In the 1980s, Israel's "new historians" challenged a Zionist narrative that had been publicly unquestioned in Israel and the United States. Among these historians and those of us who have followed their work, Israel could never again be viewed as an underdog David challenged by an Arab Goliath. Since then, much of the debate among those who are increasingly critical of Israel's actions has instead addressed the problem of whether this biblical metaphor should in fact be turned on its head. Although there has for decades been much evidence to support this argument, three recent, well-researched books have made it virtually uncontroversial to assert that the post-World War I Zionist movement, sponsored by superpowers Britain and the U.S. (and indeed by the Soviet Union immediately after World War II), should no more be seen as the underdog than we now see British or Spanish colonialists in relation to Native Americans. In turn, Palestinians can no more be sensibly called anti-Semitic than indigenous Americans can be called "anti-European."

These three books evoke the essence of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict with metaphors of confinement, separation, and exclusion: the "iron cage," the "iron wall," and the "glass wall." In The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, Palestinian-American Professor Rashid Khalidi documents British support for a Jewish national movement in Palestine since World War I, and opposition to a Palestinian national movement, most violently during the revolt of 1936-39. The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, by which the British ruled from 1923-1948, endorsed a "national home" for the Jewish people while never citing the Palestinians by name. Thus, "the (90%) Arab majority was effectively ignored as a national and political entity."

This favoritism was reflected in the brutal suppression of the Palestinian revolt, which effectively decimated Palestinian leadership and resistance thereafter. It was also reflected in the passivity with which Britain responded after World War II both to Zionist terrorism against the British administration, and to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which began well before the end of the mandate in May 1948. It has long been conventional Israeli wisdom that the Zionist movement had to confront both a British Goliath and an Arab Goliath, all in the wake of the Holocaust. It is clear that the Zionist David allied itself with the British Goliath, not only overwhelming a Palestinian national movement with profound internal problems, but violently "transferring" over 700,000 Palestinians with relatively little resistance.

In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has documented the violent expulsion of the Palestinians from the end of 1947 into 1949. It has long been established that the Palestinians fled not in response to "Arab broadcasts," but to violent intimidation by Jewish forces, including unprovoked massacres. Based on Pappé's meticulous research, it is now clear that this ethnic cleansing was premeditated, not retaliatory, and half completed before the feeble intervention of Arab armies in May of 1948. "Official Israeli historiography describes April 1948 as a turning point. . . . If there was a turning point in April, it was the shift from sporadic attacks and counter-attacks on the Palestinian civilian population toward the systematic mega-operation of ethnic cleansing that now followed." This ethnic cleansing was based on a belief among Israeli leaders that an "iron wall" would be required to separate a Jews from Palestinians, who were understood then as now to pose not a military but demographic threat to a Jewish state.

This demographic threat is addressed by Jonathan Cook, a British journalist based in the Arab Israeli city of Nazareth, in Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State. The 150,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel after 1948 are now over 1 million, over 20% of the population, a percentage that increases due to their high birthrate. This presents a problem for a Jewish state that has used a harshly and "legal" discriminatory "glass wall" between its Arab and Jewish citizens that is "needed to cloak the contradictions inherent in the concept of Israel as a `Jewish and democratic' state." These contradictions have been exposed recently by Israeli attacks on unarmed Palestinian civilians during the outbreak of the intifada in 2000, by increasing and unwarranted suspicion of the loyalty of historically quiescent Arab Israelis who demand social equality, and by increasing calls for expulsion by popular right-wing politicians. All of this has resulted in plans to re-draw borders in order to transfer as many as a quarter of Israel's Palestinian citizens to a future Palestinian state, an outcome in no way supported by those effected.

Metaphors of separation, confinement, and exclusion are made literally concrete by the separation wall that has been built inside the occupied West Bank. While largely invisible to Israelis, in areas where visible to Israelis it has been, according to Cook, "painted with murals on the Israeli side, reimagining the view that was now missing while making sure that it was empty of the Palestinian villages that could be seen before its construction." Pappé adds that also eliminated are "the people who live in them."

I really enjoyed this account of Palestinian history, but it was a struggle to overcome the first two chapters of poor editing (though otherwise well researched). The book provided me with a greater understanding of the Palestinian struggle, it's failures, the contributions -both external (Zionism, European and US collaboration)- & internal (a lack of experience in state-running and the resulting chaos & infighting). I had read Fisk and Pappe's accounts of the Oslo accords and their stranglehold on the Palestinian way of life, but Khalidi provided even further insider knowledge into how everyday life has been controlled and restricted with breathtaking similarities to apartheid. The cynical nature of pre-talk agreements between Israel and the US prior to coming to the tables with whatever Palestinian delegation was sent (usually the wrong one) ensured that Israel was starting the debate on a far superior footing to an already muted Palestinian delegation. "Iron Cage" does do justice to the manner in which Palestinians now live, to Europe, Zionists (not world Jewry as is constantly falsely claimed), and the US's eternal shame.

It is no secret that American media--controlled by corporate interests throughout the world--is highly selective and biased in its reportage of international issues that impact us every day. The Iron Cage, along with The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, New and Revised Edition, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, and others, provide a carefully documented and refreshing perspective on the current core issue of the Middle-East. They are a sorely needed corrective lense for the media distortions called "news".

I will not duplicate the excellent summations of this important work by Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi. Nor do I challenge his research or analysis of a complex situation. What I will add (and concur with another reviewer) is that it is a very slow and tedious read -- repetitious, lacking in vivid narration, and plagued with ackwardly constructed and convoluted arguments that make it difficult to even skim. The Iron Cage is worth reading to glean the important points the author makes about why Palestinians have achieved so little in their long, sad history, and their failure to achieve sustained good leadership. But, to be honest, reading this book was an uphill battle. I was very motivated because of my interest in the topic, otherwise I would have put it aside and looked for another well informed book written by a person with a better feel for the written language. (That being said, I heard the author discuss his book on C-SPAN and found him more compelling as a speaker.)