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العرب و المحرقة النازية: حرب المرويات العربية-الإسرائيلية
لا ينحصر النزاع العربي - الإسرائيلي في الحروب التي خيضت في ساحات القتال في الشرق الأوسط. فلهذا النزاع بعدٌ آخر يتمثّل في حرب بين مرويات متعارضة تدور حول المحرقة النازية لليهود ونكبة الفلسطينيين، الذين استولت الحركة الصهيونية على وطنهم وحوّلت معظمهم إلى شعب من اللاجئين.
واستناداً إلى حشد من الوثائق، ينكبّ جلبير الأشقر على بحث معمّق في ردود الفعل العربية على معاداة السامية وعلى النازية، مشدِّداً على التنوّع السياسي والأيديولوجي الواسع لردود الفعل هذه.
هذا البحث هو مساهمة مهمّة وغير مسبوقة في دراسة الفكر السياسي العربي المعاصر.
"يجمع جلبير الأشقر بين فهم المؤرّخ العميق لآلية الخطاب السياسي العربي والمقاربة الرهيفة للجوانب الصادمة في كلّ منحى من مناحي هذا الموضوع... دراسةٌ رصينة". (رشيد خالدي، أستاذ كرسي إدوارد سعيد في الدراسات العربية المعاصرة في جامعة كولومبيا، نيويورك).
واستناداً إلى حشد من الوثائق، ينكبّ جلبير الأشقر على بحث معمّق في ردود الفعل العربية على معاداة السامية وعلى النازية، مشدِّداً على التنوّع السياسي والأيديولوجي الواسع لردود الفعل هذه.
هذا البحث هو مساهمة مهمّة وغير مسبوقة في دراسة الفكر السياسي العربي المعاصر.
"يجمع جلبير الأشقر بين فهم المؤرّخ العميق لآلية الخطاب السياسي العربي والمقاربة الرهيفة للجوانب الصادمة في كلّ منحى من مناحي هذا الموضوع... دراسةٌ رصينة". (رشيد خالدي، أستاذ كرسي إدوارد سعيد في الدراسات العربية المعاصرة في جامعة كولومبيا، نيويورك).
497 pages
First published January 1, 2009
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1213 people want to read
About the author
Gilbert Achcar
42 books122 followersGilbert Achcar is a Lebanese academic, writer, and socialist. He is a Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. His research interests cover the Near East and North Africa, the foreign policy of the United States, Globalisation, Islam, and Islamic fundamentalism. He is also a Fellow at the International Institute for Research and Education.
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July 5, 2012
The following are excerpts from a review that I wrote for "Fear and Loathing", the third issues of Critical Muslim.
The treatment of Jews who have remained in the Muslim world is no better or worse than that of any other minority. Since the founding of Israel their numbers have dwindled. Except for countries like Iran, where a substantial Jewish population still thrives, few in the Muslim world ever encounter a Jew. Most know Jews only through scripture or news reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All Jews as a result have been cast unwittingly as adversaries by a conflict with which most of them have no connection, which many even oppose.
There is no point denying that anti-Semitism exists in the Muslim world today and that Holocaust denial is not uncommon. This is deplorable. But the anti-Semitism of the Muslim world is an epiphenomenon of a political conflict; it doesn’t have social roots. ‘It is functional and political, not social,’ says Yehoshafat Harkabi, the leading Israeli scholar and former head of the military intelligence, no friend of the Arabs. For most Muslims, anti-Semitism is a function of ignorance and unfamiliarity; it is also an abstract means of participation in a conflict where Jews have been cast as the oppressor by virtue of a state which adorns its instruments of war with Jewish religious symbols. In this respect it is quite different from European anti-Semitism; it does not involve any actual contact with a Jew. It is also different in so far as it comes from a position of weakness, whereas European anti-Semitism was born of strength and directed against a vulnerable minority. It is comparable less to the racism of the Ku Klux Klan than to the reaction of the Black Panthers. Both kinds of hatred were totalizing, but only the former existed without a stimulus. Harkabi again:
Arab anti-Semitism is not the cause of the conflict but one of its results; it is not the reason for the hostile Arab attitude toward Israel and the Jews, but a means of deepening, justifying and institutionalizing that hostility. Its rise is connected with the tension created as a result of Zionist activity, and especially of the traumatic experience of defeat…Anti-Semitism is a weapon in this struggle.
[...]
But since the Holocaust is bandied about as a justification for the creation of Israel—and the dispossession of the Palestinians—some Arabs have assumed that the legitimacy of this enterprise could be undermined by questioning the Holocaust itself. Instead, writes Achcar, such partisans merely display an inhumanity which undermines their own cause, painting opposition to Zionist colonization as being based in anti-Semitism rather than in sympathy for its victims. Achcar notes that these attitudes, which have hardened as the conflict between Israel and the Arabs has escalated, sit in striking contrast with the Arab reactions contemporaneous with the Nazi genocide. He quotes many Arabs denouncing the genocide and professing sympathy for its victims, even as they affirmed the Palestinians inalienable political and national rights. Some even expressed a willingness to accept more Jewish refugees so long as the rest of the world was willing to accept their share.
All of this, however, has been erased from memory in no small part due to the Arabs own willingness to forfeit this admirable legacy. As Arabs and Muslims have abandoned this tradition in favour of clumsy flirtations with anti-Semitism, they have made it easier for their detractors to paint them as later-day Nazis. Trying to fight one alien import, Zionism, with another, anti-Semitism, was never likely to succeed. They seem to have overlooked that the former always relied on the later for its survival.
[...]
But where Achcar’s otherwise systematic, thorough and fair-minded work is lacking is in pointing to any reason other than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for explaining why anti-Semitic views prevail in places which have little investment in the conflict. Why even an otherwise astute politician like Gamal Adbul Nasser found it necessary to reference The Protocol , as he did in an interview with an Indian journalist. Might it be because discussions of Jewish power are so suppressed that people simply don’t know how to talk about it and inevitably turn to myth? There is a large disparity between Jewish political influence in the most powerful Western states and the amount of attention it gets in mainstream discourse. Consider the American electoral process: while it is commonplace to hear about the excessive influence of Wall Street over politicians, or the deleterious effect of the Citizens United legislation which allows corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money while enjoying all the protections of individual citizens, the fact is rarely mentioned that the the two biggest donors to both political parties–Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban–are rich Jews who are on record as saying that the issue they are interested in most is Israel. Both have supported intransigent policies in the Middle East. Yet few people even know their names. Why this silence? Is it the fear of being labelled an anti-Semite? Is it dogma, which recognizes no agents, only structures and processes?
Every time the US president is brow-beaten by an Israeli prime minister or his American allies, political discipline mandates that the mainstream intellectual not notice; but ordinary people do. However, unlike the intellectual, they are not equipped with the analytical tools necessary to assess this skewed balance of power. It is not entirely surprising then that some of them end up indulging in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories ascribing mythical powers to Jews, who are treated as an undifferentiated and coherent social bloc. The only way to disabuse them of these notions would be to present them with an analytically sound, sociological explanation which recognizes both the sources and limits of Jewish power and accepts the diversity of their class, cultural, and political affiliations. John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Tony Judt have done this with insight and rigour. But Achcar makes a single, somewhat disparaging, reference to the former two and does not discuss the Israel lobby at all. This is unfortunate since a scholar of Achcar’s calibre could have certainly elevated the debate. This small quibble notwithstanding, Achcar has made an invaluable contribution, and Muslims would do well to make a gift of his book to anyone who makes another reference to the Protocols.
The treatment of Jews who have remained in the Muslim world is no better or worse than that of any other minority. Since the founding of Israel their numbers have dwindled. Except for countries like Iran, where a substantial Jewish population still thrives, few in the Muslim world ever encounter a Jew. Most know Jews only through scripture or news reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All Jews as a result have been cast unwittingly as adversaries by a conflict with which most of them have no connection, which many even oppose.
There is no point denying that anti-Semitism exists in the Muslim world today and that Holocaust denial is not uncommon. This is deplorable. But the anti-Semitism of the Muslim world is an epiphenomenon of a political conflict; it doesn’t have social roots. ‘It is functional and political, not social,’ says Yehoshafat Harkabi, the leading Israeli scholar and former head of the military intelligence, no friend of the Arabs. For most Muslims, anti-Semitism is a function of ignorance and unfamiliarity; it is also an abstract means of participation in a conflict where Jews have been cast as the oppressor by virtue of a state which adorns its instruments of war with Jewish religious symbols. In this respect it is quite different from European anti-Semitism; it does not involve any actual contact with a Jew. It is also different in so far as it comes from a position of weakness, whereas European anti-Semitism was born of strength and directed against a vulnerable minority. It is comparable less to the racism of the Ku Klux Klan than to the reaction of the Black Panthers. Both kinds of hatred were totalizing, but only the former existed without a stimulus. Harkabi again:
Arab anti-Semitism is not the cause of the conflict but one of its results; it is not the reason for the hostile Arab attitude toward Israel and the Jews, but a means of deepening, justifying and institutionalizing that hostility. Its rise is connected with the tension created as a result of Zionist activity, and especially of the traumatic experience of defeat…Anti-Semitism is a weapon in this struggle.
[...]
But since the Holocaust is bandied about as a justification for the creation of Israel—and the dispossession of the Palestinians—some Arabs have assumed that the legitimacy of this enterprise could be undermined by questioning the Holocaust itself. Instead, writes Achcar, such partisans merely display an inhumanity which undermines their own cause, painting opposition to Zionist colonization as being based in anti-Semitism rather than in sympathy for its victims. Achcar notes that these attitudes, which have hardened as the conflict between Israel and the Arabs has escalated, sit in striking contrast with the Arab reactions contemporaneous with the Nazi genocide. He quotes many Arabs denouncing the genocide and professing sympathy for its victims, even as they affirmed the Palestinians inalienable political and national rights. Some even expressed a willingness to accept more Jewish refugees so long as the rest of the world was willing to accept their share.
All of this, however, has been erased from memory in no small part due to the Arabs own willingness to forfeit this admirable legacy. As Arabs and Muslims have abandoned this tradition in favour of clumsy flirtations with anti-Semitism, they have made it easier for their detractors to paint them as later-day Nazis. Trying to fight one alien import, Zionism, with another, anti-Semitism, was never likely to succeed. They seem to have overlooked that the former always relied on the later for its survival.
[...]
But where Achcar’s otherwise systematic, thorough and fair-minded work is lacking is in pointing to any reason other than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for explaining why anti-Semitic views prevail in places which have little investment in the conflict. Why even an otherwise astute politician like Gamal Adbul Nasser found it necessary to reference The Protocol , as he did in an interview with an Indian journalist. Might it be because discussions of Jewish power are so suppressed that people simply don’t know how to talk about it and inevitably turn to myth? There is a large disparity between Jewish political influence in the most powerful Western states and the amount of attention it gets in mainstream discourse. Consider the American electoral process: while it is commonplace to hear about the excessive influence of Wall Street over politicians, or the deleterious effect of the Citizens United legislation which allows corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money while enjoying all the protections of individual citizens, the fact is rarely mentioned that the the two biggest donors to both political parties–Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban–are rich Jews who are on record as saying that the issue they are interested in most is Israel. Both have supported intransigent policies in the Middle East. Yet few people even know their names. Why this silence? Is it the fear of being labelled an anti-Semite? Is it dogma, which recognizes no agents, only structures and processes?
Every time the US president is brow-beaten by an Israeli prime minister or his American allies, political discipline mandates that the mainstream intellectual not notice; but ordinary people do. However, unlike the intellectual, they are not equipped with the analytical tools necessary to assess this skewed balance of power. It is not entirely surprising then that some of them end up indulging in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories ascribing mythical powers to Jews, who are treated as an undifferentiated and coherent social bloc. The only way to disabuse them of these notions would be to present them with an analytically sound, sociological explanation which recognizes both the sources and limits of Jewish power and accepts the diversity of their class, cultural, and political affiliations. John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Tony Judt have done this with insight and rigour. But Achcar makes a single, somewhat disparaging, reference to the former two and does not discuss the Israel lobby at all. This is unfortunate since a scholar of Achcar’s calibre could have certainly elevated the debate. This small quibble notwithstanding, Achcar has made an invaluable contribution, and Muslims would do well to make a gift of his book to anyone who makes another reference to the Protocols.
November 10, 2015
عمل مهم جدا، راهنيته دائمة بحكم الاستغلال المتواصل للمحرقة في الدفاع عن السياسات الإسرائيلية. لجلبير الأشقر صرامة أكاديمية كبيرة و الكتاب يوثق المواقف العربية الليبرالية و القومية و السلفية الإسلامية و غيرها أمام المحرقة و تأسيس إسرائيل
أهمية هذا الكتاب تكمن في أنه يكسر السردية المهيمنة الصهيونية والعربية و يصف لنا واقعا متغيرا و إديولوجيات قد تظهر متحجرة أو راسخة في معاداة السامية لكنها مليئة بالتجاذبات التي تغير المواقف وتجبر على مراجعات، وهذا واضح بجلاء في المواقف القومية و السلفية الإسلامية. هذا الكتاب أيضا يقوم بفصل منهجي بين اليهودية و الصهيونية جاعلا من معاداة الصهيونية موقفا إنسانيا لا يقع في معاداة السامية، وهو الفخ الذي يقع فيه كثيرا الخطاب "المقاوم" الشعبي و السياسي و الديني
أهمية هذا الكتاب تكمن في أنه يكسر السردية المهيمنة الصهيونية والعربية و يصف لنا واقعا متغيرا و إديولوجيات قد تظهر متحجرة أو راسخة في معاداة السامية لكنها مليئة بالتجاذبات التي تغير المواقف وتجبر على مراجعات، وهذا واضح بجلاء في المواقف القومية و السلفية الإسلامية. هذا الكتاب أيضا يقوم بفصل منهجي بين اليهودية و الصهيونية جاعلا من معاداة الصهيونية موقفا إنسانيا لا يقع في معاداة السامية، وهو الفخ الذي يقع فيه كثيرا الخطاب "المقاوم" الشعبي و السياسي و الديني
March 22, 2025
كتاب مهم، وتأتي قراءته في وقت يشهد فيه قطاع غزة إبادة حقيقية لم يشهدها من قبل، في ظل صمت عربي حقير ومخزٍ، وتواطؤ غربي بشكل أو بآخر. مع ذلك، هناك مسؤولية اجتماعية يجب أن تتحملها حركة حماس عندما يأتي حساب التاريخ، بسبب أنها من أطلقت تلك العملية العسكرية المعروفة بـ"طوفان الأقصى".
يُوضح الكتاب كيف تعامل العرب سياسيًا وخطابيًا مع حادثة المحرقة، حيث أن الهولوكوست هو حدث مؤسِّس في الدول الغربية التي تشكّلت بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، والتي عملت على كبح المشاعر القومية وتوفير حياة اجتماعية واقتصادية آمنة نوعًا ما، لضمان عدم تجييش العاطلين في حركات قومية يمينية تكرّس الإبادات والفصل العنصري.
تكمن أهمية الهولوكوست في كونها تتويجًا حداثيًا أداتيًا لمعاداة السامية الغربية غير العقلانية المسيحية، حيث اتخذت معاداة السامية الغربية أشكالًا عدة، بدءًا من مناظرات متوهّمة مع حاخامات يهود، وصولًا إلى كتابات مثل "بروتوكولات حكماء صهيون".
يُوضح الكاتب ردود فعل الوسط العربي والخطاب العربي المتنوع تجاه المحرقة التي حدثت على يد الألمان، وقسّم الكتاب العرب إلى أقسام بما يتناسب مع شكل الحياة السياسية آنذاك: الليبراليون، القوميون، الإسلاميون، الماركسيون. وقد أسهب الكاتب في الحديث عن شخصية الحاج أمين الحسيني، بسبب دوره المحوري في الحركة الوطنية الفلسطينية وتعاونه مع النازيين بشكل أو بآخر، وكيف استُخدمت السرديات الإسرائيلية دوره المنحط نوعًا ما في شيطنة العرب وتصويرهم كنازيين جدد.
ثم يستعرض الكاتب الآراء العربية بعد النكبة، وكيف تم صك مصطلح "النكبة" في المخيال الفلسطيني والعربي، باعتبارها حادثة مؤسِّسة مثل حادثة الهولوكوست لليهود. كما يُناقش كيف تعاملت النخب العربية من عبد الناصر إلى منظمة فتح وحماس، مرورًا بالأحزاب الإسلامية مثل حزب الله. تطورت معاداة السامية، التي كانت مستوردة حصريًا من الغرب، وتم إدماجها بشكل مقصور وبدائي في الخطاب العربي، حيث كانت معاداة السامية ردًا على الحركة الصهيونية، وليست مكونًا هوياتيًا للعرب، على عكس الغرب الذي اتخذ معاداة السامية مكونًا أساسيًا لقوميته.
يستعرض الكتاب أيضًا آراء المؤرخين الصهاينة الكلاسيكيين والجدد، ورأيهم في معاداة السامية العربية، والنكبة، والهولوكوست، حيث يذهب كثير منهم إلى إدانة الصهيونية باعتبارها حركة سياسية عنصرية تحاول قومنة اليهود وفصلهم عن إنسانيتهم، بدعمهم إبادة الفلسطينيين وغض الطرف عن إبادة الأتراك للأرمن وخلافه.
يُوضح الكتاب كيف تعامل العرب سياسيًا وخطابيًا مع حادثة المحرقة، حيث أن الهولوكوست هو حدث مؤسِّس في الدول الغربية التي تشكّلت بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، والتي عملت على كبح المشاعر القومية وتوفير حياة اجتماعية واقتصادية آمنة نوعًا ما، لضمان عدم تجييش العاطلين في حركات قومية يمينية تكرّس الإبادات والفصل العنصري.
تكمن أهمية الهولوكوست في كونها تتويجًا حداثيًا أداتيًا لمعاداة السامية الغربية غير العقلانية المسيحية، حيث اتخذت معاداة السامية الغربية أشكالًا عدة، بدءًا من مناظرات متوهّمة مع حاخامات يهود، وصولًا إلى كتابات مثل "بروتوكولات حكماء صهيون".
يُوضح الكاتب ردود فعل الوسط العربي والخطاب العربي المتنوع تجاه المحرقة التي حدثت على يد الألمان، وقسّم الكتاب العرب إلى أقسام بما يتناسب مع شكل الحياة السياسية آنذاك: الليبراليون، القوميون، الإسلاميون، الماركسيون. وقد أسهب الكاتب في الحديث عن شخصية الحاج أمين الحسيني، بسبب دوره المحوري في الحركة الوطنية الفلسطينية وتعاونه مع النازيين بشكل أو بآخر، وكيف استُخدمت السرديات الإسرائيلية دوره المنحط نوعًا ما في شيطنة العرب وتصويرهم كنازيين جدد.
ثم يستعرض الكاتب الآراء العربية بعد النكبة، وكيف تم صك مصطلح "النكبة" في المخيال الفلسطيني والعربي، باعتبارها حادثة مؤسِّسة مثل حادثة الهولوكوست لليهود. كما يُناقش كيف تعاملت النخب العربية من عبد الناصر إلى منظمة فتح وحماس، مرورًا بالأحزاب الإسلامية مثل حزب الله. تطورت معاداة السامية، التي كانت مستوردة حصريًا من الغرب، وتم إدماجها بشكل مقصور وبدائي في الخطاب العربي، حيث كانت معاداة السامية ردًا على الحركة الصهيونية، وليست مكونًا هوياتيًا للعرب، على عكس الغرب الذي اتخذ معاداة السامية مكونًا أساسيًا لقوميته.
يستعرض الكتاب أيضًا آراء المؤرخين الصهاينة الكلاسيكيين والجدد، ورأيهم في معاداة السامية العربية، والنكبة، والهولوكوست، حيث يذهب كثير منهم إلى إدانة الصهيونية باعتبارها حركة سياسية عنصرية تحاول قومنة اليهود وفصلهم عن إنسانيتهم، بدعمهم إبادة الفلسطينيين وغض الطرف عن إبادة الأتراك للأرمن وخلافه.
September 10, 2013
ZIONISM, THE ARABS, FACISM AND NAZI GERMANY
In "Arabs and the Holocaust" Gilbert Achcar (co-debator with Noam Chomsky "Perilous Power") has cut through many of the myths, exaggerations, and down right nonsense that surrounds the debate about Arab attitudes towards Nazi Germany and the persecution and eventual genocide of European Jews between 1933 and 1945.
Much of the writing on this subject by supporters of Israel focuses on those Arabs who dallied at one or another rhetorical level with Facism, or on those such as the pernicious buffoon Amin al-Husseini, the British declared Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who spent the War in Rome and Berlin, and whose importance as a historical figure is entirely disproportionate to the enormous literature on him, including one encyclopaedia of the Holocaust where his entry is second to, and only marginally shorter than, that of Hitler. Achcar doesn't avoid these issues and writes critically on them, but keeps his sense of proportion and puts them into their historical context.
He also covers the bigger picture on Arab attitudes to the Nazis in general, and the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime in particular. Within a number of broad categories (Marxist, Liberal, Nationalist and Religious) he identifies a substantial amount of writing that is highly critical of the Nazi Regime. For Marxists this was complete, with the exception of the political gymnastics required for the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 1939 to June 1941, and even then there were a number of Arab Marxists who were deeply critical of that development. Again, for Liberals who were sympathetic to Western secular values, though critical of their imperialist practices, the hostility and critical attitude to the Nazi Regime was almost total. The attitudes of the religious and nationalistic Arabs covered a broader spectrum, from hostility to sympathy. For the Palestinians who were on the sharp end of the Zionists quest for land to build the Jewish State, the reaction was not surprisingly - but again far from uniform - more sympathetic to the Nazis anti-Semitism.
The thorny issue of Zionist-Nazi contacts is dealt with, Achcar deeming them to be tactical arrangements by the Zionists to further their cause. The issue of how Zionists dealt with the threat to Jews in Europe during the 1930's is also given some coverage, and it becomes clear that the attitudes and actions of Zionism, and it's international supporters in Europe and the US, were tilted towards their own goals rather than the saving of as many Jews as possible from the increasing horrors of the Nazi regime.
"The Arabs and the Holocaust" is a mine of information that covers much more than the issues mentioned above including the growth of Arab anti-Semitism, the actual role of Arabs in the fighting during WW2 (a tiny proportion of Arabs who fought in WW2 fought on the Axis side; 1500 Arabs ended up in concentration camps), the Zionist discourse on the Nakba, as well as pro-Zionist writings on the Arabs and Nazism. As a work of scholarship it is exceptionally clearly written despite being dense with detail. Achcars principled and impartial examination of a wide range of issues is a breath of fresh air in a field where much pernicious and partisan nonsense has all too often prevailed. A book I'd whole-heartedly recommend.
In "Arabs and the Holocaust" Gilbert Achcar (co-debator with Noam Chomsky "Perilous Power") has cut through many of the myths, exaggerations, and down right nonsense that surrounds the debate about Arab attitudes towards Nazi Germany and the persecution and eventual genocide of European Jews between 1933 and 1945.
Much of the writing on this subject by supporters of Israel focuses on those Arabs who dallied at one or another rhetorical level with Facism, or on those such as the pernicious buffoon Amin al-Husseini, the British declared Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who spent the War in Rome and Berlin, and whose importance as a historical figure is entirely disproportionate to the enormous literature on him, including one encyclopaedia of the Holocaust where his entry is second to, and only marginally shorter than, that of Hitler. Achcar doesn't avoid these issues and writes critically on them, but keeps his sense of proportion and puts them into their historical context.
He also covers the bigger picture on Arab attitudes to the Nazis in general, and the persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime in particular. Within a number of broad categories (Marxist, Liberal, Nationalist and Religious) he identifies a substantial amount of writing that is highly critical of the Nazi Regime. For Marxists this was complete, with the exception of the political gymnastics required for the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 1939 to June 1941, and even then there were a number of Arab Marxists who were deeply critical of that development. Again, for Liberals who were sympathetic to Western secular values, though critical of their imperialist practices, the hostility and critical attitude to the Nazi Regime was almost total. The attitudes of the religious and nationalistic Arabs covered a broader spectrum, from hostility to sympathy. For the Palestinians who were on the sharp end of the Zionists quest for land to build the Jewish State, the reaction was not surprisingly - but again far from uniform - more sympathetic to the Nazis anti-Semitism.
The thorny issue of Zionist-Nazi contacts is dealt with, Achcar deeming them to be tactical arrangements by the Zionists to further their cause. The issue of how Zionists dealt with the threat to Jews in Europe during the 1930's is also given some coverage, and it becomes clear that the attitudes and actions of Zionism, and it's international supporters in Europe and the US, were tilted towards their own goals rather than the saving of as many Jews as possible from the increasing horrors of the Nazi regime.
"The Arabs and the Holocaust" is a mine of information that covers much more than the issues mentioned above including the growth of Arab anti-Semitism, the actual role of Arabs in the fighting during WW2 (a tiny proportion of Arabs who fought in WW2 fought on the Axis side; 1500 Arabs ended up in concentration camps), the Zionist discourse on the Nakba, as well as pro-Zionist writings on the Arabs and Nazism. As a work of scholarship it is exceptionally clearly written despite being dense with detail. Achcars principled and impartial examination of a wide range of issues is a breath of fresh air in a field where much pernicious and partisan nonsense has all too often prevailed. A book I'd whole-heartedly recommend.
August 1, 2012
Achcar's book is a daring attempt to cover a highly controversial topic which he manages to do with incredible erudition and a good grasp of the subject matter. More so than other books on this topic, Achcar avoids coming down heavily on one side or the other and is therefore able to give a very accessible and enlightening view of the topics covered.
Most interesting is Achcar's ability to use first hand sources due to his ability to read Arabic. Other books I have read have very little or cite other authors who have cited others in order to inform their works. Undoubtedly because of his history on the left in the Middle East one gets the feeling of reading the views of someone who has been parts of the conversation for many years. Due to this he gives a good overview of the different strands of Arabic political influence that have been most prevalent in recent years.
Despite his Marxist background what comes through most clearly is Gilbert's humanism and desire for peace. He rightfully notes that things have deteriorated but he maintains hope for the future built on a mutual understanding of the tragedies for the refugees from both sides.
Any student of Arabic Studies or Holocaust Studies would do well to read this highly informative piece of work.
Most interesting is Achcar's ability to use first hand sources due to his ability to read Arabic. Other books I have read have very little or cite other authors who have cited others in order to inform their works. Undoubtedly because of his history on the left in the Middle East one gets the feeling of reading the views of someone who has been parts of the conversation for many years. Due to this he gives a good overview of the different strands of Arabic political influence that have been most prevalent in recent years.
Despite his Marxist background what comes through most clearly is Gilbert's humanism and desire for peace. He rightfully notes that things have deteriorated but he maintains hope for the future built on a mutual understanding of the tragedies for the refugees from both sides.
Any student of Arabic Studies or Holocaust Studies would do well to read this highly informative piece of work.
December 30, 2024
تناول مميز ونادر للصراع العربي الإسرائيلي من زاوية لم يعتد البحث التاريخي العربي أن يلج إلى النظر للقضية من خلالها، وهو ممتلئ بالكثير من الآراء الجريئة لجلبير الأشقر كالعادة، وهي جريئة سواء كان على مستوى القارئ الأجنبي الأوروبي، أو القارئ العربي على حد سواء، فالكتاب ليس اشتباكًا مع وجهة النظر الغربية بشأن الهولوكوست فقط، ولكنه اشتباكًا كذلك مع وجهة النظر العربية وقرائتها للصراع من خلال رموز وأساطير معينة
December 8, 2011
Let me summarize the book: Arabs were against the holocaust, but hated and hate zionism.
That's it. This book goes into excruciating detail about the different Arab groups that were against the holocaust and don't like zionism, but didn't seem to offer much more on the broader issue, and only skirts the issues of holocaust deniers at the very end.
That's it. This book goes into excruciating detail about the different Arab groups that were against the holocaust and don't like zionism, but didn't seem to offer much more on the broader issue, and only skirts the issues of holocaust deniers at the very end.
January 9, 2016
كتاب كثيف و ضخم و لكن سلاسة الانتقال و ترتيب الفصول وطريقة طرح الآراء و مناقشتها و تفسيرها ضمن سياقها التاريخي و ظروفها السياسية يجعل الكتاب ممتع ومفيد في آن .
wishlist-nonfiction
May 17, 2016The Guardian review: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010...
August 17, 2014
This book is myth-dispelling of the highest order. It takes long held prejudices of Arab-Jewish relations and turns them upside down. The central theme of Holocaust reactions in the Arab world is an area that has required some tidying up over the years and here we have it. He recognises that now Holocaust denial is common throughout the middle east, and surmises that this is a reaction to events than a genuine belief. How does one go about hurting the people of Israel when all recourse to action has been taken away, you revert to name calling. Where this book excels its analysis of Arab reactions at the time of the Shoah, as well as prior and post hoc. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in his anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi discourse was the exception to, rather than example of, the rule followed by many in the Arab world with regard to the Jewish Holocaust of World War II. The shadow of Palestinian nationalism, rather than being the elephant in the room, is the explanation for subsequent attitudes. Arab leaders at the time were not averse to Jewish immigration but they believed this to be a shared burden. The request was for western nations such as The US and Britain to take their fair share of the refugees. Due to their own intolerance of Jews these nations took far fewer than they should have, even when they knew the level to which German intolerance had got. It is documented meticulously with statements from Zionist leaders during the war who in certain ways supported Nazi behaviour since they knew that such persecution in the end would push them straight in to the protecting arms of the Zionists who even then wished to colonise Palestine from “the river to the sea”. The Nakba vs the Shoah is an unending argument. Statistically we all know which was worse, but both sides invoke the right and refusal of language when it comes to such terms. Indeed Israeli ministers routinely threaten a “shoah” on the Arabs of Palestine. Likewise Palestinian leaders call in to question the number of people killed in the Holocaust. This tit-for-tat is essentially a pathetic attempt at reduction and impact. One tried to keep its sacred tradition of victimhood while the other uses primitive playground taunts as a substitute for power. This book offers no answers to the current problems in the middle east but it does set the record straight on the history of Arab Holocaust denial. The only group that advocates it are the pan-Islamists who we now call fundamentalists, but who are also part of regimes that we in the west, as well as Israel have propped up for decades under the “anything-but-communism” polices of the Cold War. Now these regimes are biting modernity in the posterior and they have become the enemy that most sensible people always knew they would. Real Arab national leaders of war-time nations and people in the middle east were incredibly sympathetic to the plight of the Jews in Europe and stood aside their fellow Semites in condemning the German atrocities. Indeed many Muslims risked their own lives to protect those of the Jews in various occupied territories. They saw the Germans as the next great colonial power, knowing that under Nazi rule they would be no better than under British rule and possibly worse. This is an excellent and well researched work with the references running to scores of pages, the bibliography likewise. Well worth reading for anyone who wants a clearer understanding of modern middle-eastern history.
July 28, 2020
The book is probably worth a star and a half. pretty ambitious, doesn't get the job done.
The book fluctuates between the history of Arab’s reaction to the holocaust (not all Arab) and the author's critique of Zionism which dominates the book.
Yeah... the title is a bit misleading …most of the book ends up, him talking about Zionism, and you know what if the title was different it would've been better.
Few things that were super off:
while comparing the Islamic figure Al- Husseini to the Arab liberals(on the reason why the west does not take the liberals seriously), he doesn't take the influence into consideration.
When it comes to Communists, He cuts it off in 1947.
And the nationalist section is the worst. the research there is super weak and goes very light on them. …. You get some hilarious lines in the Baathist section (they later deviated) and (to the specialist) … obviously he is not a specialist on Arab nationalism.
There are a few things he didn't mention like the committee Afalq made to help Gaylani in Iraq. The direct responsibility of Gaylani’s colonels for Farhod … the German ambassador role in Iraq. King Ghazi and his pro-Nazi “Arab voice radio”.
you get the idea… and I think it's pretty hilarious coming from a Marxist describing Arab nationalism as a left-wing politics.
If he just wrote a book on Zionism it would've been so much better.
The book fluctuates between the history of Arab’s reaction to the holocaust (not all Arab) and the author's critique of Zionism which dominates the book.
Yeah... the title is a bit misleading …most of the book ends up, him talking about Zionism, and you know what if the title was different it would've been better.
Few things that were super off:
while comparing the Islamic figure Al- Husseini to the Arab liberals(on the reason why the west does not take the liberals seriously), he doesn't take the influence into consideration.
When it comes to Communists, He cuts it off in 1947.
And the nationalist section is the worst. the research there is super weak and goes very light on them. …. You get some hilarious lines in the Baathist section (they later deviated) and (to the specialist) … obviously he is not a specialist on Arab nationalism.
There are a few things he didn't mention like the committee Afalq made to help Gaylani in Iraq. The direct responsibility of Gaylani’s colonels for Farhod … the German ambassador role in Iraq. King Ghazi and his pro-Nazi “Arab voice radio”.
you get the idea… and I think it's pretty hilarious coming from a Marxist describing Arab nationalism as a left-wing politics.
If he just wrote a book on Zionism it would've been so much better.
December 16, 2010
ثمة سردية بالغة القوة بشأن الهولوكوست في الغرب ، وهي تضع أي كاتب عربي في موقع غير مؤات إذ سيكون عليه لقول أي شيء عن النكبة أن يقول شيئا عن المحرقة، و أن يسوغ ألم الفلسطينيين بألم اليهود ، مثبتا لهذا صفة الألم الأكبر ،إلا أن ذلك لا ينفي عن الكتاب موضوعية العرض من منطلق الغرب كونه كتب بالفرنسية وترجم أول ما ترجم إلى الإنجليزية ومنه إلى العربية، وهو يتناول السرديات العربية للمحرقة بشيء من التفكيك المنطقي و الموضوعي.
December 14, 2025
I loved the first part of this book. Achcar's explanation of Arab communism, secularism, and Islamism—particularly his focus on Amin al-Husseini and Rashid Rida—is fantastic. He dismantles the naive idea of a monolithic "Arab politics" operating on an "enemy of my enemy" principle vis-à-vis Hitler and Nazi Germany. By dissecting four ideological currents (Liberal Westernizers, Marxists, Nationalists, and Reactionary Pan-Islamists), he illuminates the complexity of Arab responses to Nazism. It is excellent scholarship, drawing on Arabic-language sources that most Westerners simply have no access to.
The second part is structured chronologically rather than ideologically, moving through "The Nasser Years (1948-67)," "The PLO Years (1967-88)," and "The Years of Islamic Resistances (1988 to the Present)." Here, Achcar's own politics come into sharp relief: he chastises Israeli "racism" towards Palestinians, laments Israel's blindness to parallels between the Holocaust and the Nakba, and subtly argues for a secular democratic one-state solution.
He attempts to apply the same nuanced approach to Zionist politics that made the first part so compelling, distinguishing between different strands of Zionism and emphasizing that not all Zionists are identical, not all Jews are Zionists. He highlights the Israeli New Historians (particularly Tom Segev) and former Jewish Agency head Avraham Burg as examples of "right-thinking" Zionists, figures with what he calls "irreproachable Zionist credentials" whose critiques of Israeli policy demonstrate that opposition to certain Israeli actions isn't inherently antisemitic.
Jeffrey Herf describes as Achcar being "a man at war with what he has written in his own book." The nuanced ideological dissection of Part I gives way to what Herf calls "superficial, unfair, and unreliable readings" of Zionist thought in Part II. Matthias Küntzel puts it more bluntly: this is "a book in which an author from the political left seeks to protect the dogmas of Western anti-Zionism from the reality of Arab antisemitism."
Reading this second section post-October 7th leaves me particularly cold.. I'm not detached from the subject. I teach Israeli culture, I have family in Tel Aviv. October 7th wasn't just news; it was an attack on people in my world, followed by a war that has dominated my conversations, my teaching, my sense of mine and my family’s security. Reading Achcar's arguments about Jewish self-determination and Palestinian dispossession in that context was difficult.
But it's not just emotional responses coloring my reading. There is also the fundamental historical question: where else was this small, beleaguered people supposed to go after the Holocaust? Our history is lachrymose, littered with pogroms, punctuated by genocides. The post-war period saw continued violence against Jews in Europe and the Arab world, closed borders across the globe, and the reality that nowhere was safe. Is it any wonder we sought self-determination after centuries as subalterns?
Achcar acknowledges that Eastern European Zionism "emerged in reaction to an unbearable form of racist oppression that, ultimately, defined the Jews as a race and culminated in the Nazi genocide." Yet this acknowledgment felt a bit like a clearing of the throat before the real argument: that "statist Zionism," once it created a Jewish state in Palestine, became "a fundamentally racist colonial movement comparable to the European forms of colonialism with which it had identified."
Here's where Achcar's framework is the most problematic: he takes issue with religion—Judaism—determining nationality. But like Hinduism, Judaism is an ethnoreligion. In reducing Judaism to its purely religious dimensions, he strips away its claim to peoplehood, ignoring the millennia-old understanding of Jews as a people. As the Jewish Review of Books noted, Achcar "never once offers a definition of Zionism itself" beyond implied equivalence with dispossession and racism. This isn't simply theological sleight of hand; it's a fundamental misunderstanding of Jewish identity that no amount of citing Avraham Burg can fix.
Achcar's first section succeeds precisely because he resists flattening complexity. He shows us Arab intellectuals wrestling with modernity, nationalism, and imperialism in all their contradictory fullness—liberal Palestinians who condemned Nazi antisemitism even while opposing Zionism, Marxists who distinguished anti-Zionism from anti-Judaism, nationalists whose positions varied wildly based on their relationships with British imperialism. But when he turns to Zionism and Jewish identity, that same generous interpretive lens collapses. The Palestinians' national aspirations are treated as self-evident and legitimate; Jewish national aspirations require extensive justification and are perpetually suspect, always already tainted by their colonial expression.
This doesn't mean Achcar's criticisms of Israeli policy are wrong—many are shared by Israeli scholars he cites. But there's a difference between critiquing specific policies and questioning the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood itself. The former is necessary political debate; the latter is erasure.
The second part is structured chronologically rather than ideologically, moving through "The Nasser Years (1948-67)," "The PLO Years (1967-88)," and "The Years of Islamic Resistances (1988 to the Present)." Here, Achcar's own politics come into sharp relief: he chastises Israeli "racism" towards Palestinians, laments Israel's blindness to parallels between the Holocaust and the Nakba, and subtly argues for a secular democratic one-state solution.
He attempts to apply the same nuanced approach to Zionist politics that made the first part so compelling, distinguishing between different strands of Zionism and emphasizing that not all Zionists are identical, not all Jews are Zionists. He highlights the Israeli New Historians (particularly Tom Segev) and former Jewish Agency head Avraham Burg as examples of "right-thinking" Zionists, figures with what he calls "irreproachable Zionist credentials" whose critiques of Israeli policy demonstrate that opposition to certain Israeli actions isn't inherently antisemitic.
Jeffrey Herf describes as Achcar being "a man at war with what he has written in his own book." The nuanced ideological dissection of Part I gives way to what Herf calls "superficial, unfair, and unreliable readings" of Zionist thought in Part II. Matthias Küntzel puts it more bluntly: this is "a book in which an author from the political left seeks to protect the dogmas of Western anti-Zionism from the reality of Arab antisemitism."
Reading this second section post-October 7th leaves me particularly cold.. I'm not detached from the subject. I teach Israeli culture, I have family in Tel Aviv. October 7th wasn't just news; it was an attack on people in my world, followed by a war that has dominated my conversations, my teaching, my sense of mine and my family’s security. Reading Achcar's arguments about Jewish self-determination and Palestinian dispossession in that context was difficult.
But it's not just emotional responses coloring my reading. There is also the fundamental historical question: where else was this small, beleaguered people supposed to go after the Holocaust? Our history is lachrymose, littered with pogroms, punctuated by genocides. The post-war period saw continued violence against Jews in Europe and the Arab world, closed borders across the globe, and the reality that nowhere was safe. Is it any wonder we sought self-determination after centuries as subalterns?
Achcar acknowledges that Eastern European Zionism "emerged in reaction to an unbearable form of racist oppression that, ultimately, defined the Jews as a race and culminated in the Nazi genocide." Yet this acknowledgment felt a bit like a clearing of the throat before the real argument: that "statist Zionism," once it created a Jewish state in Palestine, became "a fundamentally racist colonial movement comparable to the European forms of colonialism with which it had identified."
Here's where Achcar's framework is the most problematic: he takes issue with religion—Judaism—determining nationality. But like Hinduism, Judaism is an ethnoreligion. In reducing Judaism to its purely religious dimensions, he strips away its claim to peoplehood, ignoring the millennia-old understanding of Jews as a people. As the Jewish Review of Books noted, Achcar "never once offers a definition of Zionism itself" beyond implied equivalence with dispossession and racism. This isn't simply theological sleight of hand; it's a fundamental misunderstanding of Jewish identity that no amount of citing Avraham Burg can fix.
Achcar's first section succeeds precisely because he resists flattening complexity. He shows us Arab intellectuals wrestling with modernity, nationalism, and imperialism in all their contradictory fullness—liberal Palestinians who condemned Nazi antisemitism even while opposing Zionism, Marxists who distinguished anti-Zionism from anti-Judaism, nationalists whose positions varied wildly based on their relationships with British imperialism. But when he turns to Zionism and Jewish identity, that same generous interpretive lens collapses. The Palestinians' national aspirations are treated as self-evident and legitimate; Jewish national aspirations require extensive justification and are perpetually suspect, always already tainted by their colonial expression.
This doesn't mean Achcar's criticisms of Israeli policy are wrong—many are shared by Israeli scholars he cites. But there's a difference between critiquing specific policies and questioning the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood itself. The former is necessary political debate; the latter is erasure.
October 5, 2020
Professor Achcar has compiled a nuanced and judicious antidote to the prevailing, self-serving equation of Arabs = Nazis. The obvious utility of tendentious scholarship in promoting Israel's selfish and aggressive aggrandizement of this issue needs little explanation. Contradict this with insightful and balanced research, however, and one will need a second book to "answer" and "explain" and "justify" one's self before the avalanche of mud sure to descend with all the fury of bad motives questioned.
From the farhud (pogrom) of 1941 Baghdad to the naqba (catatrophe) of Palestine seven years later, Achcar dissects the blind passions of the period while making no apology for his own perspective. Especially helpful is his dissection of Grand Mufti Husseini, whose dead-end wartime collaboration with Hitler is conveniently portrayed as damning all Palestinians, and by extension all Arabs. Do the same standards apply to Marshal Petain and his Vichy regime, as representing all Frenchmen past and present? Hardly, but then the French are on the right side of the Western power equation, aren't they? When the Nazis conquered their corner of North Africa the Jews suffered accordingly; and had they occupied the Levant they surely would have found Quislings to run their colonies as in Europe. Yet Nazi racial ideology and administrative malpractice would just as surely have provoked the same inevitable backlash wherever the Third Reich reigned. Must one cynically hope that this had in fact occurred, just to settle the subsequent mishmash of pseudo-scholarship?
One reviewer states: "Rejecting the conclusion of Israeli historian Benny Morris that Jews faced annihilation in 1948, Professor Achcar writes: 'How could the Palestinians have mustered the strength to perpetrate genocide when they lacked even the strength to prevent their expulsion and were not prepared for war?' Apparently Professor Achcar has forgotten The Arab Liberation Army (ALA), the disciplined and well armed Arab Legion, or the Egyptian army which came close to Tel-Aviv." Apparently this reviewer is unaware that the Arab Liberation Army had relatively little field strength and was more of a pan-Arab foreign legion; the Arab Legion was the regular army of (Trans)Jordan; and the Egyptian Army, like the other two, was also not a "Palestinian" force. These forces were a threat to Israel; but the average Palestinian villages were indeed virtually unarmed before the Palmach and Irgun forces slashing through them like hot knives. Even during the Arab League's massacre at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, three of the four survivors owed their lives to the protection of Arabs. I would like any critics following to provide reverse examples during this conflict.
I strongly disagree on one point - Achcar's semi-apology for "reactive racism." To me this is the slippery slope, where one is "allowed" to be racist because one's own group has suffered. This self-pitying hardheadedness is the very root of his subject's intractability. But his advice on page 291 - that only recognition of both the Holocaust and the Nakba can bring Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs into a genuine dialogue - is the surest way to begin its resolution. So I encourage all those interested in this subject to add Achcar's work, as a counterweight to the non-sequiturs and thinly-veiled racism now commanding center stage of the West's, and Israel's, Middle East historiography.
From the farhud (pogrom) of 1941 Baghdad to the naqba (catatrophe) of Palestine seven years later, Achcar dissects the blind passions of the period while making no apology for his own perspective. Especially helpful is his dissection of Grand Mufti Husseini, whose dead-end wartime collaboration with Hitler is conveniently portrayed as damning all Palestinians, and by extension all Arabs. Do the same standards apply to Marshal Petain and his Vichy regime, as representing all Frenchmen past and present? Hardly, but then the French are on the right side of the Western power equation, aren't they? When the Nazis conquered their corner of North Africa the Jews suffered accordingly; and had they occupied the Levant they surely would have found Quislings to run their colonies as in Europe. Yet Nazi racial ideology and administrative malpractice would just as surely have provoked the same inevitable backlash wherever the Third Reich reigned. Must one cynically hope that this had in fact occurred, just to settle the subsequent mishmash of pseudo-scholarship?
One reviewer states: "Rejecting the conclusion of Israeli historian Benny Morris that Jews faced annihilation in 1948, Professor Achcar writes: 'How could the Palestinians have mustered the strength to perpetrate genocide when they lacked even the strength to prevent their expulsion and were not prepared for war?' Apparently Professor Achcar has forgotten The Arab Liberation Army (ALA), the disciplined and well armed Arab Legion, or the Egyptian army which came close to Tel-Aviv." Apparently this reviewer is unaware that the Arab Liberation Army had relatively little field strength and was more of a pan-Arab foreign legion; the Arab Legion was the regular army of (Trans)Jordan; and the Egyptian Army, like the other two, was also not a "Palestinian" force. These forces were a threat to Israel; but the average Palestinian villages were indeed virtually unarmed before the Palmach and Irgun forces slashing through them like hot knives. Even during the Arab League's massacre at Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, three of the four survivors owed their lives to the protection of Arabs. I would like any critics following to provide reverse examples during this conflict.
I strongly disagree on one point - Achcar's semi-apology for "reactive racism." To me this is the slippery slope, where one is "allowed" to be racist because one's own group has suffered. This self-pitying hardheadedness is the very root of his subject's intractability. But his advice on page 291 - that only recognition of both the Holocaust and the Nakba can bring Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs into a genuine dialogue - is the surest way to begin its resolution. So I encourage all those interested in this subject to add Achcar's work, as a counterweight to the non-sequiturs and thinly-veiled racism now commanding center stage of the West's, and Israel's, Middle East historiography.
June 14, 2022
Of course it is a debatable book - but that is the very point of it. It is expected to engage. And it does this very well, with a concise, and yet comprehensive presentation of the historical background. I'm impressed.
February 20, 2023
Excellent, illuminating book that is written with great empathy and sensitivity.
February 11, 2025
كتاب مهم يجب علينا مراجعته وتأكيد معاداة النازية وعدم ربط الفكر العربي بها
March 20, 2017
Achcar's book is a daring attempt to cover a highly controversial topic which he manages to do with incredible erudition and a good grasp of the subject matter. More so than other books on this topic, Achcar avoids coming down heavily on one side or the other and is therefore able to give a very accessible and enlightening view of the topics covered.
Most interesting is Achcar's ability to use first hand sources due to his ability to read Arabic. Other books I have read have very little or cite other authors who have cited others in order to inform their works. Undoubtedly because of his history on the left in the Middle East one gets the feeling of reading the views of someone who has been parts of the conversation for many years. Due to this he gives a good overview of the different strands of Arabic political influence that have been most prevalent in recent years.
Despite his Marxist background what comes through most clearly is Gilbert's humanism and desire for peace. He rightfully notes that things have deteriorated but he maintains hope for the future built on a mutual understanding of the tragedies for the refugees from both sides.
Any student of Arabic Studies or Holocaust Studies would do well to read this highly informative piece of work.
Most interesting is Achcar's ability to use first hand sources due to his ability to read Arabic. Other books I have read have very little or cite other authors who have cited others in order to inform their works. Undoubtedly because of his history on the left in the Middle East one gets the feeling of reading the views of someone who has been parts of the conversation for many years. Due to this he gives a good overview of the different strands of Arabic political influence that have been most prevalent in recent years.
Despite his Marxist background what comes through most clearly is Gilbert's humanism and desire for peace. He rightfully notes that things have deteriorated but he maintains hope for the future built on a mutual understanding of the tragedies for the refugees from both sides.
Any student of Arabic Studies or Holocaust Studies would do well to read this highly informative piece of work.
August 15, 2015
There are long-standing philosophical questions: "Do two wrongs make a right?". Of course not. "Should people be made to pay for crimes committed by others?" What is it called when through vandalism, intimidation and violence people are forced to leave their homes and land?
This work seems to be a well-balanced review of Arab attitudes on Zionism, the Holocaust, and the state of Israel. Having read several books, mainly memoirs, of the thirties and forties I feel there are strong bases to revisit the establishment of Israel and the effect it has had on the Middle East. From my reading, Zionists were more concerned with creating a state in Palestine than in saving people. From Herzl to the present leadership the goal has been to create a religious state in the Middle East. Through prevarication, propaganda and intimidation Zionists have fomented hatred of Islam and, in effect, provided the conditions for the current spate of Islamic Fundamentalists.
In effect, the current problems in the Middle East began with the European colonization of the Middle East.
This work seems to be a well-balanced review of Arab attitudes on Zionism, the Holocaust, and the state of Israel. Having read several books, mainly memoirs, of the thirties and forties I feel there are strong bases to revisit the establishment of Israel and the effect it has had on the Middle East. From my reading, Zionists were more concerned with creating a state in Palestine than in saving people. From Herzl to the present leadership the goal has been to create a religious state in the Middle East. Through prevarication, propaganda and intimidation Zionists have fomented hatred of Islam and, in effect, provided the conditions for the current spate of Islamic Fundamentalists.
In effect, the current problems in the Middle East began with the European colonization of the Middle East.
March 31, 2013
This is an invaluable book. The author tackles his controversial subject with erudition, passion and a deep sense of humanity. This is intellectual history and history of political ideas at its best. Beyond its subject-matter, Arab attitudes to the Jewish question in the inter-war period and after, this is also a great history of modern Arab political thought tackled from a specific and crucial angle. The book shows us how to reject Zionism and expose its reactionary politics without falling in the deadly trap of holocaust denial. A masterpiece.
Want to read
June 26, 2010KOBOBOOKS
Reviewed by The Guardian
Reviewed by The Guardian
Read
November 4, 2013I gave up.
I have tried to read this book for months and months but it is so densely packed, even my decades long interest in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict doesn't speed up the read.
Ship abandoned.
I have tried to read this book for months and months but it is so densely packed, even my decades long interest in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict doesn't speed up the read.
Ship abandoned.
July 3, 2011
narratives like pipebombs
August 15, 2011
This book is the shit. Fin.
March 14, 2014
من اهم اعمال جلبير على الإطلاق ، خاصة ان الموضوع لم يعد يطرح كما في السابق
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