What Price Israel

by Alfred M. Lilienthal

Book Overview

What Price Israel? is an indispensable source of facts regarding the central issues in the Middle East. We still have not gotten the message of 9/11 and the ultimate reason behind it. We must settle... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0007DF52S
• Release Date: January 1953
• Publisher: Henry Regnery Company
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A most important book on the Middle East crisis

This is one of the most important books to read if you really want to understand the Israel/Palestine conflict. The author was present when the UN voted to establish the state of Israel and he discusses all the politicking and arm-twisting that was going on at the time. He shows how that was responsible for the partition resolution to squeak through. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Fifty years is not a long time in Middle East politics

Alfred Lilienthal's book gives an eyewitness account to the domestic US politics at the time of the formation of the state of Israel. He examines both the broader US political arena and the politics within American Jewry between those with an Israeli centric viewpoint and those with a more universalist interpretation of Judaism. It would be simplistic to define this as a struggle between zionist and anti-zionist factions within Judaism as Lilienthal's blow by blow description shows that there were few, if any, 'anti-zionists'. There were however non-zionists with different degrees of allegiance to Israel and different degrees of cooperation with the "zionist" project, which itself had shades of meaning between those seeking a kind of minimalist (token?) jewish homeland in the middle east, through to a multi-ethnic multi-religious Palestine with distinct Arab and Israeli cantons on to those seeking a homogeneous jewish state in the middle east more or less encompassing all the world's jewry. Lilienthal's position is very much in favour of a universalistic interpretation of judaism and he sees the focus on a Israeli state as virtually a new stage in the development of judaism, indeed virtually a new religion. For his skepticism, as Paul Findley tells us in another book, Lilienthal was himself formally excommunicated in 1982 from Judaism by a group of New York rabbis. Lilienthal's response..."Only God can do that. I still feel very much a jew." Lilienthal's discussion leaves open whether his brand of assimilationist judaism or the new israelist judaism is the real heresy. Lilienthal argues that American and Israeli interests do not always coincide and that forces within the American jewish community, along with Christian zionists, have made defending and aiding the state of Israel central to US policy in the Mid East in ways that are inimical to wider US interests. In this volume Lilienthal was writing in terms of the Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union, and before the 1967 war, which saw a dramatic escalation of US sponsorship of Israel. Despite the end of the Cold War, the divergence may if anything, be greater now. The book helps readers, admittedly from one skeptic's perspective, understand the roots of the US / Israeli alliance in the late 1940s, the domestic political considerations and the pressures all this imposed on the British then ruling Palestine whilst the British themselves were critically dependent on the US. No wonder they quit Palestine in a huff! The book is well written in the fashion of good "Reader's Digest" style journalism. It was in Reader's Digest that Lilienthal first came to prominence with an article called "Israel's flag is not my flag". This article is available online at Alfred Lilienthal's web site. The book is not purely technical scholarship, and is undoubtedly polemical from Lilienthal's clearly stated position. There is of course a lot of deja vu for those of us reading this book after 50 years have

Eyewitness history of Palestine/Israel conflict

Alfred Lilienthal has been involved with seeking solutions to the Middle East conflict for over 50 years. Amazingly he is still alive and yet was present in 1947 for the UN partition vote that paved the way for the state of Israel. He was a Jewish American who represented the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism at the UN discussions. The Council was against a Jewish state and favored a modern democratic state not based on race or religion. Contrary to what a previous reviewer implied, Lilienthal has of course never been against rights for Jews. He was and is against unequal rights for all involved and has always humanized both Palestinian Muslims and Christians rather than demonizing them in his writings. Here in his own words from the book is his true position: "In fact, I lobbied against the Partition Resolution 181 because it was our belief that the creation of a "Jewish only" Zionist enclave in that region could lead to insecurity and war which would endanger the lives of Arabs and Jews alike. Finally, as patriotic Americans, we believed this did not serve the long-term interests of the United States. A state based upon religious or racial exclusivity could, I argued, result in what actually has happened these last fifty-six years: misery for all peoples in the area and American involvement in the on-going conflict in ways that has undermined our own democratic principles and national security. We foresaw that the price of Israel would indeed be high." I read a tattered old copy of the 1953 book about a dozen years ago. It is great to now have a brand new copy updated with a substantial new introduction that deals with current events and even the neo-conservative influences on President Bush and their tie-in with the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Sharon that have only fomented more conflict, hatred, and death. Lilienthal points out what he believes must be a gradual start to a true peace process: "It is Washington that will be the principal ideological battleground where the crucial showdown will take place over whether there will or will not be a successful "Road Map" leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state to exist and flourish side by side with the existing state of Israel. If a real and lasting solution is to evolve, the voice of positive opposition in the United States-both Jews and Christians-as well as Arab Americans-along with secular groups right and left and in between-must be molded into a unified political force.The Zionist lobby, the many spineless politicians, and the biased media have to date had the final and decisive say as to the possibility of Middle East peace. They can similarly block any current or future peace plan as they have so successfully done other peace efforts in the past-the list would be a long one! Change will not be easy against such entrenched forces, but it is up to the increasing number of supporters of peace with justice to move forward with courage and determination." This b

Essential reading on the Israel/Palestinian conflict

Anyone who wants to learn the true cause of the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinians should read What Price Israel by Dr. Alfred Lilienthal. It lays out a well documented history of Canaan/Palestine and the founding of the Jewish State therein. Dr. Lilienthal is one of the first American Jewish intellectuals to have had the courage and moral integrity to oppose the creation of Israel and condemn its premeditated expulsion of the Palestinians from the lands they and their ancestors have inhabited continuously for 9000 years. While I am sure most readers will welcome the insights and facts Dr. Lilienthal provides, others will find it difficult to admit to themselves that what they have hitherto believed to be the truth is far from it.

You can save the world. Do it.

Fifty years ago, Alfred Lilienthal asked the question: What Price Israel? Today, the world is marching and catastrophe is the answer. You owe it to yourself - and to everyone you know and love - to find out why. You can do something. Do it: read, think, act.