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Middle east books reVieW
All books featured in this section are available from Middle East Books and More, the nation’s preeminent bookstore on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. www.MiddleEastBooks.com • (202) 939-6050 ext. 1
Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics
By Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick, The New Press, 2021, hardcover, 240 pp. MEB $25.99
Reviewed by Walter L. Hixson
This important new book targets the “double standard” on the part of liberal Democrats who stand for democracy and freedom—except in Palestine
A short and readable book (only 158 pages of text), Except for Palestine argues convincingly that “self-titled progressives contradict their beliefs by justifying or ignoring behavior by Israel that they oppose.” Journalist and professor Marc Lamont Hill and longtime Middle East political analyst Mitchell Plitnick argue that Democrats perpetuate the repression of Palestine by refusing to condemn it even though “Israel’s escalating authoritarianism” contradicts their general support for “universal liberal values.”
Following an Introduction entitled “Palestine Cannot be an Exception,” the book offers chapters entitled “The Right to Exist,” “Criminalizing BDS,” “Trumped-Up Policy,” “The Crisis of Gaza,” and a Conclusion.
Chapter 1 homes in on the “immoral demand” that Israel should receive explicit recognition from Palestinians of its right to exist as a Jewish state—echoing Israel’s Basic Law passed in 2018—even as it contemptuously continues to reject the national aspirations of Palestinians. The authors emphasize that Israel does not demand that Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United States or any other country recognize it as a Jewish state—the demand is uniquely placed on Palestinians.
The second chapter chronicles the history of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. The authors call out liberals who did not, to cite two examples oppose boycotts of Chick-fil-A, which funded anti-LGBTQ groups, or Hobby Lobby, which denied women employees medical coverage for certain forms of contraception, but did strongly oppose BDS targeting Israeli apartheid.
Hill and Plitnick do not insist that all liberals should embrace BDS, but they do indict them for supporting or not opposing efforts to limit BDS advocacy thus undermining free speech and democratic political activism. “Those who support (actively or through silent complicity) laws that stigmatize, penalize, or even criminalize BDS are absolutely out of step with liberal and progressive values,” they argue.
The next chapter calls on liberals to “acknowledge that [President Donald] Trump was merely a dangerous extension, not the source, of deeply rooted and thoroughly bipartisan policies that have harmed the Palestinian people—and positioned Palestine as an exception to which core liberal American values are not applied.” The fourth chapter emphasizes the liberals’ complicity in support of Israel’s brutal violence and ongoing blockade of Gaza. “The United States has not merely been indifferent to the crisis in Gaza,” they demonstrate convincingly, “but played an active, significant, and thoroughly bipartisan role in degrading the conditions.”
Hill and Plitnick point out that Democrats “rarely, if ever, express the basic premise that Palestinians should have all of the same rights as Israelis.” On the comparatively rare occasions when they do advocate for Palestinian rights, liberals often stress that such change would “benefit the vast majority of Israeli Jews.” Similarly, liberal Democrats sometimes condemn Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, yet “when it comes to actual substantive policy debate, there is no appetite for it.”
The authors conclude on a positive note, citing polls that show that while Republicans are largely uncritically pro-Israeli, more and more Democrats acknowledge Israeli repression and are demanding change, even to the point of supporting making financial assistance to Israel contingent on human rights for Palestinians. “There is a clear, strong, and growing movement opposing the United States’ one-sided and unwaveringly proIsrael policies and actions,” they note.
Contributing editor Walter L. Hixson is the author of Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with several other books and journal articles. He has been a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor.
The major weakness of this book is the failure of the authors to explain why liberal Democrats abandon their own progressive values on the issue of Palestine. The answer is in large part that these “progressives” cower in the shadow of the Israel lobby, but Hill and Plitnick virtually ignore that subject with only three isolated references to AIPAC in the entire book. In an otherwise useful book, the failure to deal with the overarching power of the Israel lobby is a serious weakness, one that points to the limitations of the two authors’ own liberal perceptions.
By Walter L. Hixson, IRmep, 2021, paperback, 250 pp. MEB $19.45
Reviewed by Grant F. Smith
Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of U.S. Middle East Policy deeply mines long overlooked veins, extracting undiscovered ore from specialty archives and the Near East Report, house organ of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC. Distinguished historian and author Walter L. Hixson pulls no punches in his conclusion. “The Israel lobby became the most powerful lobby advancing the interests of a foreign country in all of American history, yet its pivotal role in the conflict is typically either willfully denied or naively downplayed.”
The book skillfully makes that case with an examination of the staggered rise of
Grant F. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington, DC. Smith has written eight books, including Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America and The Israel Lobby Enters State Government, available from MEB.
American Zionism. It then carefully digs through presidential, congressional and agency confrontations with the Israel lobby from WWII to the present. The unsparing depictions of how presidents— some harshly opposed to Israel and its U.S. lobby’s demands—gradually acquiesced under tremendous coordinated pressure are unnerving to read in such stunning detail and masterful prose. American government agencies are sim-
ilarly emasculated as Israel lobby operatives build and expand—in partnership with Israel—ever wider express lanes through the corridors of policymaking and around bureaucratic safeguards.
Architects of Repression then delves into the most recent initiatives of the lobby and growing, long overdue backlash by advocates of human rights, free speech and academic freedom.
LikeHixson’sotherhistories,suchas AmericanForeignRelations:ANewDiplomaticHistory (Routledge,2015)andhis previousbookaboutthelobby, Israel’s Armor:TheIsraelLobbyandtheFirst GenerationofthePalestineConflict (CambridgeUniversityPress,2019), Architects ofRepression isself-evidentlypeerreviewedandapleasuretoread.Hixson’s tightprosedoesn’tlingeroverminordetails,andthebookhashundredsofendnotes,abibliographyandanappendixrich withhistoricalcontextaswellasafull index.Inthecourseofafewhours,itcan bringanoviceorinformedreaderfullyup todateonthekeyfactsaboutoneofthe mostharmfulforeigninfluenceseverto subvertAmericanpolitics.
Having written a great many books about the Israel lobby, I was nevertheless surprised at how convincingly Hixson distills precise conclusions from lobby obfuscations and the cloudy historical morass. Defeats of Israel lobby initiatives—such as opposing the Reagan era sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia, or the Iran nuclear deal signed by President Obama? These are exceptions that proved the rule—yet were ultimately only fleeting problems for Israel and its lobby. Declarations by Israel lobby spokespersons that Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity? Irrefutable psychological projection.
Hixson has effectively reversed a shallow flow of arguments eroding the banks of nascent awareness of the Israel lobby’s decisive role in shaping horrific U.S. Israel/Palestine policies in the years since John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby. A great deal of that marginalization of the Israel lobby’s primacy— though the lobby never accepts blame or responsibility—has been advanced by self-appointed experts who admittedly never bothered to invest much time seriously researching the lobby. They nevertheless are comfortable proclaiming that it doesn’t ultimately matter much, and that those seeking productive change should focus elsewhere.
By naming names, and taking no prisoners, this book forms the new retaining wall against their fuzzy thinking and unfounded conclusions proposing that somehow our horrific present is the fault of Palestinians, foundering American progressive activists and other marginalized constituencies.
They are clearly not, and Hixson convincingly lays blame at Israel and its U.S. lobby's doorstep—in much the same way Ilan Pappé precisely revealed the parties responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine before and after 1948.
Americans would therefore do well to abide by Pappé’s own recent admonition
about Architects of Repression. “If you ever wondered how the Israeli lobby in the USA corrupted the American foreign policy toward Palestine and beyond, you need to read this book. This book analyzes in a clear narration, based on solid analysis and documentation, how this corrupted and vicious American policy culminated in the Trumpian era. This book points clearly to all the culprits who bred racism, violence and injustice in the USA and inflicted this unholy trinity on Palestine and its people.”
The Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook: Classic Recipes from Lebanon and Beyond
By Ralph Nader, Akashic Books, 2020, hardcover, 104 pp. MEB $25
Reviewed by Delinda C. Hanley
Consumers have to thank Ralph Nader for automobile safety regulations, the Clean Water and Air acts, the law establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, and many other government reforms meant to protect us. With the publication of The Ralph Nader and Family Cookbook, we now have to thank him for his sage advice on cooking healthy meals.
True confession: I just love gazing at scrumptious-looking food photographed in the cookbooks on the shelves of Middle East Books and More. I’m not alone when it comes to salivating at the images, glancing at the ingredients and intimidating directions, and then running to the nearest Middle Eastern restaurant. During a pandemic that became more problematic. At last there is a cookbook even I can follow and I actually already have the ingredients.
So not only did I make cannellinibean soup with Swiss chard for dinner on this cold windy evening, but I also got to know Nader’s mother, Rose, who had a way with food and children. Her recipes for soup and other Middle Eastern comfort food can help us survive a freezing snowstorm (or an endless pandemic) because, as Rose says, “These are simple foods that will warm you from the tips of your toes to the roots of your hairs and will fill the empty places between.”
Nader also shares his mother’s sensible child-rearing advice. “To her, food— whether at breakfast, lunch, or supper— was a daily occasion for education, for finding what was on our minds, for recounting traditions of food, culture, and kinship in Lebanon,” where Nader’s parents were born. Rose also enlisted her children’s help with food preparation and baking, helping them build cooking skills and appreciation for good food.
The Nader family owned the Highland Arms Restaurant in Winsted, CT, which served traditional American food in the days before our nation discovered the joy of international cuisines. Rose’s nutritious meals were cooked from scratch, using fresh ingredients. “For Mother, the family table was a mosaic of sights, scents, and tastes, of talking, teaching, and teasing, of health, culture, stimulation, and delight.”
Nader said he was inspired to create this cookbook because, after his work on food safety laws, people asked him what he eats. In 1991, his parents published a popular cookbook, It Happened in the Kitchen: Recipes for Food and Thought. Nader acknowledges their work, as well as considerable help he received from his sisters Claire and Laura, his nieces and nephew, his mother’s sister, as well as chef George Noujaim. He also emphasizes the fact that in the past few years, scientists have decided that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest in the world. Arab cuisine is heavy on vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and spices and doesn’t include much red meat.
The Nader family’s Lebanese recipes are easy to prepare and stress-free because, we are assured, it isn’t necessary to follow rigid proportions and ingredients. Rose believed in “keeping it simple” and “everything in moderation,” her son recalls.
I’ll try to keep that in mind when Claire Nader’s “Two-two-two Cookies,” come out of the oven.
BOOK TALKS
Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State
By Jeff Halper, Pluto Press, 2021, 256 pp. MEB $19.95
Activist and scholar Jeff Halper believes we are living at an inflection point in the history of the Israel-Palestine “conflict.” There’s a caveat, though: In order for the impending waters of justice to rise, the Palestinian people must coalesce behind a clear and cohesive political plan, he argues.
Halper’s latest book, Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine, makes the case for one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and argues that the global civil society and solidarity infrastructure is in place to make this outcome a reality. The book is a byproduct of the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), an upstart movement launched by Halper and others to provide a clear vision for one, democratic state.
The one state idea has been out there for a while, Halper acknowledged on a Jan. 27 webinar with his publisher, Pluto Press. However, he believes his book and
the ODSC is finally putting meat on the subject. “We’ve given some substance to it, we have a ten-point program that’s very detailed,” he noted. “I wrote this book partly to get our program out.”
In order for this plan to work it needs buy-in from weary Palestinians, and Halper acknowledged this has yet to happen. If Palestinians were to take off and run with the one-state solution, Halper believes it would be a success.
Palestinians, he argued, need to move to a more active form of resistance. “Samud [steadfastness] keeps them on the map, keeps them in place, doesn’t allow Israel to win, but at the same time, there’s no program connected to it, you
have to have a political program if you are in a political struggle,” he said.
Halper sees a plethora of groups and individuals advocating for Palestinians and engaging in movements such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, but he fears this energy is not being effectively channeled. In his mind, it’s time to move from resistance and advocacy to action. Palestinians, he believes, can energize this global support in a historical way if they launch a clear political campaign.
In South Africa, the ANC took down apartheid by mobilizing their only allies, “the people, in all their different forms”— religious communities, universities, political organizations, trade unions, etc. “The
America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present by John Ghazvinian, Knopf, 2021, 688 pp. MEB $35.00.
In this fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of U.S.-Iran relations back to the Persian Empire of the 18th century. Ghazvinian, with a masterful grasp and a storyteller's ability, makes clear where, how, and when it all went wrong. He shows why two countries that once had such heartfelt admiration for each other became such committed enemies; showing us, as well, how it didn’t have to turn out this way.
War in the Age of Trump: The Defeat of ISIS, the Fall of the Kurds, the Conflict with Iran by Patrick Cock-
burn, Verso, 2020, 320 pp. MEB $29.95. Donald Trump may no longer be in office, but the impacts of his policies remain. In this book, Patrick Cockburn charts the period from the recapture of Mosul in 2017 to Turkey’s attack on Kurdish territory in November 2019, and recounts the new phase in the wars of disintegration that have plagued the region. The ground battle with the caliphate is perhaps over, but was this the end of the conflict that has scarred these nations for decades?
Bride of the Sea: A Novel by Eman Quotah, Tin House Books, 2021, 320 pp. MEB $16.95.
During a snowy Cleveland February, newlywed university students Muneer and Saeedah are expecting their first child, and he is harboring a secret: the word divorce is whispering in his ear. Soon, their marriage will end, and Muneer will return to Saudi Arabia, while Saeedah remains in Cleveland with their daughter, Hanadi. Consumed by a growing fear of losing her daughter, Saeedah disappears with the little girl, leaving Muneer to desperately search for his daughter for years. The repercussions of the abduction ripple outward, not only changing the lives of Hanadi and her parents, but also their interwoven family and friends— those who must choose sides and hide their own deeply guarded secrets. And when Hanadi comes of age, she finds herself at the center of this conflict, torn between the world she grew up in and a family across the ocean. How can she exist between parents, between countries? Eman Quotah’s Bride of the Sea is a spellbinding debut of colliding cultures, immigration, religion, and family; an intimate portrait of loss and healing; and, ultimately, a testament to the ways we find ourselves inside love, distance, and heartbreak.
good news is that the Palestinians have that infrastructure as well,” Halper said.
“I think the Palestinian issue has achieved the level of significance of the anti-apartheid struggle in the world, but what we’re missing is a political program,” he said. “You can have all the sympathy and all the solidarity in the world, but unless you have a program that you’re advocating for, you’re powerless.”
It’s hard to disagree with Halper’s analysis, but it’s admittedly somewhat awkward listening to an American-Israeli dual citizen lecture Palestinians about their political choices. However, one cannot doubt Halper’s sincerity or credibility. In 1997, he co-founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and has since worked tirelessly to fight the many injustices faced by Palestinians. His candor is thus not without justification.
It’s important to note that Halper’s book is not merely a plea to encourage a course change among Palestinians. Decolonizing Israel offers people of goodwill across the world an opportunity to rethink how this issue is discussed and what outcomes citizens and practitioners alike ought to be realistically promoting.
Halper admitted that he struggles to forgo academic jargon in favor of a more accessible writing style, but believesDecolonizing Israel is his most approachable book yet.
He hopes this book helps laymen understand terms such as “settler colonialism” and “decolonization.” These terms have “yet to penetrate into the popular discourse” and “are not easy for people to understand,” he acknowledged. But he believes they are important to explain, as they fundamentally transform one’s view of the world when fully understood.
The settler colonial framework crushes the notion that what is happening on the land in “Israel/Palestine” is a “conflict,” he said. Realizing that the “conflict” is between colonizers and natives rather than between equals makes one rethink approaches and mechanisms for peace and justice. Understanding settler colonialism “really does open up all kinds of possibilities of resolving this in a way that the term ‘conflict’ doesn’t,” Halper said. “Conflict locks us into a ‘conflict resolution mode’ that’s never worked. Settler colonialism really opens things up and lets us get to a genuine resolution.”
While Palestinians are the primary victims of settler colonialism, Halper noted that this pernicious reality also leaves Israelis feeling unsettled. “One of the problems with settler colonialism is that you are constantly living in a state of insecurity because everything is built on injustice,” he said. “You can’t relax and say ‘I’m in my country, I’m at home, I’m at peace’… because you’re constantly aware that there is that underside of oppression and suffering that is ongoing that will never go away until decolonization takes place.”
Halper makes a valiant case that the status quo needs to be reimagined. There is no doubt that the lexicon surrounding the issue, the approaches taken, and long-engrained political programs need to be fundamentally rethought. Halper also convincingly argues that there is much global energy and solidarity to be tapped into. Yet, one cannot but remain cynical that those in power—from Washington to Israel—are prepared to let the voices of Palestinians and their supporters be heard, regardless of how organized and numerous they are.
But, let’s hope that Halper is right, and that with a tweak of strategy and a more cohesive and precise political and solidarity movement, mountains can be moved and the valleys and hills from the River to the Sea can be righteously transformed into one, democratic state. —Dale Sprusansky
By Sa′ed Atshan and Katharina Galor, Duke University Press, 2020, 256 pp. MEB $25.95 sense of culpability for their country’s past crimes against the Jewish people have led many Germans—particularly the country’s government—to adopt highly supportive positions vis-à-vis Israel.
In The Moral Triangle, scholars Sa’ed Atshan and Katharina Galor dare to explore the sensitive intricacies of this issue. The book is a result of extensive fieldwork they conducted in Berlin, interviewing residents of Israeli, Palestinian and German
background. Their research seeks to answer one central question: What moral responsibility does the German state and society have toward the Israeli and Palestinian populations currently living within its borders?
Galor and Atshan discussed the findings of their book on a Feb. 17 webinar hosted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Middle East Center. “Bringing these three populations into dialogue touched upon a really huge taboo,” Galor noted. However, Galor, a Jew, and Atshan, a Palestinian, believed it was important to overcome this discomfort and discuss a topic that has been avoided for too long.
Among Germans, Atshan said they found mixed results. Some believed Germany has an equal moral responsibility to both Israelis and Palestinians, others sided with one group, some said Germany has an obligation to neither, and others expressed indifference.
Their research did find that Germans have significantly more knowledge about
the Holocaust than they do about the Palestinian Nakba. “Most Germans have never heard of the Nakba, they’re completely clueless,” Galor noted.
The scholars don’t think the two events are equal, but they do believe they are inextricably tied together. “We argue in our book that the Holocaust and the Nakba are historically related events, and that these traumas are intertwined, and therefore our consciousness has to take into account the Holocaust and the Nakba,” Atshan said.
There are an estimated 25,000 Israelis living in Berlin today, the researches estimate. The Israeli population tends to be left-leaning and young, having moved to the city for economic opportunities. Many are also transient, splitting their time between Berlin and Israel, and in some cases third cities.
The city’s 60,000 Palestinians tend to be much less mobile, as many of them are refugees who fled camps in Lebanon. They also tend to be more religious than their Israeli counterparts.
Atshan said that many Israelis and Palestinians live in the same neighborhoods, and some work together on joint initiatives to combat anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The cosmopolitan nature of Berlin makes it easy for diverse communities to exist without much tension, he noted.
While the results of their work are fascinating and groundbreaking, the scholars acknowledge their Berlin-based research isn’t necessarily applicable to Germany as a whole.
Indeed, Atshan noted that even Germany’s left-wing political parties engage in “very robust pro-Zionist discourse.” And Galor pointed out that pro-BDS Germans, including Jews, have been targeted for their advocacy. “An ironic reality in present-day Germany,” she commented.
—Dale Sprusansky
The Ardent Swarm: A Novel by Yamen Mana, Amazon Crossing, 2021, 204 pp. MEB $24.95.
Sidi lives a hermetic life as a bee whisperer, tending to his beloved “girls” on the outskirts of the desolate North African village of Nawa. He wakes one morning to find that a mysterious swarm of vicious hornets has decimated a hive. But where did they come from, and how can he stop them? Sidi ventures out to the big city and beyond in search of answers.
Along the way, he discovers a country and a people turned upside down by their new post-Arab Spring reality, as Islamic fundamentalists seek to influence votes any way they can on the eve of the country’s first democratic elections. To succeed in his quest, and find a glimmer of hope to protect all that he holds dear, Sidi will have to look further than he ever imagined.
The Blood of the Colony: Wine and the Rise and Fall of French Algeria by Owen White, Harvard University Press, 2021, 336 pp. MEB $39.95.
In the last decades of the 19th century, Europeans had displaced Algerians from the colony’s best agricultural land and planted grapevines. Soon enough, wine was the primary export of a region whose mostly Muslim inhabitants didn’t drink alcohol. Settlers made fortunes while drawing large numbers of Algerians into salaried work for the first time. But the success of Algerian wine resulted in friction with French producers, challenging the traditional view that imperial possessions should complement, not compete with, the metropole.
By the middle of the 20th century, amid the fight for independence, Algerians had come to see the rows of vines as an especially hated symbol of French domination. After the war, Algerians had to decide how far they would go to undo the transformations the colonists had wrought―including the world’s fourth-biggest wine industry. Owen White examines Algeria’s experiment with nationalized wine production in worker-run vineyards, the pressures that resulted in the failure of that experiment, and the eventual uprooting of most of the country’s vines.
The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia by Madawi Al-Rasheed, Oxford University Press, 2021, 312 pp. MEB $29.95.
Madawi Al-Rasheed lays bare the world of repression behind the crown prince’s reforms. She dissects the Saudi regime’s propaganda and progressive new image, while also dismissing Orientalist views that despotism is the only pathway to stable governance in the Middle East. Charting old and new challenges to the fragile Saudi nation from the Kingdom’s very inception, this blistering book exposes the dangerous contradictions at the heart of the Son King’s Saudi Arabia.
