Month: February 2007

I’ve finally decided to try to create a blog. I plan to tell a little about who I am, why I feel that it is so important for Americans to learn about Israel-Palestine, and provide additional resources and thoughts on this subject.  In addition, I’ve noticed that there are various reports about me around on the Internet — some are accurate, many are not. At times I may try to address some of that on this blog as well. For now, you may wish to go to the “About Us” section on the If Americans Knew website to learn more about who I am and how I got involved on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

• My Articles — These are available on our website. Since some people attempt to call me anti-Semitic (a slur often used to try to silence honest discussion of Israel-Palestine), you may wish to read one of my first essays, “Anti-Semitism is wrong“, written in 2001.
• Video about me and about If Americans Knew — This 30-minute video was produced by Alternate Focus, which produces Public Access television programs about Israel-Palestine.
• Videos we’ve produced — They’re very short; please watch them. I don’t know which I think is the most important. The Easiest Targets, about Israel’s practice of strip-searching children (13 minutes) exposed a practice that until now had been hidden from the outside world. Our most recent one — Jeffrey Goldberg: Pundit for Israel (4 minutes)– provides an important glimpse into the background of this widely interviewed Middle East “expert” and about his bashing of Jimmy Carter’s recent book. The 5-minute Trailer is probably our most widely viewed one so far, and the one on Prisoners is one of the most revealing. The short one on AP erasing footage is particularly significant. You can get a DVD with all of these on it.
• My Recommended Booklist on Israel-Palestine — There are so many excellent books on this topic that it’s hard not to include them all. One of the most recent is Ali Abunimah‘s brilliant One Country. This is essential reading for anyone wishing to consider how the region can find peace. Like Mazin Qumsiyeh‘s groundbreaking book Sharing the Land of Canaan, Abunimah’s One Country provides the visionary thinking that so many better known volumes neglect. If you’re going to read Jimmy Carter‘s truly noteworthy book — an extremely important but occasionally flawed contribution (eg the history at times repeats unexamined Israeli narratives, and the discrimination within present-day Israel is surprisingly white-washed) — read these two books as well. Another must-read is Donald Neff’s Fallen Pillars, an over-looked bedrock book detailing US relations with Israel and what has driven them. Kathleen  Christison‘s  Perceptions of Palestine, like her more recent articles on the Neo-cons, is also extraordinarily important, as are Paul Findley‘s classic expose, They Dare to Speak Out and Stephen Green‘s Taking Sides and Living By the Sword.  Other brilliant authors  whose body of scholarship is an essential part of understanding this topic are Naseer Aruri, Nur Maslha, Salman Abu Sitta, Ilan Pappe, and Alfred Lilienthal. These authors have produced profoundly important works that need desperately to be read more widely than they currently are. Clayton Swisher‘s detailed discussion of Barak’s allegedly “generous offer” nails this topic, Ron David boils the history of the conflict down powerfully to its detailed essentials, and James Ennes‘s Assault on the Liberty will quite likely be noted by future historians as one of the most significant exposes of the late 20th century.
• A still more recent must-read is Ilan Pappe’s superb THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE