Jonathan Cook's "Blood and Religion"

[bemildred]

Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the Israeli Arab city...." He's a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers. He's also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth Press Agency.

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Cook authored two important books and contributed to others. His newest one, just published was reviewed by this writer. It's called "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East." Advance praise accompanied it, and noted author John Pilger calls it "One of the most cogent understandings of the modern Middle East I have read. It is superb, because the author himself is a unique witness" to events and powerfully documents them.

Cook's earlier book was published in 2006. It's titled "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" and is the subject of this review. It's the rarely told story of the plight of Israel's 1.4 million Arab citizens, the discrimination against them, the reasons why, and the likely future consequences from it. Israel's "demographic problem" is the issue Cook addresses. It's the time when a faster-growing Palestinian population (excluding the diaspora) becomes a majority, and the very character of a "Jewish State" is threatened. Israel's response - state-sponsored repression and violent ethnic cleansing, in the Territories and inside Israel.

Arab-Israeli citizens are referred to as "Israeli Arabs." It's how many of them refer to themselves as do Israelis. They're the sole remnants of the Palestinian population Israel expelled in its 1948 War of Independence. Palestinians call it the Nakba that alnakba.org describes as follows: ...."the Nakba (cataclysm)....saw the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages." Noted Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, believes 800,000 were affected. Cook uses 750,000. Whatever the true figure, it was huge and changed everything for Palestinians henceforth.

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/03/jonathan-cooks-blood-and-religion.html

[LeftishBrit]

1. Jonathan Cook is generally regarded as extremely one-sided...

He is right that there is discrimination against Israeli Arabs, and that this should be opposed and combatted. However, he makes so many misleading and exceptionalist statements about Israel, that it's difficult to tell where truth ends and wild overstatement begins.

For example:


'The state, in Jewish eyes, belongs to Jewish people, not its non-Jewish citizens, and Israeli courts affirm a Jewish State. Its a legal concept found nowhere else in the world, most countries could never get away with it, yet the world community ignores what Israel does.'

Most countries could never get away with it??? What about all the explicitly Islamic states, which discriminate strongly against non-Muslims? What about the de facto discrimination against racial minorities in the UK, the USA, and indeed most countries?

Note: before I'm accused of using the "But Johnny did it too!" defence, I am NOT defending discrimination against Israeli Arabs, and am a supporter of organizations that campaign against it. But the author's explicit statements that 'its a legal concept found nowhere in the world' and 'most countries could never get away with it' are so false and over-the-top that they make it hard to take his wriitings as a whole seriously.


'This notion was embodied in Israel's Law of Return. It was passed in 1950, and it's purpose is still relevant - to erase the demographic threat of a Palestinian homeland in a Jewish State. It grants every Jew in the world the right to automatic Israeli citizenship if they choose to live in Israel, and the reason is simple - to ensure a continued Jewish majority in perpetuity.'

Nonsense. The 'law of return' is basically fast-track asylum-seeker status for Jews, based on the assumption that they need to have a place of safety from antisemitism in the world. It is not 'to ensure a continued Jewish majority in perpetuity'. Of course, the Israeli Jewish population might be smaller today if the Arab states hadn't kicked a significant numbers of Jews out of their countries.



'In addition, Judaism is privileged, only the Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays are recognized, and conversions to Judaism are rare and allowed only after rigorous vetting.'

This last is a characteristic of Judaism in general, not just in Israel. Judaism, unlike Christianity, Islam, and some other religions, does not actively seek converts, and to some extent discourages conversion. Would Cook prefer it if Jews were going around crusading for their faith and trying to force others to convert???? He seems to be so anti-Israel that he can't think straight.

[bemildred]

2. Well no.

He presents a certain point of view. He's certainly wrong about some things. It hasn't been my observation that that sort of thing is forbidden here, being "one-sided", or being wrong. I thought he was coherent enough and avoided egregious name-calling, and the point of view deserves consideration, if for no other reason that a lot of people will find it a credible one. He points at an essential problem which has been present since the beginning of the Zionist project, and which has not been solved in any satisfactory way: what is one to do with all those Arabs? I have been of the opinion for quite some time now that any non-apocalyptic permanent resolution of the I/P situation requires a satisfactory solution to that question, something not likely any time soon.

[pelsar]

3. i dont get it...

how does flat out lying become a "certain point of view?.....i think lying is not a "point of view'..i think, for lack of a better word, its lying and deserves contempt.

[bemildred]

4. It depends on whether you think it's lying or not, doesn't it?

So you think it's lying and you view it with contempt.

[pelsar]

5. this is nothing but a lie...

'..... Israeli courts affirm a Jewish State. Its a legal concept found nowhere else in the world,

what else is it? i realize it works for the gullible, those useful idiotes....but it still is a lie.

[bemildred]

6. Yeah, ethnic and religious discrimination is not unique to Israel.

He's wrong about that, or it's a lie if you prefer that. Given the quantity and quality of deceit in what is written about this conflict, from both sides, I can't get to worked up about that sort of thing.

I had to go back and make sure of the context. I could parse it and say "Well it's the only Jewish state", which is true, a point pro-Israeli posters like to make from time to time, but it's clear that isn't what he means, he's talking about the discriminatory legal system. Or actually I think he muddles the two together and that may be why he said something so obviously false.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

8. What makes Israel's discrimination extra egregious, IMO,

is that it so loves to paint itself as the Western progressive democracy.

Sure Saudi Arabia discriminates. Sure China discrminates. Sure sub-saharan african countries abuse human rights. But those places also don't claim to be what Israel claims to be.

[bemildred]

10. Well, I don't think they are special in that regard.

But I can see why it annoys you.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

7. That's pretty funny that you're asking that question Pelsar,

as your gov't is quite the model for releasing "the truth" so far after the fact that it makes no difference.

[pelsar]

9. a lie is a lie...

the guy wrote a book that has a very basic "untruth" or whatever you want to call it. It has nothing to do with the Israeli govt the IDF, Hamas, PA or anything else.....

or perhaps you think that sentence i quoted is the truth?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

11. What exactly is the lie?