Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians

by Baruch Kimmerling

Book Overview

Ariel Sharon is one of the most experienced, shrewd and frightening leaders of the new millennium. Despite being found both directly and indirectly responsible for acts considered war crimes under... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1859845177
• ISBN13: 9781859845172
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Must read for American public and politicians

Professor Kimmerling's book is an important contribution to the understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian war and should be read by everyone who is concerned about the future of our country. America's Middle East policy is at this time not evenhanded but clearly favors Israel's wishes over those of other countries in the region. Since Kimmerling documents the oppressive policies of Israel toward its conquered Palestinian population Americans need to read this book which presents the proverbial other side of the coin. This is especially topical now when guns are blazing again in Gaza and Israel uses the pretext of freeing a kidnapped soldier to punish the Palestinian people for democratically electing a Hamas led government. The current situation clearly proves Kimmerling's point, that a viable Palestinian state will not be tolerated by Israel's government. The book discusses the "pre-emptive" 1967 war which led to the Yom Kippur war and the ill advised invasion of Lebanon for which Sharon was mainly responsible. He was also the main architect of the settlement program in the occupied territories which has now become a millstone around the neck not only of Israelis and Palestinians but also Americans because neither of the parties can see a just solution to this increasingly vexing problem. Kimmerling's excerpts from "Machsomwatch," which detail the conditions Palestinians are forced to live under are especially poignant. When one reads this book it becomes clear why the rest of the world does not trust America at this time and only when America will begin to support, instead of vetoing, resolutions in the UN which demand an end to Israel's current practices will there be a semblance of hope for peace.

Succinct and well argued.

Professor Baruch Kimmerling's essay on the failure of the Middle East peace process coins the term `politicide' to describe Israel's denial of the Palestinians' right to function as a social, political and economic entity. An unintended legacy of Ariel Sharon's Peronist-style authoritarian government, he maintains, is the victory of Hamas in the January 2006 elections to the Palestinian Authority Legislative Council. To all appearances the situation thus remains as deadlocked as ever. As an inevitable consequence of Israel's hard-line policy the PA Legislative Council is now dominated by a faction which in its turn endorses politicide, that of the Jewish state. The very nature of the Zionist undertaking, according to Kimmerling, must logically entail the politicide of the Palestinian people. The democracy which Israel has evolved is, in fact, a `Herrenvolk' democracy; that is, existing for the benefit of a privileged caste lording it over a subject population. The chauvinism of Israel's leaders is all the more suspect for being religion-based. Kimmerling does not recognise the 2,000 year-old `exile' from the Holy Land as favouring the Zionist cause. Indeed, most of the Jewish people who fled the East European pogroms of 1880-81 entertained no concept of a Biblical homeland to which they should return, choosing instead to move westward. The rigid adherence to scriptural fiat is thus seen as a crime against reason. Those guilty of it include the Gush Emunim settler movement and an obnoxious Christian fundamentalist clique in America which brooks no criticism of Sharon and his ilk and holds that the post-`67 capture of Jewish holy places by Israel was divinely ordained. The narrative is organised around three landmark events, according to the author's interpretation, in the history of Israel's politicide against the indigenous Arab population. The first of these is the 1948 ethnic cleansing initiated by General Yigael Yadin's Plan B which advocated the destruction of Arab villages and the expulsion of their populations. Although formerly denied this is now recognised as historical fact. Kimmerling mentions Jewish revisionist historian Benny Morris who has demonstrated in his writings how the idea of population transfer figures largely in mainstream Zionist thinking, but he is criticised for failing to connect these ideas with the 1948 war. In fact Kimmerling's book predates an appalling interview (`Ha'aretz' January 2004) in which Morris admits the truth of the 1948 ethnic cleansing allegations made against Israel but insists that, in the interests of state-building, even the carnage of Deir Yassin was justified. `You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs', is his oft-quoted remark. Only a little less candid is Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon's description of the Palestinians as a `cancerous manifestation' for whom `chemotherapy' would be the appropriate remedy. He is possibly advocating their expulsion rather than actual physical annihilation

A portrait of a man and the Israeli Right

Politicide by Kimmerling, is in many ways remarkable as both Israeli historiography and as an Israeli political event: this detailed history by an internationally known member of the Israeli elite (Professor Baruch Kimmerling holds an appointment both at Hebrew University and at the University of Toronto, he is a sociologist) of Ariel Sharon is both an engaging portrait of a famous Israeli officer turned politician, and a succinct characterization of the politics of the Israeli right; the role of successive raids and many military provocations by the Israeli army that preceded all of their wars (with the Arabs); and, therefore and by extension, a description of the inherent violence of the Zionist state entity in its many faceted dealings with the Arabs, since 1948. Details are provided the reader, as well, of IDF approved, or permitted, massacres of Palestinians in their refugee camps and villages , and other politically motivated murders: these events few of which are known outside of Israel are regarded (in context) as an integral part of the making of an important military career (within both the early culture of the IDF and that of Israeli popular culture too). This career is made visible by the present prime minister of Israel. Details of Ariel Sharon's early growing up and how this may have presaged the choices of the future man are also introduced . The strategic Israeli plan that is presently being implemented now on the ground to create and maintain a kind of Bantustan out of all the West Bank areas (and Gaza too) is described as long held planning by some in the Israeli political and military elite, and as a personal `vision' of Sharon and those in the Israeli Right, among them the settlers and their political parties. A vision which if fully implemented would mean, according to Professor Kimmerling, the extinction, for all practicable purposes, of the Palestinians as a recognizeable, historical entity. Kimmerling introduces to his readers the sociologist's technical term 'Herrenvolk' (roughly translated as `master race' ) to describe present day Israeli (state) relations to all Palestinians, both those within , and without, the present Israeli borders. He frequently uses the term 'military settler society' to characterize present Israeli society (he has written about such things in professional journals) With a decent bibliography and a useful index.

An Excellent and Important Work

This is a very well written analysis of the career of Ariel Sharon & modern Israeli-Palestinian history. from the Qibiya massacre in 1953 to Sabra and Shatila in 1982 and the present day's war crimes during operation defensive shield of spring 2002, his determination to wipe out any functioning Palestinan political and/or communal entity cannot be any clearer. In his own words, the war of 1948 is not yet over, and the danger of further ethnic cleansing (aka 'transfer')has never been greater.

A Devastating Expose of Ariel Sharon

Prof. Baruch Kimmerling's new book about the checkered career, heinous war crimes and diabolical treachery of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is of such critical importance to understanding the expolsive Middle East crisis, that one would think it would make the cover of Newsweek, and be the subject of discussion and debate from the New York Times to the CBS Nightly News. Needless to say, publicity for Kimmerling's expose has been tightly suppressed by the Establishment media, who have a vested interest in portraying the Butcher of Beirut as an honorable, if hawkish warrior and Zionist "patriot." The truth, according to Kimmerling's formidable research, is very different. The bill of indictment is eye-popping. Sharon is a Nazi, a racist and an assassin intent on imposing a defacto concentration camp on the Palestinians. Extreme? Yes, but Sharon is the epitome of extremism.The bloody wreckage of Palestinian AND Israeli lives is effectively the basis for "Politicide." Put aside the System-approved fantasies by Bernard Lewis, Dore Gold and Steve Emerson. Instead, study this courageous and revealing work from a writer who embodies a voice of conscience and dissent against what is done in the name of the Jewish people to the hapless natives of Palestine. The fact that this book is being denied publicity by the corporate media is one hint of its power. The System seeks to protect at all costs the reigning paradigm. In "Politicide," Kimmerling indicts mass murderer Sharon, and he does so without polemics, with a cool recitation of facts. "Politicide" is fallible and there are a couple of errors: the author upholds the official Israeli line on the Jenin massacre and the attack on the Church of the Nativity; and there is one noteworthy omission: all mention of Baruch Goldstein's 1994 massacre of 40 Palestinians as the flash point that initiated suicide bombings, beginning in April of that year. With those caveats noted, this book is nonetheless a huge embarrassment for the legion of Sharon partisans in the American media and US government ,and they are doing their worst to keep "Politicide" in the deep freeze. But if Kimmerling's work gains a wide American readership, I predict that Sharon's usefulness to the Cryptocracy will be finished and many lives may be saved.