Literature

NOVANEWS Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem, Sr Israel Shahak was a resident of the Warsaw Ghetto and a survivor of Bergen-Belsen. He arrived in Palestine in 1945 and lived there until his death in 2001. He was an outspoken critic of the state of Israel and a human rights activist. He was also the author of the highly acclaimed Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (Pluto Press 1999) and Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies (Pluto Press 1997).   By: Professor Israel Shahak Pluto Press (2002) Foreword to the first printingby Gore Vidal Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him two mill...

NOVANEWS Posted by: Dr. Gabi Weber  " The Jewish State" of Dr. Theodor Herzl. As always happens in such historic moments, the man unto whom it was vouchsafed clearly to grasp the idea of which many had a dim presentiment, and to give eloquent expression to the word that many had awaited, now appeared. This man was Dr. Theodor Herzl. In the autumn of 1896 he published a concisely-written book, " The Jewish State," (Der Judenstaat), which, with a determination hitherto unknown, declared that the Jews are a Nation, who demand for themselves all the rights of a Nation and wish to settle on a land where they can lead the complete unfettered life of a state. "The Jewish State" -a subjective work. "The Jewish State" became the starting-point of political Zionism- the starting-point, not the pro...

NOVANEWS   When Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer published their paper on the Israel lobby eight years ago, one of its openings was that two scholars with prestige status signaled that they were willing to risk the anti-Semite smear. They surely knew the label might be applied to them; still they went ahead with their ideas, which now seem tame (the lobby has a stranglehold on Congress, the lobby pushed for a war); and they were duly tarred as anti-Semites, by some fairly august claimants. But one of the victories of the last year is that both political scientists are not only still on the case, but they seem to have a more respectable following than ever– with Obama reflecting their thinking on Syria. The lesson is that the anti-Semite smear, while a libel that can hurt career and ...