False Inheritance: Israel in Palestine and the Search for a Solution

by Michael Rice

"False Inheritance" is a review of the Arab-Israeli conflict over Palestine by a writer with a special and long-established relationship with the Arab states. Against the background of developments in the confrontation between the Palestinians and Israel, but taking into account the viewpoint of the non-Palestinian Arabs, it considers why the presence of the Zionist State in the Middle East is so profound an affront to the Arab's sense of history and continuity and why its continued existence as an exclusionist Jewish state is a perpetual threat to the stability and peace of the region. Beginning with the antecedents of the present situation, the work analyzes the uses to which archaeology has been put to provide a justification for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. In line with developments in contemporary scholarship, it approaches the "historical" chapters of the Old Testament on which much of the original Zionist claim to Palestine was based, as essentially mythological and devoid of historical or archaeological substance. Moving on to examine the origins of Zionism in Western Europe, it demonstrates that the Jews of Europe had no historical connection with the Middle East and that, in consequence, the Zionists claim to Palestine is entirely spurious legally, morally and factually. Looking to the future, the work suggests that, whatever the immediate outcome of the mutual recogition of Israel and the PLO, the solution to the matter of Palestine may lie in the changing demographic structure of Israel, a consequence of the emergence of the Oriental Jews to a preponderant position in society in Israel. As "Arab Jews," they may be more able to come to a permanent settlement with the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of Palestine once the essential condition of an agreement - the de-Zionization of Israel - has been achieved.

252 pages, ebook

First published January 3, 1994

About the author

Michael Rice is a specialist in the ancient history of the Middle east . also he is well known for his work in the planning and designing of museums throughout the Arabian peninsula. He is also the highly respected author of Egypt's Making (1990), Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf (1994) and Egypt's Legacy (1997)