranten und Bürgerrechtlern.Das Buch ist in zehn Teile und insgesamt 73 Kapitel gegliedert, zum Teil chronologisch geordnet, zum Teil nach Themen. Die Gliederung habe ich nicht verstanden. Mal schildert Blumenthal historische Gegebenheiten, mal wechselt er zu persönlichen Berichten. Jedes Kapitel ist aber für sich schlüssig und überzeugend und lebendig erzählt. Blumenthal beschreibt u.a.- die Bombardierung der Gaza-Polizei durch Israel nach dem Wahlsieg der Hamas 2008- den Aufstieg des früheren Türstehers Avigdor Lieberman zum Minister mithilfe russischer Geldquellen- die Vertreibung der Palästinenser angeführt durch Ben Gurion 1948- den Boykott arabischer Händler, deren Gemüse mit Kerosin überschüttet wurde, ihre Eier zerschmettert- die Zerstörung der Häuser der Vertriebenen, die Enteignung ihrer Orangenplantagen und Olivenbäume- seit 1967 wurden über 26.000 palästinensische Wohnungen abgerissen- Kinder der nichtjüdischen Bevölkerung werden nachts aus dem Bett geholt und verhaftet- dagegen wird seit Jahrzehnten in israelischen Schulen diese Vertreibung verschwiegen, sodass Erwachsene wenig darüber wissen- stattdessen wird der Widerstand gegen die Besatzung nur mit „Antisemitismus“ verklärt- wer dagegen demonstriert, wird von der Polizei überwacht.- Protestierenden Israelis drohen Verhaftungen und Misshandlungen, Nicht-Israelis droht Schusswaffengebrauch- die Zionisten fühlen sich von allen bedroht, die ihrem jüdischen Nationalismus im Weg stehen, also nicht nur Muslime, sondern auch Christen oder afrikanische Flüchtlinge- einige Rabbis warnen jüdische Frauen öffentlich davor, sich mit „Kamelreitern“ einzulassen- ein Prof. Dan Schueftan vertritt das Konzept der hafrada, einer Art Apartheid, deren politische Umsetzung u.a. den Mauerbau beinhaltetBlumenthal belegt alles mit umfangreichen Fußnoten. Soweit ich sehen kann, sind die von ihm berichteten Fakten auch nicht umstritten. Allerdings sind einige Kapitel-Überschriften bewusst provozierend gewählt: „The Silence of the Lambs“, „How to kill Goyim and influence people“, „The Concentration Camp", und Zitate wie „Judeo-Nazis“.Dies hat in Deutschland zu dem Vorwurf geführt, Blumenthal vergleiche Israel mit Nazideutschland. Dabei ist der Autor weit von solchen unangemessenen Beschimpfungen entfernt, auch wenn er empört ist über die Verbrechen und Ungerechtigkeiten der Besatzung. In Israel ist das Trauma des Holocaust bzw. der Shoa allgegenwärtig, daher kommen solche Vergleiche in einer aufgeheizten politischen Auseinandersetzung durchaus vor. Blumenthal hat sich das nicht zu eigen gemacht, aber er zitiert es wiederholt. Diese Feinheiten fallen in einer verkürzten Darstellung etwa in der Zeitung mit den großen Buchstaben gerne unter den Tisch.Das Buch ist unbedingt lesenswert für alle die diesen Konflikt verstehen wollen. Es beschreibt den Hintergrund und die aktuelle Situation Israels aus erster Hand und von allen Seiten. Eine Übersetzung ins Deutsche wäre wünschenswert.

the banality of evil

C.M. · 26 May 2014

This is a truly devastating book that has shattered the myths I held dear about Israel. It should be compulsory reading for every Israeli citizen, American taxpayer and all who aspire for peace with justice in the Middle East. Would that such a book had been written about Germany in the 1930's. How supremely ironic that the 'people of the book' should so slavishly ignore the golden rule: "do unto others ..."I have always wondered how such a sophisticated and cultured society as Germany could slide into fascism and was enlightened by Hannah Arendt's coverage of the Eichman trial and her observation about 'the banality of evil'. Max Blumenthal has written chapter and verse about our collective 'dark side'. We are all capable of such evil and he and Adendt exhort us to think more expansively about the bureaucracy and practices of our various nation states. My own country, Australia, has recently elected a bunch of 'tea party' conservatives to govern our nation who are now taking a wrecking ball to our formerly egalitarian society.I read the ebook version of 'Goliath' and still held doubts as to whether there were some other explanations for the behaviours described in it until I finished the text and toggled through the extensive notes attached at the book's conclusion. The evidence is overwhelming.The book leaves unanswered what those of us who support peace can actually do or is BDS the only answer?Michael Johnston

A very frightening but essential book,

A.B. · 16 October 2016

A very frightening book, written by a Jewish American reporter who investigated all and spoke to many of all stripes in Israel for a very considerable time. But it is monstrously true, I believe. It adds horribly truely to Illan Pappe's 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestien.'And I am not anti semitic, but very, very sad, and very disillusioned that my Jewish heroes (I was born in 1937) have let me down.

Visit the Bold Type Books Store

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

Name: Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel
Brand: Bold Type Books
SKU: K1568589514
Price: 15.77 BHD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.7 (9 reviews)

4.7

^BHD15⁷⁷⁰

Quantity:

Order today to get by

Free delivery on orders over BHD 20

Return and refund policies

Product origin: United Kingdom

All product information listed on the site are from 3rd party sources, including images and reviews. bolo.bh is not liable for any claims or promotions mentioned on the product description or images with textual content. For detailed product information, please contact the manufacturer or Bolo support by logging into your account. Unless stated otherwise during checkout, all import taxes and duty are included in the price mentioned on the product page. bolo.bh follows the rules and regulations of sale in Bahrain and will cancel items in an order that are illegal for sale in Bahrain. We take all the necessary steps to ensure only products for sale in Bahrain are displayed. Product stock and delivery estimate may change with the seller even after placing the order. All items are shipped by air and items marked “Dangerous Goods (DG)” by the IATA will be cancelled from orders. We strive to process your order as soon as it is finalized.

Similar suggestions by Bolo

Similar items from “Israel & Palestine”

Books

History

Middle East

Israel & Palestine

Description:

Review

Book Description

About the Author

Review:

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

Similar suggestions by Bolo

More from this brand

Similar items from “Israel & Palestine”

Description:

Review

Book Description

About the Author

Review:

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

Shipping Policies

Product Disclaimer

Similar suggestions by Bolo

More from this brand

Similar items from “Israel & Palestine”