Professor Pappe has bravely attempted to pull together a history of Palestine that admits to bad faith on the part of the founders of Israel, and he finds some possibility for reconciliation between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Many people who think that they already know the truth will find much to dislike in this book. People who are willing to admit the humanity of the other side and the failings of their own will find a lot to like in this text.
However, for those looking for a basic introduction to the history of this area, this is NOT your book. Professor Pappe assumes a great deal of background knowledge on the reader's part. This is a challenging text. It shows, among many other things, a history of spontaneous cooperation between ordinary Jews and Moslems and how the leadership of the two groups undermined that cooperation for their own selfish ends. Professor Pappe gives us all some reason to hope that real history can provide a place for reconciliation.

This book is a sad example of revisionist history gone badly wrong. Pappe's perspective is a legitimate one to take - part of his argument is the oft-heard "Israelis stole Palestinian land" thesis. However Pappe fails to back up his ideas with any legitimate facts. Yasir Arafat was born in CAIRO, not Jerusalem. He "invents" the Tantura Massacre, which no major Israeli or Palestinian histories have EVER cited before his book. This is a book frought with unannounced bias and a sincere lack of good research (at certain points Pappe even cites himself in "works not yet published"). This is at best a poorly researched attempt to present the Palestinian arguments, and at worst a farce of lies.

Ilan Pappe is a leading member of a clutch of thinkers ensconced around the University of Haifa: born and bred Sabra, native Israelis, who have taken a critical, condemnatory approach to their nation as an ideological state. Pappe is not one to hide his allegiances. As he makes clear in his introduction, his sympathy is with the colonized, not the colonizer; the downtrodden, not the oppressor; the marginalized, not the centred. In short, Pappe, in reviving a sense of Palestinian sense of a historical community, is critiquing the motivations of the Israeli viewpoint.

To achieve this end, he trots out the usual theorists: Bhabha, Foucault, Benedict Anderson. The usual strategy is apparent: modernization led to nationalization, and nationalization is a Western ideology, driven by technological know-how and military might. A 'Jewish Homeland' is a discursive construct with geopolitical bite: the 'myth' of a people without a land led to a people stealing a land -- the settler project behind the Zionist self-made mandate. Thankfully, Pappe keeps the jargon mongering and post-structuralist posturing to a small amount -- and I really admire that. Whether you completely loathe his viewpoint or applaud it, his work is intellectually vibrant and immediately accessible. This work, really, should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the subject. Sure, read Sachar's compelling books on the history of Israel (from a Zionist perspective) -- but also read Pappe, who has provided a key historical account that adds much to the overall discussion.

This book is an histiographic indictment. The underlying themes are uncomfortable, but familiar to those who argue for the Palestinian cause. Israel, as Pappe intimates, is a criminal state, founded on the whims of latent European colonialism. Its rise is due to a nationalist zealotry, founded upon an imaginary sense of Jewish brotherhood, who have expropriated land at the expense of an already present peoplehood, the Palestinians. But Pappe skillfully stitches events together, from the Ottomon times to the rejection of the Oslo accord. Sympathisers with Israel will find fault with some of Pappe's hop and skip approach -- the wars of the late 40s gets a particularly cursory overview -- but the emergent sensibility is a force to be reckoned with: an infrastructure of ethnic superiority turning myth and landscape into a domineering statehood. That's Pappe's take. Dershowitz will disagree, definitely. But the challenge now is for pro-Zionist scholars to come up with a comparative study that overcomes the orthodox national narrative of Zion triumphant, and confronts the Palestinian issue in a head-on fashion. Dershowitz failed to do it. _From Time Immemorial_ failed to do it. Sachar comes closest.

I think the point I'd most like to make in this review is this: whatever issues you may take with Pappe's pro-Palestinian defense of land entitlement and community integrity, he presents his views in a clear and compelling. Therefore, this is a sophisticated work which will become essential reading for anyone who wants to have a modicum of respect when discussing the very complicated issues at hand.

One question I'm left with, however . . . I know it is wrong to judge motives and such . . . but if Israel is the cruel land-grubber and ethnic cleanser that Pappe suggests, it has none the less provided him a wonderful job with a hefty paycheque, at a university in which Jews and Arabs are welcome to participate and graduate. Pappe may dislike the polity behind the Israeli State, but he's in no hurry to surrender his passport. Does this amount to tacit support? _The History of Modern Palestine_ is full of such paradoxes.

Ilan Pappe is a leading member of a clutch of thinkers ensconced around the University of Haifa: born and bred Sabra, native Israelis, who have taken a critical, condemnatory approach to their nation as an ideological state. Pappe is not one to hide his allegiances. As he makes clear in his introduction, his sympathy is with the colonized, not the colonizer; the downtrodden, not the oppressor; the marginalized, not the centred. In short, Pappe, in reviving a sense of Palestinian sense of a historical community, is critiquing the motivations of the Israeli viewpoint.

To achieve this end, he trots out the usual theorists: Bhabha, Foucault, Benedict Anderson. The usual strategy is apparent: modernization led to nationalization, and nationalization is a Western ideology, driven by technological know-how and military might. A 'Jewish Homeland' is a discursive construct with geopolitical bite: the 'myth' of a people without a land led to a people stealing a land -- the settler project behind the Zionist self-made mandate. Thankfully, Pappe keeps the jargon mongering and post-structuralist posturing to a small amount -- and I really admire that. Whether you completely loathe his viewpoint or applaud it, his work is intellectually vibrant and immediately accessible. This work, really, should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the subject. Sure, read Sachar's compelling books on the history of Israel (from a Zionist perspective) -- but also read Pappe, who has provided a key historical account that adds much to the overall discussion.

This book is an histiographic indictment. The underlying themes are uncomfortable, but familiar to those who argue for the Palestinian cause. Israel, as Pappe intimates, is a criminal state, founded on the whims of latent European colonialism. Its rise is due to a nationalist zealotry, founded upon an imaginary sense of Jewish brotherhood, who have expropriated land at the expense of an already present peoplehood, the Palestinians. But Pappe skillfully stitches events together, from the Ottomon times to the rejection of the Oslo accord. Sympathisers with Israel will find fault with some of Pappe's hop and skip approach -- the wars of the late 40s gets a particularly cursory overview -- but the emergent sensibility is a force to be reckoned with: an infrastructure of ethnic superiority turning myth and landscape into a domineering statehood. That's Pappe's take. Dershowitz will disagree, definitely. But the challenge now is for pro-Zionist scholars to come up with a comparative study that overcomes the orthodox national narrative of Zion triumphant, and confronts the Palestinian issue in a head-on fashion. Dershowitz failed to do it. _From Time Immemorial_ failed to do it. Sachar comes closest.

I think the point I'd most like to make in this review is this: whatever issues you may take with Pappe's pro-Palestinian defense of land entitlement and community integrity, he presents his views in a clear and compelling. Therefore, this is a sophisticated work which will become essential reading for anyone who wants to have a modicum of respect when discussing the very complicated issues at hand.

One question I'm left with, however . . . I know it is wrong to judge motives and such . . . but if Israel is the cruel land-grubber and ethnic cleanser that Pappe suggests, it has none the less provided him a wonderful job with a hefty paycheque, at a university in which Jews and Arabs are welcome to participate and graduate. Pappe may dislike the polity behind the Israeli State, but he's in no hurry to surrender his passport. Does this amount to tacit support?

A user comment has informed me that Pappe, after many years at Haifa, now holds a position in England.

_The History of Modern Palestine_ is full of such paradoxes.

This book corrects myths about the very, very early days of Zionism in Palestine, and continues to the current time. A must read for anyone with the slightest interest in how the Middle East is exploding, literally, every day. Peg McCormack