Jonathan Cook's "Blood and Religion" - by Stephen Lendman
Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the Israeli Arab city...." He's a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers. He's also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth Press Agency.
Cook states why he's in Nazareth as follows: to give himself "greater freedom to reflect on the true nature of the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict and (gain) fresh insight into its root causes." He "choose(s) the issues (he) wish(es) to cover (and so is) not constrained by the 'treadmill' of the mainstream media....which gives disproportionate coverage to the concerns of the powerful (so it) makes much of their Israel/Palestine reporting implausible."
Living among Arabs, "things look very different" to Cook. "There are striking, and disturbing, similarities between" the Palestinian experience inside Israel and within the Occupied Territories. "All have faced Zionism's appetite for territory and domination, as well as repeated (and unabated) attempts at ethnic cleaning."
Cook authored two important books and contributed to others. His newest one, just published was reviewed by this writer. It's called "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East." Advance praise accompanied it, and noted author John Pilger calls it "One of the most cogent understandings of the modern Middle East I have read. It is superb, because the author himself is a unique witness" to events and powerfully documents them.
Cook's earlier book was published in 2006. It's titled "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" and is the subject of this review. It's the rarely told story of the plight of Israel's 1.4 million Arab citizens, the discrimination against them, the reasons why, and the likely future consequences from it. Israel's "demographic problem" is the issue Cook addresses. It's the time when a faster-growing Palestinian population (excluding the diaspora) becomes a majority, and the very character of a "Jewish State" is threatened. Israel's response - state-sponsored repression and violent ethnic cleansing, in the Territories and inside Israel.
Arab-Israeli citizens are referred to as "Israeli Arabs." It's how many of them refer to themselves as do Israelis. They're the sole remnants of the Palestinian population Israel expelled in its 1948 War of Independence. Palestinians call it the Nakba that alnakba.org describes as follows: ...."the Nakba (cataclysm)....saw the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages." Noted Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, believes 800,000 were affected. Cook uses 750,000. Whatever the true figure, it was huge and changed everything for Palestinians henceforth.
Authorities have worked ever since to hide the past and "de-Palestinize" those remaining inside Israel - to erase their "national and cultural memories and turn them into identity-starved 'Arabs.' " So far, it's failed. There's been a resurgence of "Palestinian-ness" for at least two reasons. Palestinians believe that Israel won't ever grant them a viable independent state and will always regard them as a "fifth column." They're also denied a national or civic identity. Nonetheless, they prefer Israeli citizenship to life in the Territories where people have no rights under occupation. They live with a hope Israelis are obsessed to deny them - that one day Israel will change from a Jewish State to a democratic one for all its people.
So far, it's nowhere in sight, Cook documents it in his book, and he states his premise upfront: "Israel is beginning a long, slow process of ethnic cleansing" Israeli Arabs from Israel as well as Palestinians from the parts of the Occupied Territories it wants for a Greater Israel.
Introduction - The Glass Wall
Israel has a penchant for walls, fences and barriers as exemplified by its best known one being erected in the West Bank. It's mammoth in size and when completed will encircle most of the Territory's inhabitants and measure nearly 700 km. It's ghettoizing Palestinian communities, cutting them off from each other, and isolating them all from the outside world. It devours the landscape, uproots ancient olive groves, destroys pastures and greenhouses, and expropriates around 10% of occupied Palestine by an inexorable land-grab masquerading as security.
In 1994, a similar barrier went up in Gaza - an electronic fence around the Territory, and again security was cited. Both walls reflect early Zionist thinking - that Palestinians won't ever be dispossessed so "unremitting force" has to subdue them. It affects Palestinians under occupation and "rarely mentioned" Israeli Arabs who comprise one-fifth of the population or a slightly greater percentage than when Cook wrote his book. At year-end 2007, Israeli society broke down as follows: 7.24 million total of which 75.6% (5.47 million) are Jews, 20% (1.45 million) Arabs and 4.4% (320,000) Christians and others.
Walls and fences keep those in the Territories constrained. An invisible "glass wall" inside Israel is just as "unyielding and solid as the walls around the West Bank and Gaza." Its aim is the same - to imprison the people, force them into submission, hide what's happening from view, and do it for a reason.
Israel's problem is demographic and its danger is twofold:
-- a far higher Palestinian birth rate threatens the Jewishness of the state; and
-- right of return UN Resolution 194 guarantees compound the problem.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
