8-14-2014 The Liberal Zionists Jonathan Freedland New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/aug/14/libeal-zionists

Review of My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

by Ari Shavit

Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict

by John B. Judis

Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit's Promised Land

by Norman G. Finkelstein

 

[conclusion] This, perhaps, is the ultimate role of the much-derided liberal Zionist. They are better placed than most to move Zionist, including Israeli, opinion. Finkelstein concludes his philippic against Shavit with a declaration that, despite the "original sin" of its creation, Israel's fate is not set in stone. It can take a first step toward closure, consigning the past to the past, and perhaps even toward reconciliation, with a "formal acknowledgement of what happened in 1948." For an Israeli patriot such as Shavit, profoundly committed to his country, to have written this powerful, complex, absorbing book and for it to have received the plaudits it has suggest progress toward that necessary goal.

 

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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