It may sound interesting because I understand from where you come from. As a jew I feel very butthurt and conflicted when I see jews (specially jews powerful in the media) spouting all sort of leftist, self destructive discourses, ignorant how this is only evidence of their deepest neurosis. Some have a gun pointed to their heads, some have their sons attacked in university for being jewish, some reside behind gated communities in majority brown/black cities, yet they still think they are living in a multiculti fantasy.


I have my own theories regarding why so many jews are pants of head retarded leftists, but they are long and lack confirmation. If you find the topic interesting, you'll enjoy reading Catch the Jew!. The author pretended to be a german journalist and interviewed a lot of leftist israeli jews, the result was hilarious. Some truly believe they are fixing the world with their superiority.


And no, there isn't any anymosity between israeli jews and diaspora jews, not besides political: J-Street, funding for human rights ongs, breaking the silence, etc. What I felt by my brief stay in Israel is that american jews treat the place as if they owned it, they find everything besides Tel-Aviv barbaric, there is even a term for them, complanglos. Yet most of the americans who make aliyah, specially religious, are the opposite and very sincere, intelligent people. Many religious people in Israel are insufferable, yet all the religious americans in Israel mix the better of the diaspora and Israel, they are religious without being closed minded, they are educated without being degenerate post-modernists... At least this was my impression.

So there are three that I always recommend to people wanting to learn about Israel and the conflict. Righteous Victims by Benny Morris and Israel: A History by Martin Gilbert are two lengthy, sometimes dry, but incredibly comprehensive overviews that have been praised by people on both sides for their historical accuracy. And Six Days of War by Michael Oren is the best (imo) summary of the 1967 war which is crucial for understanding how Israel came to occupy the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and Gaza. Which is vital for understanding the current situation. After that much intensely historical reading, I recommend Catch the Jew by Tuvia Tenenbom for a lighthearted but thought-provoking view of the the oddities of both Israeli and Palestinian society.

It sounds like your professor didn’t tell you anything about the violence that Palestinians committed against Jews before and during the creation of Israel.

Here are some starting points for you:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936–1939_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world

https://www.ushmm.org/research/publications/academic-publications/full-list-of-academic-publications/nazi-palestine-the-plans-for-the-extermination-of-the-jews-of-palestine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947–48_Civil_War_in_Mandatory_Palestine

Here are a couple academic books you can read by a historian who is known to be among the most even-handed (not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine):

https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

https://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Refugee-Problem-Revisited-Cambridge/dp/0521009677/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539091713&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=birth+of+the+palestinian+refugee+problem&dpPl=1&dpID=41k290p1ICL&ref=plSrch

Now here are a few things for you to think about:

Why is your professor so intent on piling you with pro-Palestinian sources that she’s giving you fictional novels to read? Does that sound like she is trying to teach you or indoctrinate you?

It sounds like your professor has taught you about Jews expelling Arabs from the area they controlled, but didn’t teach you about how Arabs expelled Jews from the area they controlled. Why do you think that is? Do you think teaching students about each side’s violence would yield different opinions than only teaching about the Jews’ violence and framing all Palestinian violence only as a reaction?

It’s good that you asked about the other side of the issue and sought out reading material explaining it. But how many of your classmates do the same? What impression do you think that leaves them with? Do you think at the end of your class they will have a good understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict, or a distorted impression?

What do you think are your school and your professor’s responsibilities to their students with respect to informing them of the facts of topics they choose to study? How do you think the actual performance compares to their responsibilities?

If most schools have intro professors like yours (on this topic and others, but especially this), what effect do you think that has for the current generation of students?

You said you keep up on current events in the Israeli-Arab conflict. What sources are you reading? Is it only left-wing sources? Centrist sources? A mix of left, right, and center?

FWIW, I find Ynetnews.com, the online version of Israel’s most popular newspaper, to be the best source. You are better off if you supplement it with the New York Times (pro-Palestinian editorial board, but the news articles are pretty fair). USA Today and Bloomberg tend to be pretty fair too.

If you're looking for scholarly history research, the first books from Benny Morris like 1948 and After are as unbiased as you can get in this controversial issue. His later books, on the other hand, are more complete and include new relevant information that came since to the light, but you'll have to take into account that he went to the far-right politically by then.

If you are looking for lighter reading, O Jerusalem!, from Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins is pretty balanced (though still slightly pro-Israel). I still prefer the The Gun and the Olive Branch, from David Hirst, but the author does not hide his sympathy for the Palestinians' plight in that one. Not such a bad thing, I would say, as long as you stay true to the facts and your heart is in the right place.

"I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever be able to think of Israel in any factual sense."

It is a fact that most of the material about Israel and Palestine is what we can call "advocacy" by partisans of both sides. I would ignore most of the Internet sites, blogs and posting and go for the original source materials prepared by those with less attachment to either side and based on their conversations and observations. To start, I would go to:

1. US Archives--Foreign Relations of the United States. Includes reports from Ambassadors and other US diplomatic officers from Palestine, Israel and other mideast nations. Goes up to early 1960's. The link below covers Palestine and starts in 1947. However the site is fully searchable:
   
   http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=article&id=FRUS.FRUS1947v05&did=FRUS.FRUS1947v05.i0016&q1=Jews
   
   You might also want to go to the New York Times Website's archives and read articles on Israel/Palestine going back well before 1948.
   
   A good (and classic) book on Jerusalem and 1948, respected by Jews and Arabs alike, is "O'Jerusalem" by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre. Here is a link to Amazon:
   
   http://www.amazon.com/O-Jerusalem-Larry-Collins/dp/0671662414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394386663&sr=8-1&keywords=O%27Jerusalem
   
   
   

> What are the main objective arguments for the foundation of Israel on (what was at least thought to be) Palestinian land?

It was never "palestinian" land. It was Jewish, Babylonian, Persian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Muslim, something about short-lived Crusader states, more Muslims, then the Ottomans, and the Brits, and back to the Jews.

If your question is "why do Jews need to live in Israel, instead of making their country in Uganda," then you should visit Israel, especially the Old City of Jerusalem (and all of its museums), Ir David, and the Kotel. You should visit Abraham (father of Yitzchak and Ishmael), and his grandson Yaakov, who are buried in Hebron. You should visit the archaeological site at Shiloh, where the Tabernacle sat until King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem. Go to the places outside Beit Shemesh, where David fought Goliath, and where Samson is buried. Go to Shechem, where Yosef is buried. Go to Mt. Carmel in Haifa, where the prophet Eliyahu humiliated the idolatrous King Ahab and Queen Jezebel in a public contest.

All of Jewish heritage is in Israel.

> Don't the Israelis agree that the Palestinians have the same claim to the land as them? They also were promised it after the war by the British.

No. The British promised that the Arabs could have Jordan. The Peel Commission came along in 1937, 8 years after the Arabs murdered all of the Jews living between Hebron and Jerusalem, decades before Israel was even established as a country, and drew a map that showed only Arabs lived in those places. The UN Partition Plan in 1947 was based on this.

> How is the occupation of Lebanese territory justified?

> I'm a 20 year old from Lebanon

Israel already tried to save Lebanon from occupation by the PLO. Now, it's your turn to go tell the Ayatollahs in Iran to stop occupying your country with their Hezbollah and IRGC soldiers.

> How much of a theocracy is Israel? Don't take this literally, but more along the lines of "how centered around religion is Israeli politics", do politicians rally the masses under religious flags?

Not much. The importance of religion is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood thing, not a national policy. Some politicians claim to represent the face of Jewish theology, and those politicians tend to be perceived as the greatest disgrace of Jewish theology outside of their respective constituents-- people on both the political "right" and "left" agree on that much.

> To what extent does the average Israeli support his government? Is it a decent loved one? Are the people happy with whom they elected?

It's a coalition system, not a democratic republic. Everyone is upset about something, and happy or at least satisfied with other things.

Finally, here are some books you should read:

Six Days of War by Michael Oren <---- Nothing happens in a vacuum. The first half of the book describes the events leading up to the war, from 1956 to 1967. The author is a former Israeli ambassador to the USA.

The Revolt by Menachem Begin <---- Excellent discussion of the events leading to the War of Independence, and how Israeli politics evolved once the State coalesced. The author led Etz"L during the War for Independence, and served as the first non-Labor-party Prime Minister from 1977 to 1983.

The Arab-Israeli Wars by Chaim Herzog <------- Excellent summary of all of Israel's military actions. The author is a former Israeli president.

Like Dreamers by Yossi Klein HaLevi <---- The different ways that everyone all over the Israeli spectrum believe in Zionism.

The Israelis by Donna Rosenthal <----- snapshot of Israel's diverse population. This book is from 2005, so the description of certain events and especially their outcomes is a bit dated.

Catch the Jew by Tuvia Tenenbom <----- All the different ways that international organizations meddle in Israeli affairs, looking for ways to blame Israel for malfeasance, as well as all the different ways that the Arabs can't keep their story straight.

Voice of Israel by Abba Eban <------ The author was Israel's ambassador to the UN.

Letters from Tel Mond Prison by Era Rapaport <---- The schizophrenia of post-1967 Israeli policy in Yehuda/Shomron, and how Israeli citizens dealt with it.


The Daat Mikra Bible Atlas: A Comprehensive Guide to Biblical Geography and History by Yehuda Elitzur and Yehuda Keel <--- Maps of the Middle East, Africa and Europe, showing the location of events as they unfold in TaNaKh.

A history of Israel: from the rise of Zionism to our time gives a pretty comprehensive overview of the whole conflict and really help me understand it a lot better. But beware the book is about 1000 pages long so you should only read it if you enjoy purely historical literature.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Israel-From-Rise-Zionism/dp/0375711325

Can I suggest you read this very interesting book? It has parts describing the emergence and development of the relationship between the Mossad and the CIA over the years. I found it super interesting.

Yes!

Read My Promised Land by Ari Shavit
I would not be living here in Jerusalem if it weren't for this book.

Read A Tale of Love and Darkness

Listen to Meir Ariel

Watch The Band's Visit

There's a good book by an Israeli Jewish guy named Ilan Pappe. He actually had access to recently declassified documents in Israel when he wrote this book. It's probably a better source of information about stuff like this than this article. I agree with HaMMeReD, the only people who should really be listened to when they criticize Israel are Israelis. So here's a good book.
http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670
All kidding aside, the information this article alludes to is not even new. I wasn't kidding about reading this book though. If you read one this year, let this be it.

Yes. If you'd like to learn more, he published a book about his experience, called Son of Hamas...hence the name in the title.

It's quite a good book.

I want to also recommend "The Case for Israel by Allen Dershowitz" all supporters and opposers of Israel should read it. Very well written in English.

The Case for Israel https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471679526/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_m-9OCbY9BZWSS

If you're not just interested in a textbook, I highly recommend Amos Oz's memoirs, a Story of Love and Darkness. It tells the story of his and his family's life, in Europe, Mandatory Palestine, and early Israel.

Do not, I repeat, not watch the movie with Natalie Portman.

It's a survey carried out by Great Britain and the United States at the time of the British Mandate. The website is simply hosting it (if you don't like it reading from pro-Palestinian sites, you can get it here, for a price). The survey debunks one by one the allegations of "illegal immigration" that Israel's apologists keep using to our days to claim Palestinians' "foreign origin", as you are currently trying to do (without much success, I would say).

I read "Genesis 1948" by Dan Kurzman this summer and thoroughly enjoyed it. I feel like the 48 war is the largest event in Israel's history that I know the least about and Kurzman did a great job of getting perspectives from all sides - the Americans, the Israelis, the Jordanians, the British, the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, etc.

If you're in Israel you can find it at Sefer V'Sfel for 50 NIS. They did a reprint a few years ago that they never finished selling. In the US, amazon.

I would recommend you to read a good book about Israel, for example A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time by Howard M. Sachar and base your opinions on solid historical facts.

This book is one of the most neutral and honest takes on the subject I have read: http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Are you familiar with it? I think most people in this thread, on both sides, should give it a read.

It isn't my job to prove to you that something DIDN'T happen. There are plenty of other sources on the web that point out that the Roman "expulsion" of Jews was a MYTH created by Zionists.

http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/wctz4/jerusalem-an-archaeological-mystery-story

No one cares if you approve of this or not, certainly not history.

And that is just one of MANY myths of Zionism:

"King David" for example was nothing more than small-timer, the Exodus never happened etc etc.


Even ISRAELI historians admit that Zionism is based on myths

http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Jewish-People-Shlomo-Sand/dp/1844676234/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y

http://www.amazon.com/The-Wandering-Who-Gilad-Atzmon/dp/1846948754
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/643380/posts

The site is simply hosting the survey. That one is some 40 years older than the Internet. If you don't like it from there, feel free to buy it in Amazon.

My Promised Land By Ari Shavit

Israel by Daniel Gordis

If you decide to read the case for Israel, read beyond chutzpah after.
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Chutzpah-Misuse-Anti-Semitism-History/dp/0520245989

I recommend
http://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

I just read Israel by Daniel Gordis. It is a history of Israel and Zionism from the 19th century to today. I felt it was very well written. The book is long, but I could not put it down.

I'm currently reading The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. This one is about dispelling common myths used to de-legitimize Israel. Since he is a lawyer, the book is written in a style that makes it read like a court case. It is a bit shorter but it might be what you are looking for if you need to take apart someone who argues that Zionism = colonialism.....

O Jerusalem

by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

https://www.amazon.ca/Jerusalem-Larry-Collins/dp/0671662414/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=208425627839&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000439&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=10197744848757891610&hvtargid=kwd-296293639094&keywords=o+jerusalem&qid=1554217974&s=gateway&sr=8-1

​

Try this one:

https://www.amazon.com/History-Israel-Rise-Zionism-Time/dp/0375711325/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0375711325&pd_rd_r=GT7ZNFWCZ9F3CC1DF5SJ&pd_rd_w=hWSc0&pd_rd_wg=dQNrU&psc=1&refRID=GT7ZNFWCZ9F3CC1DF5SJ

Not military, but about the Mossad:

English:
http://www.amazon.com/Mossad-Greatest-Missions-Israeli-Service/dp/0062123416

Hebrew:
http://simania.co.il/bookdetails.php?item_id=460783

Genesis 1948 is my standard recommendation.

Essential

> catch the jew

https://www.amazon.com/Catch-Jew-Tuvia-Tenenbom/dp/9652297984

Why not try this instead.

I've got Howard M. Sachar's A History of Israel and Ilan Pappe's A History of Modern Palestine. So far so good.

e: Shlomo Ben-Ami's Scars of War, Wounds of Peace looks promising, too.

> profoundly ignorant of American politics.

you're the ignorant


http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501

http://www.thenation.com/article/aipac-spent-millions-of-dollars-to-defeat-the-iran-deal-instead-it-may-have-destroyed-itself/

>Holy racism, Batman!

Holy political correctness Karl Marx! Guess I'm also a racist against freemasons, because that's another cult that destroys the sovereignty of nations.

I recommend you read some literature to help you understand the militant Islam threat and read Son of Hamas. It was written by Mosab Hassan Yousef son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader.

Jews started arriving in the 1890s and they were not persecuted in Europe at that time. They came because of Zionism. Even after the first wave of immigrants they fraction of Jews in Palestine was only a few percent.

No, the Arab states did indeed come in to help the Palestinians from becoming completely extinct. In fact, Gaza was administered by Egypt and the West Bank and Jerusalem by Jordan.

The Palestinians came as refugees to the neighboring countries where they were allowed to stay temporarily. The ideas was for them to return home, and we have the UN resolution say that they should. Don't you agree that refugees should be allowed to return home?

This is why they live in refugee camps. They are waiting to return to their homes.

Ilan Pappe has written a great book called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine:

> Focusing primarily on Plan D (Dalet, in Hebrew), conceived on March 10, 1948, Pappe demonstrates how ethnic cleansing was not a circumstance of war, but rather a deliberate goal of combat for early Israeli military units led by David Ben-Gurion, whom Pappe labels the "architect of ethnic cleansing." The forced expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians between 1948-49, Pappe argues, was part of a long-standing Zionist plan to manufacture an ethnically pure Jewish state. Framing his argument with accepted international and UN definitions of ethnic cleansing, Pappe follows with an excruciatingly detailed account of Israeli military involvement in the demolition and depopulation of hundreds of villages, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants.

http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670

So here we have the plan to create a pure Jewish Greater Israel.

Now that the world has its eyes on Israel it is not possible to do a complete ethnic cleansing, I'm sure you understand that too. Israel has Avigdor Lieberman in the cabinet and he actually wants to do that. It's called "transfer" in Israel and not ethnic cleansing. In 1948-48 it was called "clearing" of villages and town.

>It is just being pointed, by_the_Palestinians_themselves that the main cause of their leaving was the Arab attack

Lord, I guess when you drink that Zionist kool-aid you often start to hallucinate. Pray tell, which Palestinians "point out" that the main reason they fled or were forced out of their homes was the "Arab attack"? Better go back to munching on your urinal cake.

The main reason for the flight of the Palestinians was the deliberate intent by the Zionists to expel them. This sad fact is burned into Palestinian consciousness. The cognitive dissonance must be painful for you when you're reminded about these matters, so you resort to such absurdities as to pretend that Palestinians believe themselves to blame!

Sigh..

> Would the Palestinians have had to leave if violent panarabist states hadn't initiated a war with the newly independent state of Israel?

Please read a history book. (For instance Ilan Pappe). Almost half a million Palestinians had been ethnically cleansed by Jewish terrorists before the neighbouring countries intervened to halt the unfolding catastrophe.

> They had several countries to flee too. How about the Arab countries that were partially responsible for there predicament in the first place? There connection to any of the myriad of Arab countries would be no less weak than the connection of the expelled Arab Jews to the newly formed state of Israel.

Yet, to this day, Palestinians remain stateless.

ethnic cleansing:

http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851684670

According to Benny Morris, Ben Gurion in 1938 said:

"I support compulsory [Palestinian Arab population] transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral."

So, spare me your denials...its as disgusting as Holocaust deniers.

As for bombing people...oooohhh, where do I begin...shall I start with the car bombings, letter bombings, and other terror attacks by the Irgun and Haganah? Shall I talk of the slaughter of Palestinians between 1948-1950 who were trying to return home? The Massacres in 1955? What about 1956? Shall I speak of 1967? Shall I talk off the attack on Lebanon in 1978? Or the bombing of Beirut in 1982 that killed 20,000 civilians? Or how about the bombing of Lebanon in the mid-90s? 2006? Shall I speak of Gaza 2008 and the horrid ghetto it is now?
Ohhh so, so much blood and destruction...all for your glory, o Israel.