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We need a change in the forecast of doom

Many observers' characterization of the US-Israeli relationship is "Wag the dog," where the former is the "dog" that the latter "tail" wags. That's due in major measure to the right-wing "christians" who slavishly adhere to what they believe is a Biblical admonition to coddle Israel when the RWCs have no clue that prior to the Romans' sacking of Jerusalem, the true Jews who were disciples of Ye'Shua, seeing the prophecy of the abomination of desolation coalescing before them, fled to the hill country of Judea ... after which many returned when the crisis was well in the rearview mirror ... but not as Jews ... as Philistines nka Palestinians ... amongst whom they've lived for almost 2 millenia, a fact well known to many Palestinians who've kept the Jewish secret for all that time. The Sephardim of the Likud Party (see II Kings for their forebears from Sepharvaim of the Babylonians) know of this strange construct which accounts for their burning desire to exterminate all the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank ... eliminate ALL Palestinians and the true Jews, the true target of their modern-day pogroms, in the midst of Gaza and the WB, will be eliminated as well.

Norman, who is gracious in corresponding via e-mail and conversing in person, lays out the path of the political end of "Wag the dog" prophesied at Micah 4:10; however, the far more catastrophic end is prophesied at Joel 2:31 -- The sun shall be turned to darkness [the total eclipse of 8/21/2017, the visible path of which will traverse the entire US crossing over ground ZERO, NYC aka MYSTERY BABYLON], and moon into blood [the 1st of the "blood moon" tetrad of 2017-18, on 9/23/2017] -- i.e., the cataclysm prophesied in Rev. 17:16-18 when the Eurozone nations formerly of the Western Roman Empire and the allied Mideast nations formerly of the Eastern Roman Empire will bring a brand-new sort of weapon to bear capable of "utterly burning" with "fire" ... there won't be anything left of the latter-day Babylon of Micah to "redeem" Israel.

Norman's far less onerous outcome could still be the path ... if, there's a radical change in the fundamentals as he sets forth and as are also of overarching concern, as charged recently by Pope Francis, as the Vatican spokesperson for the power behind the modern Roman Empire.

John J. Gaynard

The Hard Truth

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2012

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I only came across Norman Finkelstein's books a couple of years ago. Since then I have been astounded not only by his courage, but by his scrupulous scholarship.

The premise of this book is that there is a growing divide between American Jews who, like Jews in most other Western democracies, tend to be more liberal than their fellow citizens and the right-wing extremism of a succession of Israeli governments which has led to tremendous human rights abuses and lack of respect for international law. Those Israeli governments are supported by some American organisations which claim to be representative of their fellow Jews, in their "my country, right or wrong" attitude to Israel. But, as Peter Beinart has also pointed out in his book The Crisis of Zionism , far from representing their fellow Jews, they actively misrepresent them.

In showing how young American Jews have become disenchanted with Israel, Finkelstein, in this book and his previous one Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History reveals the intellectual dishonesty of people like Alan Dershowitz (a person to whom I'd never really paid a lot of attention until I came across articles of his, justifying torture, after September 2011). It's no surprise that Dershowitz was the prime, intellectually dishonest, mover behind the refusal of academic tenure to Norman Finkelstein at DePaul university.

In reading Finkelstein's descriptions of American organisations and intellectuals, I was reminded of the situation in France, where, in some quarters, there is a similar level of intellectual dishonesty and disregard for Palestinian human rights. The CRIF, which justifies Israeli extremists in ways reminiscent of the U.S. Anti-Defamation League, has extreme right-wing opinions. It claims to represent French Jews, but articles by liberal Jews in Le Monde Diplomatique, Médiapart and other center-left publications virulently dispute this claim and condemn the CRIF's stance on Israel.

I am one of the people who, until a few years ago, thought Israel could do no wrong. The turning point for me was Sabra and Chatila. Like many people who will read this book, it has taken me three painful decades to move from not knowing enough to now knowing too much.

Amazon Customer

Finkelstein book is insightful as he presents meaningful facts regarding ...

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2018

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Finkelstein book is insightful as he presents meaningful facts regarding the state of Israel. I find this book a difficult read but clearly presented to make an impression that today's Israel is headed into trouble

marmaladebadgerllc

Another nail in Israel's coffin

Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2014

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Whether you like Norman Finkelstein or loathe him, this book is required reading for anyone with a conscience, or more precisely a liberal conscience. He cogently demonstrates that Israeli values are now so diametrically opposed to true liberal values, that mainstream American Jewry will start to treat Israel as the Meshugge Aunt in the attic. Woe betide any "scholar" that writes on the subject of Israel and does not get his or her facts right. In true Norman Finkelstein fashion he picks apart their arguments with copious references and footnotes. For those of you who wish to discover an alternative narrative that goes beyond the conventional wisdom he refers to as "Leon Uris' Exodus with footnotes", this book is a must read.

Fred Clancey

a look at the future that Israel is creating for itself

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2014

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google "dropping white phosphorus on Gaza" to get an example among the many reasons that Finkelstein gives to explain why US Jewish support for Israel is waning. Dropping white phosphorus is one of Israel's many behaviors documented by Finkelstein in this and other books that are (in my language, not Finkelstein's) Hitler's major long-term legacy.

Anthony Vera

The voice of sanity.

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2014

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Professor Finkelstein, in the tradition of Noam Chomsky, speaks the unvarnished truth in consistent and humanistic terms. Knowing Too Much is simply an irrefutable plea for sanity within an Israeli state that cannot be allowed on its path toward fascism with the enabling actions of so-called Liberal Jews and the Washington elites.

Top reviews from other countries

Paul Goldsby

Most Americans would not know!

Reviewed in Canada on October 5, 2018

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Learned a lot about the political structure...

F Henwood

The end of the affair

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2012

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American Jews know too much about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to defend it with a clear conscience. That is the basic premise of this book, Finkelstein's most ambitious undertaking yet.

The book begins with a survey of the poll evidence supporting this proposition, comparing and contrasting opinion among Israeli Jews and American Jews. American Jews are broadly attached to liberal values, meaning commitment to the rule of law and settling international disputes peacefully. Defying experience elsewhere, American Jews remain committed to core liberal values even as their incomes rise. Only African-Americans voted for Barack Obama in greater numbers than American Jews. Increasingly, American Jews find themselves out of alignment with Israeli Jews as attitudes among the latter drift to the further to the political right (as measured by increased support among Israelis for radical measures like expulsion of the country's Arab population).

Most of the rest of the book is devoted to outlining what it is that American Jews know, so much so that they can no longer passionately espouse Israel's cause.

The first is the scholarly record, which has submitted Israel's historical myths to scrutiny. Previously, scholarship on the Israel-Palestine conflict could be described as `Exodus with footnotes.' One by one, the shibboleths have fallen. It is no longer possible to maintain, for instance, that Israel faced an existential threat in 1967. The old cowboys and Indians narrative of the conflict is no longer tenable. Israel stands not as a beleaguered outpost of doughty pioneers but as a militarised colossus lording over a cowed and conquered Arab population.

The second is the plethora of human rights reports (including Israeli human rights organizations) that document Israel's on-going human rights violations. Both sides in the conflict have committed crimes but the evidence from mainstream human rights organizations demonstrates that the balance of violations rests overwhelmingly on one side - Israel's. Recent examples include that country's saturation bombardment with cluster munitions of Southern Lebanon in the closing days of the 2006 war, its massive use of force in 2008/09 Operation Cast Lead assault on Gaza and its attack on a Turkish aid flotilla in international waters in 2010.

The third is the emergence of an international legal consensus in support of a two state solution, and opposition to Israel's settlements in the occupied territories (the latter the principal impediment to the implementation of a two state solution). In its on-going occupation of the Palestinian territories, and its relentless settlement construction, Israel flouts international norms, norms supported even by Israel's allies. These facts sit uneasily with liberal Jewish Americans' commitment to the rule of law and settling disputes without resort to force (American Jews were much more likely for instance to oppose the Iraq war from the outset, well before its fair weathered supporters turned against it).

Finkelstein illustrates the issues by critiquing popular, journalistic works of Jeffery Goldberg and supposedly scholarly works by Michael Oren and Benny Morris (one of the leading figures of the Israeli New Historians but now an unashamed apologist for the excesses of the Jewish state). The cumulative, drip-drip effect is to alienate mainstream American Jewish opinion away from a visceral identification with Israel, given that country's demonstrably illiberal conduct in its treatment of the Palestinians and its contempt for international law.

Within the United States, this means the notorious Jewish lobby, although still powerful, is beginning to find that its bark is louder than its bite. As an example of this, Finkelstein criticises John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt's exaggeration of the power of the lobby in respect to the Iraqi war, in their book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy , in which the two authors all but accuse the Israeli tail of wagging the American dog and taking the US into Iraq. This is to exaggerate the power of the lobby and to misunderstand its contribution to the prolongation of the conflict. For Finkelstein, even if the lobby did not exist, there would still be a natural confluence of American and Israeli geopolitical interests. However, the lobby exerts a pernicious influence in raising the threshold required to settle the conflict, and intimidating and marginalizing critics of Israel. When it comes to explaining US foreign policy in the Middle East, the influence of the lobby is a necessary part of the explanation, but it is not a sufficient one.

Even so, given that Israel's critics - like Finkelstein himself - are finding an audience in the mainstream, the lobby's efforts to silence dissent are no longer as effective as they once were. Their traditional weapons of choice - branding critics of as anti-Semitic for example - are being blunted by overuse. It's one thing to brand obscure black preachers as anti-Semites but such talk applied to former President Jimmy Carter and ex-Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami just sounds ridiculous.

An indication that this book is being taken seriously by the mainstream is the respectful review it received in the Economist. True, the review did complain about the book's tone. It's worth concluding this review with a brief comment on this as objections to Finkelstein's tone seem to be raised a lot. In my view, his tone in this book is mostly restrained but without pulling any punches. The evidence he presents speaks for itself. And his voice is decidedly moderate compared to some of Israel's advocates like Alan Dershowitz. So don't let such caviling about his tone and style put you off. Pay attention to the arguments. If you are interested in the Israeli-Arab conflict, read this book.

P.S A note on this book's availability. It can only be bought direct of the publishers - OR books - or of Amazon marketplace (which is where I bought my copy).

Alan Holman

Another well researched book from Norman Finkelstein

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2013

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It’s not just the American Jewish community that’s turning its back on Israel. The entire world has tired of this apartheid regime and its endless excuses for committing atrocities against the Palestinians and adjacent countries. Even Israelis, ‘including those who served in the military’ are disillusioned by what they’ve been led to believe, ‘and in some cases’ what they’ve been involved in.

The world now asks ‘how was it possible for the Israelis to get away with the myth of ‘a land without people and a people without land’? The history of Palestine is well known and dates back thousands of years. It was part of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, the Crusaders and Napoleonic armies were there, and finally it was put under the British Mandate from 1923-1948. The demographics of the area were well known.

Like many Western people during 1960’s & 70’s, I travelled a lot to see how other people lived. I visited communist countries and other dictatorships and took great pride in the fact that I lived in a democracy. I erroneously believed that I knew the truth about the world both past and present. If Israel was ever discussed the majority opinion was always in their favour. The standard response was invariably ‘there was nothing there, they made the desert bloom’. How could we get it so wrong for so long? How was it possible to get away with the myth of ‘a land without people and a people without land’?

It was of course a question of who controlled the mass media and consequently the propaganda machine of the time. The mass media of the day were predominantly controlled by the Western powers and somehow they erroneously believed that knowledge about certain events ‘like the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’ were little known and would fade with time.

However, we have now entered the age of mass communications where even the smallest child can record events on their mobile phone camera. The mass media now has a lot of embarrassing questions to answer. Long suppressed voices and unrecorded events have surfaced much to their embarrassment and to that of the belligerents involved.

We also owe a great debt to authors like Ilan Pappe, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Jonathan cook, Shlomo Sand and John Mearsheimer for their courage in exposing the truth.

The Palestinians will eventually get their land back but the decades of Israeli atrocities will not be forgiven. American foreign policy will also pay a price for decades of unconditional support of a brutal apartheid regime. Respect for the neocons will be about as low as that for the Klu Klux Klan.

Many Israelis are now embarrassed by what their country has done and are thinking about their next move. They often mention the special relationships and historic family connections they have with other countries. They don’t seem to understand that the system has been milked to the limit and times have changed. As Norman Finkelstein points out ‘the world knows too much’. It has also seen too much to have any respect for apartheid regimes. There will be no more open arms welcomes like there was in the 1940’s.

Gerald Pieti

A worthy point of view

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 28, 2014

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Norman Finkelstein is a pioneer working on the edge of received Jewish political Zionism. He's no Zionist.
He is highly articulate. Many of his relatives lost their lives in the Holocaust but he decries the sentimental
Zionists in New York who start with tears in defending modern Israel as a power that can do no wrong with
their policies in the Middle East. He's a power to reckon with and the book is well researched. I consider it
a valuable point of view. Look for his youtube speeches.

Frank Theuma

The TRUTH.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2021

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Norman Finkelstein is a Genius and a Saint.

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