Book Description
How do nations and aggrieved parties, in the wake of heinous crimes and horrible injustices, make amends in a positive way to acknowledge wrong-doings and redefine future interactions? How does the growing practice of making restitution restore a sense of morality and enhance prospects for world peace? Where has restitution worked and where has it not?
Since the end of World War II, the victims of historical injustices and crimes against humanity have increasingly turned to restitution, financial and otherwise, as a means of remedying past suffering. In The Guilt of Nations, Elazar Barkan offers a sweeping look at the idea of restitution and its impact on the concept of human rights and the practice of both national and international politics. Through in-depth explorations of reparation demands for a wide variety of past wrongs -- the Holocaust; Japanese enslavement of "comfort women" in Korea and the Philippines; the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor; German art in Russian museums and Nazi gold in Swiss banks; the oppression of indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. mainland, and Hawaii; and the enduring legacy of slavery and institutional racism among African Americans -- Barkan confronts the difficulties in determining victims and assigning blame in the aftermath of such events, understanding what might justly be restored through restitutions, and assessing how these morally and politically charged acknowledgments of guilt can redefine national histories and identities.
Customer Reviews:
An admirable effort, but not engaging.......2001-11-05
I hesitate to write a review of this book because I am reluctant to critique a very noble and dilligent effort by Barkan to document reparations movements and issues from throughout the world; I can only imagine the time and effort it took to write this. It's very well documented, and I cited it in my research. I just didn't find it very engaging personally, but that doesn't mean that others won't find it meaningful.
Callous disregard of the vistims.......2001-03-09
"Those who love to feel guilty will applaud the book." How cynical! I'd have let it pass if it weren't for the "17 of 20 people (who) found the following review (by Derek Parker) helpful." Parker, like most white Australians, is totally into denial that the genocide started by invaders 213 years ago is the one and only cause for the abject state of the indigenous peoples who have not ceded sovereignty. Nine out of 10 were wiped out by slaughter, starvation, disease and dispersal from their lands. Massacres were still happening within the life spans of present-day parents and grandparents. Indigenous Australians live 20 years less on average than other people in the country. I could bore you with endless statistics testifying to the continuing devastation of Australia's First Peoples through the ongoing white war on them: deprival of education, health care, jobs, 20 times the normal imprisonment rate, etc., etc. What Parker obviously doesn't like is that the tyranny of distance no longer works and White Australia's crimes are more and more in the world spotlight, including in this book. Australia is getting plenty of stick in international bodies for not living up to human rights agreements it has signed up to. The issue is if not the biggest, then one of the biggest on the national agenda. Parker and his camp would be yelling loudest if present-day Germans were to shirk their responsibility for restitution to the Jews. Yet to him Australian perpetrators are sacrosanct. Parker alleges that "Barkan acts as if there are no difficult questions at all" in regard to the Aborigines, and "Largely, he accepts the claims put forward by the wronged group, dismissing contrary arguments." I would like Parker to back his claims that Barkan's "selection of evidence seems so one-sided as to almost be misleading" and that he's made a "number of straightforward errors." In my view, Barkan, as a non-Australian, has a remarkably accurate take on our country. "He seems to assume that the fact that someone has been wronged makes anything they say automatically correct." - Barkan does not. To speak of a "victim/victimiser methodology" is callous disregard of the pain our indigenous people still suffer and a vicious panning of those who empathize with them. "There are important issues of human dignity here." - You bet! Yet the Australian government is refusing to allow various United Nations human rights sub-bodies into the country to investigate. "How much responsibility can be placed on the shoulders of people who might well have been ignorant, or even born after, the wrongdoing?" - So we don't attone or restitute in any way once our parents and grandparents are no more? Tough luck for those suffering among us if our ancestors wronged theirs? If we're living off the fat of an invasion, and those invaded still suffer the after-effects? "The case he discusses where, in Australia in the 1960s, half-caste Aboriginal children were removed from their families and placed in (white) foster homes is a case in point. It now seems wrong, but at the time was done with benevolent intent." - The stealing of children went on for more than a hundred years. The plan was to "breed the colour out" of the indigenous people, not some benevolent intent. How can removing children from extended families by force ever be benevolent? Merely on the pretext that a traditional lifestyle did not fit in with the growing white settler population's idea of how one had to live? "Historical injustice deserves a great book." - and a better review than Mr. Parker's. "The Guilt of Nations" is good stuff. Hopefully it will reach many readers and put Australia's deniers on notice that more and more of the world is watching.
Not proven.......2000-07-07
Barkan has to be commended, at least, for taking on a huge subject: the attempts of groups, seen increasingly over the past quarter-century, who have been the victims of government policies and wrongdoing to seek recognition and redress. The Guilt of Nations has introductory and concluding sections that thoughtfully discuss the issues involved, trying to establish a general framework. Philosophically and practically, it's a tough subject. There is, in liberal societies, an ongoing tension between individual and group rights, and limits on government resources. The particular circumstances of the wrongdoing also have to be examined. Barkan, as a means of illustrating the problems, looks at the post-war restitution by Germany to Jews; and, in a concluding section, examines the difficulty of compensating Black Americans for slavery. These parts of the book are well-considered and well-argued. The problem of The Guilt of Nations lies with the case studies that make up the middle section of the book, especially in the chapters dealing with indigenous groups. Here, Barkan acts as if there are no difficult questions at all. Largely, he accepts the claims put forward by the wronged group, dismissing contrary arguments. Indeed, in the chapter on Aboriginal issues in Australia ( a subject this reviewer happens to know something about ) his selection of evidence seems so one-sided as to almost be misleading. There is (in this same chapter) a number of straightforward errors that make one wonder whether his agenda is not more important to Barkan (who is an academic historian) than the facts. He seems to assume that the fact that someone has been wronged makes anything they say automatically correct. This is not to say that victims should be blamed for what might have happened to them: it is to say that human events can be much more complicated than a victim/victimiser methodology. This is a great pity, because there are important issues of human dignity here. The cases of the "comfort women" used by the Japanese army in World War II and the internment of Japanese-Americans by the US government in 1942 are undeniably affecting, especially insofar as a recognition of the wrong done to them was more important to those involved than monetary compensation. Yet Barkan, in what seems to be a rush to condemn the perpetrators (as he refers to those he doesn't like) seems to miss a crucial dilemma: how much responsibility can be placed on the shoulders of people who might well have been ignorant, or even born after, the wrongdoing? (Actually, Barkan does mention this question. But he doesn't answer it in a meaningful form; he sort of assumes it away.) There is another question he skips around: to what extent can the morality of 2000 being applied to quite different social circumstances? True, there are cases where evil is so obvious as to have no defence in circumstances; equally, there are cases where what now seems wrong seemed right, even necessary, at the time. The case he discusses where, in Australia in the 1960s, half-caste Aboriginal children were removed from their families and placed in (white) foster homes is a case in point. It now seems wrong, but at the time was done with benevolent intent. It might have been wrong, but it cannot be called evil if evil requires intent. But Barkan fails to makes such a distinction, and does not even seem interested in trying. Historical injustice deserves a great book. The Guilt of Nations isn't it. Parts of it have interesting things to say, but it veers between seriousness and silliness. Those who love to feel guilty will applaud the book. The rest of us will, and should, treat it with caution.
Book Description
What do we owe Iraq?
America is up to its neck in nation building--but the public debate, focused on getting the troops home, devotes little attention to why we are building a new Iraqi nation, what success would look like, or what principles should guide us. What We Owe Iraq sets out to shift the terms of the debate, acknowledging that we are nation building to protect ourselves while demanding that we put the interests of the people being governed--whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere--ahead of our own when we exercise power over them.
Noah Feldman argues that to prevent nation building from turning into a paternalistic, colonialist charade, we urgently need a new, humbler approach. Nation builders should focus on providing security, without arrogantly claiming any special expertise in how successful nation-states should be made. Drawing on his personal experiences in Iraq as a constitutional adviser, Feldman offers enduring insights into the power dynamics between the American occupiers and the Iraqis, and tackles issues such as Iraqi elections, the prospect of successful democratization, and the way home.
Elections do not end the occupier's responsibility. Unless asked to leave, we must resist the temptation of a military pullout before a legitimately elected government can maintain order and govern effectively. But elections that create a legitimate democracy are also the only way a nation builder can put itself out of business and--eventually--send its troops home.
Feldman's new afterword brings the Iraq story up-to-date since the book's original publication in 2004, and asks whether the United States has acted ethically in pushing the political process in Iraq while failing to control the security situation; it also revisits the question of when, and how, to withdraw.
Customer Reviews:
Good book... title not precise.......2005-11-21
This is not a discussion of what we owe Iraq, which Feldman states is a decent functioning government, but an analysis of the the issues involved in getting there.
The best parts, for me, were the examples from his experience such as the practical problems facing those who worked in the early occuption, his description of the Republican Palace, the meeting with the Lawyers Association.
The heart of the book is an analysis of the issues involved in achieving the goal such as authority, occupation vs. trusteeship, paternalism, elections, legitimacy/perceived legitimacy, etc.
Do not compare Germany and Iraq ..........2005-10-28
Condoleezza Rice always takes the concept of "Nation Building" with pleasure into her mouth and tries to explain with frown to the audience how important this task is. The author Noah Feldman is an expert for this concept -- and NATION BUILDING also has his development history: On the occasion of the 1st World War the United Nations formulated guidelines which were still whisked a little with the ideology of the colonial time and carried a little of the gesture of a patriarchal guardianship into themselves, though. After the second World War one lost something of this arrogance and put as an aim into the centre only, that a nation, political ethically lagging behind (at that time Germany), should be brought by the introduction of democracy to the global community standard. Cases like Kosovo or East Timor seemed to confirm the correctness of such a target. In the case Iraq an additional thinking effort must be done. While Condoleezza Rice still compares Germany 1945 with present Iraq a little school girlishly and assumes that everything has to be fixed in the time window of four years, the expert Noah Feldman is there already a little more skeptical. Compare the educational level, the religion dependence, the power of the different population groupings and the complete missing of national feelings of guilt: these different factors forbid the comparison Iraq/Germany actually. [Nevertheless the Washington administration-rhetoric continues to do so.] Noah Feldman seems to recognize the clear difference: Because the wave of terror-acts is not tearing off. Has there been this in Germany, that police stations were classified as collaborator collection places and regularly blown up into the air? Has there been this in Germany 1945, that permanently seeped over the national boundaries from the neighboring countries Christian sympathizers to Germany, which wanted to help to cast out the Americans? NO! The USA have completely underestimated the forming strength of Islamic solidarity and the connected high aggression level . Since the debacle was got going worldwide visibly now (perhaps justified a little recklessly and wrongly)?, the USA owes to the Iraqi people, not to leave the country till at least safety is established against assassinations - this is the NEW, what Feldman is saying. Unfortunately, the installation of a constitution suffices not at all (like 1945-1949 in Germany). The production of a civilian safety as an afterwards defined aim will take up substantially more time or is successful never -- and ends with an out throw of American know-all battalions as formerly in Vietnam. Noah Feldman does not mention this point, he likes to see a positive future, not the flashbacks of nightmare-views. Of course we all hope, there soon will shine the sun of peace and freedom in Iraq -- and the US will take a break, being a global ethic police ...
Arguably the best, most practical book on post-war Iraq.......2005-07-02
I think I'll begin by addressing the two negative reviews posted thus far...
At no point in this book does Feldman argue that the U.S. should have replaced Hussein with another dictator. That kind of statement runs completely against everything contained in this book. In my opinion, only someone that had never read the book could make a claim like that.
As for the other review (posted by someone that simply pastes academic reviews onto Amazon), the view is presented that the U.S. in fact does not owe Iraq much of anything and claims that Feldman presents no argument to the contrary. This type of statement is also in the wrong.
Feldman takes the position in this book that since the U.S. is in Iraq and completely dismantled the government, there is an ethical obligation on the part of the U.S. to see the job finished. A finished job would be a functioning, self-reliant Iraq that can defend itself and promote individual liberties. This book goes about describing the set of ethics the U.S. should abide by.
A lot of people argue about Iraq today as if it were only George W. Bush's problem. This approach is terribly flawed. Iraq in 2003 was a product of (1) Saddam Hussein, and (2) EVERY U.S. PRESIDENT SINCE REAGAN. Washington has had a roller coaster of a ride with Iraq ever since the early 80's. Every decision made by the U.S. since then has contributed to how Iraq would eventually end up. Yes...Hussein is also to blame and should not be given a free pass, but neither should the U.S. As far as ethics go, we owe a huge deal to Iraq. Hussein would have most likely been defeated by Iran in the 80's had it not been for U.S. and other Western support. It's time the U.S. owned up to our decisions, regardless of whether or not George W. Bush went about it in a patently dishonest way.
In the end, Feldman presents an argument that is both ethical and pragmatic. I think his argument is the one that should ultimately be adopted. If you can get past your own partisan issues and listen to Feldman with an open mind, you'll come away with a much better understanding of Iraq and what to do about it.
Obviously faulty thinking on Iraq situation by author.......2005-03-14
At one point the author, Feldman, talks about how the USA should have just replaced Saddam with someone more benevolent and not gone to war with Iraq. Feldman, just how would we have done that? Saddam was very determined to keep his postion in Iraq as leader. He even provenly employed doubles of himself to thwart any attempted assassination overthrow of him by plotters. Also, Saddam killed over a million of his own Iraqis amd terrorized close to all of them while he was in power. Strong state you claim he had, huh? Sure! Terrorizing, national dictators often do manage to have strong states under their sway. Also, he sent SCUD missiles at Israel. Feldman, aren't you Jewish? He was bad for your Jewish cousins, if you are. Think about that for a while. Lastly, the USA has 350 million people. Iraq had around 23 million. We have a right to put ourselves before them in importance due to our much greater numbers.
Legitimizing futile occupation.......2004-12-03
"A republic to keep, not anarchy or utopia" is the zest of this book. The author strives to rationalize the futility of U.S.'s involvement in a flawed war. He discerns similarities and differences between the chaos in Iraq and those of Germany, Japan, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, Kosovo, East Timor, Algeria, Uganda, Ireland, Haiti, and Afghanistan.
The book spans 130 pages of well-read and logically evolving description of the heuristic process of nation building. It falls into three chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion.
The INTRODUCTION outlines the objectives of nation building by an occupying power, the relationship between the occupier and the occupied, in the era of democracy, and the mechanism of exit, through election and security safeguards to ensure durable and sovereign government that could maintain order and legitimacy.
Chapter 1, NATION BUILDING: OBJECTIVES, compares the objective of nation building during the Cold War of thwarting the threat of "total destruction" through a "rational-actor model" of states (Germany, Japan, N. Korea) to the present involvement to restoring "civil order" through a "non-state violence actor model" (Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, E. Timor, and Somalia).
The absence of any rational model for the Iraq War that toppled a deterrable and strong government is considered a foreign policy blunder that created a failed state, threatening regional instability, with low odds of success of democracy without long, costly, and bloody US support.
The author contends that ethics and morality have a role in International affairs. He cites the examples of Kosovo and E. Timor to prove that Internationalization does not impose ethical comfort, but our national believes that "ethnic cleansing" is immoral lent the needed support.
Chapter 2, TRUSTEESHIP, PATERNALISM, AND SELF-INTEREST starts by the author's admission to the guilt of the U.S. of high-handed behavior that led to a "serious fix", the rash and mistaken disbanding of Iraqi army that created chaos, and the de-ba'thification order of Ambassador Bremer that alienated the middle class. With the absence of civil society, there is little hope to impose security. Hence comes the ethical obligation on the U.S. to produce order through monopolizing violence.
The author confesses that we do not know what we are doing, we do not understand the complexities of the Iraqi society and politics, and we are woefully unprepared for external nation building. He then delves into the modern history of international law in order legitimize occupation, as follows.
The Spanish War:
The Spanish canonists rationalized governing the Indians of the new world through Europeans' "wardship" on their behalf, on the bases that the Indians possess polities, law, religion, and are reasonable men entitled to rule themselves.
Before WWI:
The Annex of the Hague Convention of 1907, restricts the authority of the occupying power to restore order, until cessation of hostilities, without violating property, pillage forbidden, and tax collection for the benefit of the occupied state.
After WWI:
During the era of the League of Nations, trusteeship took the form of a sacred covenant to civilize "underdeveloped" countries until they become able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of modern world. This paternalistic approach entrusted the "tutelage" of the occupied to the occupier, which caused the failure of the British nation building of monarchy in Iraq after WWI. The British imported King Faisel from Arabia without legal legitimacy (Notice the role of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the past and present: money and oil).
After WWII:
During the United Nations era, trusteeship defines the relationship between principals and agent: settlor creates a trust; trustee confers control; beneficiary gain ability to self-rule. The political power is based on the representative's judgment, acting like an agent, regardless of the opinion of the beneficiary, acting like principals. The Principals ensure her interests are promoted through: freedom of speech, assembly (protest and march), participation, and election. This trusteeship is limited in time and with defined responsibility of supervision. It does not intend to civilize, but to build a self-running machine that can rule itself and protect sovereignty.
Although the author observes few glimpses of the Islamic tradition through "hauza", "shura", and "fatwa", the author has a blind spot for the immense influence of Islamic thinking in that part of the world. That made him erroneously believes that the U.S. is serving the interest of the Iraqi by "seeing it through" and remaining after election to ensure a functioning republic. Although he admits that all Iraqis he had met, wanted U.S. out, he does seem to realize that that consensus undermines all American interferences in the affairs of Iraq, which had caused previous troubles when the U.S. took military bases in the Saudi Arabia. He also erroneously believes that the Iraqi Lawyers Association is an "empty shell" since he does not sense their deep mistrust and skepticism of western politics. Had the author dug into Islamic history, he might have learned that the Islamic Constitution would make the U.S. Constitution look primitive and that Muslims had occupied Spain for many centuries, on her canonists he bases his justification of occupation.
Chapter 3, THE MAGIC OF ELECTIONS AND THE WAY HOME, presents the role of modern election in legitimizing governments. The author contends that election is not a ticket home, but rather a "voice to the voiceless" to ensure large-scale accountability and enforce public preference on the choice of representatives. He cites the dangers that rose after election in Bosnia and Algeria, and concludes that the major task of occupation or nation building is to create the proper environment for election and not obsess with its magic, mystery, or danger. The author entirely misses that fact that western occupation, and American in particular, is the main cause of chaos, of murdering collaborators and resisting the humiliation of occupation by impartial and foreign authority. He skips the events of 1958 when the Iraqis dragged the dead body of their pro-American ruler in the streets of Baghdad to end their alliance with the Baghdad Pact.
Book Description
Incredibly interesting and timely, this is the only collection of its kind on the market today: it provides both the most significant historical writings on the morality of war as well as the best contemporary theoretical writings and concrete discussions of wars in the last five years.
Many voices are presented, including those from Islam, covering such issues as self-defense, preemptive war, torture, pacifism, and terrorism, making it relevant to today’s readers.
An excellent study of the ethics of war for anyone interested in how the ideals of war developed and how they continue to shape the world as we know it.
Book Description
“There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”
This statement has never been more true. Now, Deepak Chopra expands on A. J. Muste’s insight, teaching us how to expand awareness, stop reacting out of fear, and reject war—one person at a time. As Dr. Chopra says, “Violence may be innate in human nature, but so is its opposite: love. The next stage of humanity, the leap we are poised to take, will be guided by the force of that love.”
Customer Reviews:
Peace - True Source of Happiness.......2007-03-15
This is an outstanding masterpiece of literature. Deepak, gives you knowledge and understanding of "Peace" into your own daily life. As well, showing how "Peace" can truly happen within the world we live if we all put our actions towards that ultimate goal. The concepts and lessons through each chapter, gives you enlightenment on how truly "Peace" can be transformed one individual at time for a world of "Peace". This is an amazing book which I am definetly sharing with my family and friends.
Right on time.......2007-01-11
A great read for anyone who is of a spiritual mind. The message is right on time!!
A Beacon For Peace.......2006-07-30
It was Dr. Chopra who said, "The Seth books present an alternate map of reality with a new diagram of the psyche ... useful to all explorers of consciousness." Chopra's is a sane, calm voice amidst the fear-driven rhetoric of our times. Comparing the birth of a new world to the growth of cells in a fetus until it is ready to be born, he says, "The real answer to why we don't see a new world yet is that it isn't ready to be born. It won't be ready until the building blocks become stronger."
He then goes into detail how we can bring peace into our private lives so that we each become a beacon for peace which, combined with others will then bring the light of love and understanding into the farthest reaches of our world: each one of us a cell for peace.
Maybe........we can do it.......2006-07-11
Chopra always makes life a bit less painful for me. Always something to think about and take to heart. A bit idealistic perhaps but we need to be. I haven't finished the book but I still will give it a 5, and I will finish it.
The Best Deepak Ever.......2006-02-08
This is my favorite book by Chopra. It is hopeful and sets forth an easily followed plan which makes you an important part of bringing the way of peace to the planet.
Book Description
One of the first books by a moral philosopher to discuss the rights and wrongs of specific military incidents.
Book Description
In July 2000, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat refused to negotiate a peace offer made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David. At the end of September the Palestinians then launched their second intifada, an outbreak of terrorism in the heart of Israel’s cities that continues to this day. The unprecedented violence drove Barak from office and brought to power the feared hard-liner Ariel Sharon.
In RIGHT TO EXIST, Yaacov Lozowick, an Israeli historian, describes his evolution from a liberal peace activist into a reluctant supporter of Sharon. In making sense of his own political journey, Lozowick rewrites the whole history of Israel, delving into the roots of the Zionist enterprise and tracing the long struggle to establish and defend the Jewish state in the face of implacable Arab resistance and widespread international hostility.
Lozowick examines each of Israel’s wars from the perspective of classical “just war” theory, from the fight for independence to the present day. Subjecting the country’s founders and their descendants to unsparing scrutiny, he concludes that Israel is neither the pristine socialist utopia its founders envisioned, nor the racist colonial enterprise portrayed by its enemies. Refuting dozens of pernicious myths about the conflict—such as the charge that Israel stole the land from its rightful owners, or that Arabs and Jews are locked in a “cycle of violence” for which both bear equal blame—RIGHT TO EXIST is an impassioned moral history of extraordinary resonance and power.
Customer Reviews:
Not what you think..........2007-05-21
i read this book to give myself an education on the Middle East problems and who was to blame for them. i found a book filled with facts and history that enlightened me profoundly. Unfortunately for the author, when i finished the book i didn't hold with the most of the views he expressed in the book. His facts left me more knowledgeable about what happened, although in the end, i could not agree with him in the end on why it was alright that it did happen that way.
After reading his book i feel Lozowick's moral defence falls flat on its face.
What the Arab-Israeli conflict is all about.......2006-12-31
In this phenomenal work, Yaakov Lozowick , the director of the archives at Yad Vashem,Israel's Holocaust Museum and the author of "Hitler's Bureaucrats, The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil, embarks on both a moral evaluation of Israel's wars for survival, as well as an indictment on the bigots of the world, who deny tiny Israel's right to exist.
As Cynthia Ozick describes so eloquently "The title alone - the scandal of calling into question a living nation's existence-ought to shame the prevaricators and defamers, whether they be professors in universities , media distorters, peace activists' who justify terror, morally deformed intellectuals, self-deceiving unconfused haters, or merely the herd of the easily led"
The introduction describes why the author, a lifelong liberal and peace activist, in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo process, and Arafat's launching of war of terror against Israel's populace, voted for Ariel Sharon of the center right Likud Party,traditionallly regarded as a hawk and hardliner(although his record as Prime Minister was to prove the opposite).
Lozowick describes how former Prime Minster, the center left Ehud Barak, at Camp David 2000, offered the Palestinian Authority the whole of Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, (including most of East Jerusalem), and in response Arafat stormed out of the talks and launched a terror war against the Israeli people, in which thousands of Israeli Jews (mainly women and children) have been murdered, maimed, terrorized, widowed and orphaned.
In response to Arab terror war against them, the Israeli people voted for Ariel Sharon, war hero who had been vilified by Israel's enemies around the world as well as by section of Israel's left.
The election of Sharon led to a barrage of intemperate condemnation of Israel by the UN, the international media, world governments and groups like Amnesty International, placing all the blame for the conflict on Israel's shoulders ignoring the fact that Israel had recently chosen peace and been given a war of terror instead.
Lozowick describes some of the Arab terror, such as the shooting of ten month old Jewish infant, Shalevet Pass, in her stroller on a playground, in Hebron, the murder of five month old Yehuda Shoham who had his head smashed in by a rock thrown at his parents car, and the bombing of the Dolphin Disco in Tel Aviv, in which 17 teenagers, mostly girls, were murdered and others cruelly maimed and disfigured.
As a historian and archivist for Yad Vashem memorial, Lozowick describes how he had unearthed snap shots of some Shoah victims. For the first time, a friend of Lozowicks , saw pictures of his father as a young man ,and of his aunts, who did not survive the Shoah. He was astounded by the striking similarity of his own daughter to one of his aunts. "It was almost as if she had been given a second chance at life. For his daughter, the discovery served as a trigger to develop a serious sense of her own particiapation in the flow of Jewish history. Fifteen year old Malki Roth was murdered at the Sbarro pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem. Israel did not react to all of these killings , until in March 2002, an Arab suicide bomber struck at the Park Hotel in Netnaya, killing twenty-nine Jews as they sat down to the Passover Seder table-the most family orientated moment of the year.
Israel reacted by launching a campaign to go after the terrorists in their own lairs , a ground assault to ensure the minimum of Arab civilians were hurt. This led to a worldwide orgy of hatred , directed at Israel, by most of the world. Shrieks of loathing told of a massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Jenin , an allegation by the media that turned out to be false. The massacre had not taken place. It was a blood libel. The Israelis had ensured that very few civilians had died, which lead to a greater toll of casualties among Israeli soldiers.
When Jews were massacred the world was silent, when Israel decided to act , using ethics higher than any other nation , at time of war , the world erupted into hateful hysteria against Israel and all her people.
In Chapter 1 Lozowick outlines the early history of Zionism and Jewish resettlement in Israel, explaining the depths of the ancient roots of the Jews to the Land of Israel, renamed Palestine by the Romans in 70 CE in order to cut off the Jewish historical connection to the land. He refutes hate-moner Edward Said who claims that the early Zionists were not capable as seeing the Arabs as fully human; pointing out that this in fact described rather, Arab attitudes towards the Jews, with much greater justification. He also refutes the revisionist historians, who sprang up in the 1980's with the goal of distorting the history of the Land of Israel to deny any Jewish rights there. Lozowick recounts the bloody Arab pogrom against the Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1920,which started the war against the Jews presence in the Land of Israel, that has continued for the last 86 years, the 1921 attacks on Jews in Jaffa and Petach Tikva, the massacre and destruction of the ancient Jewish community of Hebron in 1929 , together with further pogroms in Jerusalem , and the Nazi-inspired war by the Arabs against the Land of Israel's Jewish population of 1936 to 1939 in which thousands of Jews were butchered.
During the British Mandate over 'Palestine' from 1917-1947, the Jews and Arabs made many of the key decisions regarding each other. The Jews made settlements a central element of their efforts, the Arabs chose violent rejection of Jewish presence and sovereignty as their hallmark. Not much has changed in eight decades, as the author points out.
While people have been emigrating and changing the demographics of their new lands throughout human history (and it is unfair to describe this as 'colonialism'), in human history there has never been a case where a group migrated to a land it had lost for longer than living memory. Indeed very few nations have lasted over two thousand years as the Jews have. "Moreover" Lozowick reminds us, if the Jews are a nation, how can it be moral, to deny them a place of their own, like other nations. At most you can measure the morality of a nations behavior, not its existence."
I would go so far as to say that denying a nation's right to exist is racism, akin to Nazism, hence in the opinion of the reviewer anti-Zionism is Nazism.
From 1920 Jews have been attacked in the Land of Israel because they are Jews because the Arabs did not want Jews in Palestine, hence the fashionable distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a false one.
The author also describes tow parallel developments during the British Mandate , the immigration of Arabs into 'Palestine' by the hundreds of thousands -too many Arab villages were growing up next to Jewish ones to fast to be explained merely as natural population growth. While the British recorded the statistics of Jewish immigration, they did not count the masses of Arabs crossing into the Palestine Mandate.
Secondly the hundreds of thousands of Jews clamoring to get out of Europe , and into 'Palestine' were blocked from doing so , and were mostly dead by 1945. Every single Jew who wanted to immigrate to Palestine, but was denied the chance by the growing restrictions can be laid to the account of Palestinian violence and British appeasement; the number probably runs to the hundreds of thousands. Even this small fraction of Jewish dead exceeds all of the losses of Palestinian lives in the conflict with Zionism...the Palestinian decision at this time was to join the anti-Jewish camp at it's violent edge. Let this be kept in mind when the Palestinian propagandists decry their victimization by the victims of the Nazis."
The author also points out how although millions of people around the world , have been made into refugees , the only ones not to have been resettled have been the Palestinian Arabs, who have retained their refugee status, in order to use as a weapon against Israel. This in contrast to the 700 000 Jewish refugees expelled, after generations, from Arab countries in 1948, and all were resettled in Israel.
The author, while pointed out that Israeli actions have not always been perfect or praiseworthy, have been of higher moral caliber to all other armies in wartime, regardless of all the sick propaganda to the contrary. He points out that never has a Jew entered a Palestinian home and killed a Palestinian child in her bed, as Arabs have done countless times to Jewish children.
Lozowick still believes that the time may still come for a peace deal leading to two states living side by side, but that first the Arabs must genuinely accept Israel's right to exist, and give up the dream of controlling all of the Land of Israel, which would lead to the entire land being completely emptied of Jews, as most of Europe would be during World War II.
The author believes that this will take many generations, well over a century, before they realize that they cannot drive the Jews out.
It would help of course if they were not encouraged in their genocidal dreams, by far-left bigots in academia, the media, NGO's and politics to name a few of the hotbeds of anti-Israel hate.
The Right of Israel to exist is what the conflict is all about and always has been ,not about 'occupation, 'apartheid', refugees', or any of the other Goebellesque propaganda ploys designed to set up Israel and her people for destruction i.e. to prepare a second holocaust.
The truth about Israel from a moral pooint of view.......2006-12-27
This is a powerful, ethical and honest discussion of Israel's history and the history of her hundreds of millions of Arab neighbors who have done all they can to destroy this tiny country (about the size of Vermont). The author is a historian of the Holocaust who truly believed in the Oslo accords and the possibility of peace with the Palestinians, only to learn that the process was a sham. This book does an excellent job of explaining how the powerful Arab countries of the Middle East exploit the Palestinians to permit the perpetuation of war and why the Palestinians have rejected and will reject any solution that permits Israel to continue to exist as a Jewish state and democracy.
Defending the defenders.......2006-07-13
In a work both impassioned and measured, Yaacov Lozowick, director of the archives at Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust Museum, offers a moral evaluation of Israel's conduct in successive wars, showing its punctilious regard for the norms of warfare and the aspirations of the liberal democratic state. Lozowick is a man of the Left disabused of the prospects of peace in the wake of the Oslo war's outbreak in September 2000 and the collapse of prospects for a general Arab-Israeli peace. International outcry directed almost exclusively at Israel for both the outbreak of hostilities and its conduct in combating Palestinian terrorism moved Lozowick to enumerate the charges, mostly malicious, levelled at Israel's conduct and ultimately its existence. He accompanies the arguments with a helpful autobiographical element that underscores the evolution of his political views in relation to the events described. To witness through his retelling the collapse of cherished illusions about peace prospects as one event after another undermined them enhances the impact of his case.
Lozowick shows that in one war after another--1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982, plus lesser conflicts--Israel has generally conducted itself with great restraint over and above what has been demonstrated by other states in comparable conflicts. As Lozowick notes of the 1967 war, for example, while it brought nearly one million Arab civilians under Israeli rule, no expulsions or massacres followed, showing that the lessons of earlier Israeli military lapses in which Arab civilians had been killed (Kibiya, Kassem) had been duly learned.
He concludes that "the will to murder Jews was never the result of oppression and can never be resolved by removing it" - a neat summary of his view that the conflict between Arab and Jew is not the product of grievances that Israeli policy can assuage.
Some readers might argue with Lozowick's philosophical basis: it is arguable whether just war theory can possess all the clear-cut answers he would like at his disposal to moral dilemmas posed by a war in which even the pretense of a rule book has been discarded by suicide bombers. Others might object to his unapologetic effort to set a higher bar for Israeli conduct than that set for all other states. But problematic or otherwise, the more stringent formula he adopts only makes his ultimate conclusions the more persuasive.
Too passionate for the rational amongst us!.......2005-10-26
This book is indeed passionate. Too passionate for those who really want to learn about and understand the situation in the Middle East. In the first few pages we are told about little Jewish babies slaughtered in their cribs as Arabs from Pakistan to Morocco celebrated! Come on! First, Pakistanis are not Arabs! Neither is their neighbor Afghanistan or its neighbor Iran. The Arab world starts in Iraq. Indeed, the languages of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are ALL Indo-European -- meaning they are closer to English than to Arabic. It is out of this fantasy of a geography that this book is written to perpetuate myths and calm Zionist guilt about the Palestinian Nakba (dispossession and ethnic cleansing). Second, I am not sure where this new blood libel (killing babies in cribs) against Palestinians is coming from (the ratio of deaths in the current Intifada is still 3 to 1 Palestinian to Israeli civilians with higher percentage of children on the Palestinian side.
This book potentially perpetuates more anti-Semitism than a more historically honest description of the situation of the middle east. Its point about Israel's right to exist is trivial. Israel is a fact of life in the Middle East. It does exist. The question should be does Palestine has a right to exist as a neighbor to Israel, where Palestinians can live in peace without Israeli checkpoints, one-ton bombs and sniping settlers?
Book Description
The most famous scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein was also one of the century's most outspoken political activists. Deeply engaged with the events of his tumultuous times, from the two world wars and the Holocaust, to the atomic bomb and the Cold War, to the effort to establish a Jewish homeland, Einstein was a remarkably prolific political writer, someone who took courageous and often unpopular stands against nationalism, militarism, anti-Semitism, racism, and McCarthyism. In Einstein on Politics, leading Einstein scholars David Rowe and Robert Schulmann gather Einstein's most important public and private political writings and put them into historical context. The book reveals a little-known Einstein--not the ineffectual and naïve idealist of popular imagination, but a principled, shrewd pragmatist whose stands on political issues reflected the depth of his humanity.
Nothing encapsulates Einstein's profound involvement in twentieth-century politics like the atomic bomb. Here we read the former militant pacifist's 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany might try to develop an atomic bomb. But the book also documents how Einstein tried to explain this action to Japanese pacifists after the United States used atomic weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that spurred Einstein to call for international control of nuclear technology.
A vivid firsthand view of how one of the twentieth century's greatest minds responded to the greatest political challenges of his day, Einstein on Politics will forever change our picture of Einstein's public activism and private motivations.
ON PACIFISM
"When those who are bound together by pacifist ideals hold a meeting they are always consorting with their own kind only. They are like sheep huddled together while the wolves wait outside. I think pacifist speakers have this difficulty: they usually reach their own crowd, who are pacifists already. The sheep's voice does not get beyond this circle and therefore is ineffective. . . . Real pacifists, those who are not up in the clouds but who think and count realities, must fearlessly try to do things of practical value to the cause and not merely speak about pacifism. Deeds are needed. Mere words do not get pacifists anywhere."--Two Percent Speech, New York, 1930
ON HITLER
"Hitler appeared, a man with limited intellectual abilities and unfit for any useful work, bursting with envy and bitterness against all whom circumstance and nature had favored over him. Springing from the lower middle class, he had just enough class conceit to hate even the working class which was struggling for greater equality in living standards. But it was the culture and education which had been denied him forever that he hated most of all. In his desperate ambition for power he discovered that his speeches, confused and pervaded with hate as they were, received wild acclaim by those whose situa-tion and orientation resembled his own. He picked up this human flotsam on the streets and in the taverns and organized them around himself. This is the way he launched his political career."--On Hitler, 1935
ON ZIONISM
"Just one more personal word on the question of partition. I should much rath-er see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain--especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state."-- Our Debt to Zionism, 1938
ON MILITARISM
"I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II. . . . It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thought--in short, the psychological factors--are considered as unimportant and secondary. . . . The general inse-curity that goes hand in hand with this results in the sacrifice of the citizen's civil rights to the supposed welfare of the state. Political witch-hunting, controls of all sorts (e.g., control of teaching and research, of the press, and so forth) appear inevitable, and for this reason do not encounter that popular resistance, which, were it not for the military mentality, would provide a protection."--The Military Mentality, 1947
Average customer rating:
- Ten Years Ahead of Its Time, Now Part of "True Cost" Meme
|
The True Cost of Conflict/Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society: Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Theory
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Natural Resources
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
War & Peace
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Violence in Society
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Shakespeare
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
ASIN: 1565842685 |
Book Description
The True Cost of Conflict is the first book to show in clear and accessible terms the vast price of conflict to the human race. The result of a unique collaboration among six international humanitarian organizations, this book reveals not only the number of deaths and injuries resulting from war, but also the less-publicized consequences, such as the extreme economic damage incurred by both the participants and other communities, the dire social and developmental damage, and the environmental damage, which are often ignored in calculating the ravages of war. The seven conflicts examined in detail are: (a) the Gulf War; (b) Indonesia's invasion of East Timor; (c) the civil war in Mozambique; (d) The civil war in Sudan; (e) the guerrilla war in Peru; (f) the struggle for independence in Kashmir; and (g) the war in former Yugoslavia.
Customer Reviews:
Ten Years Ahead of Its Time, Now Part of "True Cost" Meme.......2007-01-05
This book was ten years ahead of its time in relation to the emergent "true cost" meme that is exploding as the public acquires access to more information and the tools to make sense of that information.
The author has done a first-rate job of looking at seven conflicts and their costs or (rarely) benefits. This is precisely the kind of analysis that is needed if Congresses and Parliaments are to be educated and weaned away from the bankers fondness for war and credit for war as a profit harvesting opportunity.
I recommend that in addition to this book, the reader consider General Smedley Butler's book, "War is a Racket," and the superb book by Cees Wiebes, "Intelligence and the War in Bosnia" (see my review for lessons learned).
Book Description
The Rights of War and Peace is the first fully historical account of the formative period of modern theories of international law. It sets the scene with an extensive history of the theory of international relations from antiquity down to the seventeenth century. Professor Tuck then examines the arguments over the moral basis for war and international aggression, and links the debates to the writings of the great political theorists such as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. This is not only an account of international law: as Professor Tuck shows, ideas about inter-state relations were central to the formation of modern liberal political theory, for the best example the kind of agent which liberalism presupposes was provided by the modern state. As a result the book illuminates the presuppositions behind much current political theory, and puts into a new perspective the connection between liberalism and imperialism.
Books:
- The Hunters (A Presidential Agent Novel)
- The March: A Novel
- The Mountain Meadows Massacre
- The North Carolina Experience: An Interpretive and Documentary History
- The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq
- The Pack: Touch Of The Wolf (Book 5) (Silhouette Nocturne)
- The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to Islam (and the Crusades) (Politically Incorrect Guides)
- The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics
- The Road to Arnhem: A Screaming Eagle in Holland (World War II Library)
- The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Mississippi Sissy
- Devil's Acolyte
- Revolutionary Biology: The New, Gene-Centered View of Life
- The Capacity for Work in the Tropics
- Vertebrate Life
- Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design
- A Murder is Announced
- The Comforts of Home: Creating Relaxed Rooms With A Romantic Feel
- The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1
- Frontiers in Microbiology: A Collection of Minireviews from the Journal of Bacteriology
Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence
Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Injustice
Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: Memory, Law, and Repair
Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenges of Truth Commissions
When Sorry Isn't Enough: The Controversy Over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (Critical American Series)
