Israel: A Colonial-Settler State?

by Maxime Rodinson

Book Overview

Examines the historical roots of the Zionist movement and how the State of Israel was formed as a colonial-settler state dispossessing the Palestinian people.Index, annotation, maps. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0913460222
• ISBN13: 9780913460221
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Anchor Foundation
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Zionism as racism

The author is from a Jewish family and taught in the Middle East for seven years. He responds to critics who called him "schizophrenic" by pointing out that "belief in the infallibility of one's own 'ethnic' group is a frequent phenomenon in the history of human groups. It is called racism." Further, he explains how "European supremacy had planted in the minds of even the most deprived of those who shared in it the idea that any territory outside Europe was open to European occupation."Growing up in the middle of the US, not knowing anyone Jewish, my introduction to Zionism was the heroic portrayal in "Exodus." I found Rodinson's account of the arguments offered for the creation of the state of Israel eye-opening. It can help others who got pro-imperialist education like mine to understand the demand of the Palestinian people for a democratic, secular state of Palestine that would offer equal rights to all who live and work there.

The Facts Behind The State Of Israel

Zionism and the Israeli state have always been at the service of Empires ( first the British one and then the Yanqui-U.S. one ) ; this book lays out the facts of this history. Until 1979 Israel was part of a twin set of gigantic military platforms for the Yanki empire,along with Iran.Its alliance with the real 'axis of evil' in Washington D.C.and the brutal repression used by Israel to try to humiliate the Palestinians as a people is making Israel a death trap for the Jewish people.Maxime Rodinson , using the tools of science Marxism provides, explains in this dynamite book how the settler state- and racist - nature of the Zionist project could only lead to perpetual war.Sept. 11 proved that the Yanqui Empire is making the USA a death trap for workers and farmers here--the result of ITS humiliations of nations around the world. That fact makes this book doubly necessary for fighters for fundamental social change to read today.

A study of Zionist colonization and how Israel was formed

Examining the Zionist colonization of Palestine, Maxime Rodinson explains that Israel's formation was part of the pattern of 19th and 20th century colonial conquest. The Zionist movement received active support from the major imperialist powers and-like other colonialist movements-employed a nationally exclusive, racist ideology to justify the subjugation of native farmers and workers.Rodinson refutes the rationalizations used by supporters of Zionism-from "biblical right" to the portrayal of Zionism as a national movement founded on socialist principles. (from the back cover)

Prescient!

How could Rodinson have predicted with uncanny accuracy what Israeli revisionist historians have "discovered" only recently? He was blind to prejudice and cant. He examined the facts, pored over historical details, and came out with 90 pages of clear-headed prose. Before the West Bank and Gaza had been occupied in June 1967, Rodinson could see the difficult position Israelis were in, as colonialists. Fascinating and worth every penny.