Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Only Israel West of the River


Dr. Mordechai Nisan / Reviewed by: INN Staff

Everybody is talking about a Palestinian state and the two-state solution. This has monopolized political discourse for decades, and smothered alternative proposals.
While teaching Middle East Studies for 35 years at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Mordechai Nisan researched and wrote extensively on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Palestinian question, minorities in the Middle East, Islam, and U.S. foreign policy. He has been a regular contributor to Arutz Sheva's English site's op-ed section. His new book "ONLY ISRAEL WEST OF THE RIVER: The Jewish State and the Palestinian Question" defends the Jewish national state narrative, rejects the Palestinian state idea, argues in favor of Jerusalem united under Israeli rule, elucidates the Jewish settlement enterprise, while offering a coherent paradigm to contend with the Israeli-Palestinian conflct.

The book's thesis positing that there should be only Israel West of the Jordan River is actually a core proposal to generate new political discourse and conflict-resolution toward a vision of peace. It cuts through the fog of disinformation on behalf of reality, truth, and justice.

This book first clarifies the national Jewish character of Israel, the danger of domestic Arab challenges, and the imperative of Israeli rule throughout the area west of the Jordan River.

It secondly considers the Palestinian population in Judea and Samaria, and the complexity of arranging Jewish-Arab accommodation and political stability.
The book then argues for the consolidation of a Palestinian entity east of the river in Jordan.

The author argues convincingly that this innovative approach to conflict-resolution offers the only reasonable political solution for a problem that is more than one hundred years old. He contends that the two-state solution, currently monopolizing political discourse, is a non-starter and this proposal is the only worthy and serious option to consider.
Also available at www.Amazon.com.


Comment by Ted Belman
: I want to preface this book review with a review of my own. I loved every page of it. Nisan has a very engaging style and an enourmous reservoir of knowledge which he generously shares. He tackles the most difficult issues with great clarity and insight. He even challenges the notion that Israel should be both Jewish and democratic. When the state was declared, it was declared only as a Jewish state. He says the left forced this new notion on Israel in a bid to undo its Jewishness. The more democratic rights are given to the Arabs, the less it is a Jewish state. The left has been busy changing Israel from a Zionist state to a Post-Zionist state, from a collectivist Jewish national ethos to a multicultural bi-national state and finally from an embrace of duties to a demand for entitlements. Buy this book. Better still by multiple copies and give to your friends. Ted Belman

1 comment:

Maggie@MaggiesNotebook said...

Just think what they could have had had Saudi not lobbied for Jordan. I hope this book comes out in a Kindle edition.