60 years since Al-Nakba (the Catastrophe) of 1948
Arabicus Books & Media presents an important new book.
Under the Cover of War
The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians
Rosemarie M. Esber
“Helps to balance documentation and diaries by one side . . . the suffering of those
who fled is all too evident.” -- Robert Fisk, The Independent
Ø Under the Cover of War explains in detail how the Jewish Agency used the cover of war to expel more than 400,000 Palestinian men, women and children from some 220 villages, towns, and cities before May 15, 1948 when the British relinquished the Palestine mandate and Israel became a state.
Ø Incorporates a Palestinian narrative of their expulsions by including some 130 new interviews with refugees from Jordan, Lebanon, and the United States.
Ø Provides an invaluable case study for U.S. military planners on how not to end a military occupation by describing how the scuttled British withdrawal from Palestine, in just six months, contributed to civil war and the creation of Palestinian refugees.
A MUST READ FOR THE MILITARY!
“I am more convinced than ever after reading this we need more attention to the problems in this region to have any kind of peace in the future.” -- Jerzee Devil
Watch the You Tube Trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pUEq9GgS4F4
Robert Fisk, The Independent:
Under the Cover of War “helps to balance documentation and diaries by one side with verbal recollection on the other. The book does not spare the Arabs—least of all the Arab atrocities or the Iraqi volunteers who turned up to fight for Palestine but didn't even know their geography—yet the suffering of those who fled is all too evident.”
“Here for example, is Abu Mohamed from the village of Saqiya, east of Tel Aviv describing what happened on 25 April, 1948: ‘Jews entered the village and started shooting women, men, and old people. They arrested girls, and we still don't know what happened to them. They came from the settlement that was near the village. They used Bren guns. Then armoured vehicles entered the centre of the village. Fourteen were killed that day. Two women could not run so they were killed in the village. The villagers ran together in the direction of al-Lid (Lod, the site of Ben Gurion airport in Israel today). After that, families started to leave separately. We left everything in the village. We thought it would be a short trip and we would come back.’”
Publishers Weekly, web pick of the week 11/24/08:
In her first effort, researcher and writer Esber takes readers on a dramatic inquest of modern Israel’s beginnings and the Arab conflict over Palestine. Reviewing historical accounts, Esber reveals that after WWII many of Europe's expelled Jews sought to regain their roots in Palestine. This meant the expulsion of the Palestinian Arab community who lived there; with the tacit approval of the United Nations, Palestinians were cruelly evicted from their homes and lives, subject to demonization and, according to Esber, a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Esber’s account abounds with first hand accounts from Arab victims recounting the terror they faced at the hands of Zionist forces. This gripping historical account illuminates the plight of Palestinians following the War, too long overshadowed in the media and historical record by the atrocity of the Holocaust; placing them back to back, Esber demonstrates a tragic domino effect, in which victims become aggressors and survival becomes a matter of fighting back.
Order online from Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Under the Cover of War is an important resource for anyone seeking to understand the full story of the 1948 Palestine war and the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Rosemarie Esber meticulously documents and poignantly recounts the first phase of the Zionist conquest of Palestine and the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians—an estimated 84 percent were children under 15, pregnant and nursing mothers, the elderly, and the infirm.
As this compelling history shows, the human tragedy of Palestine’s ethnic cleansing entailed the demonization of the Palestinian Arabs, the incitement of violence by Jewish nationalist leaders, and a weak response from an apathetic international community. War provided a cover for systematic expulsions and the founding of the State of Israel on Palestinian land, while British colonial officials did little but watch.
An array of unpublished military and diplomatic sources supports the Palestinians’ own account of their Nakba (catastrophe or disaster), based on new, original refugee interviews. This little-known story of human suffering makes a convincing case that redressing Palestinian losses is vital for regional and world peace.
The author, Rosemarie M. Esber, Ph.D., is a researcher and writer with degrees from the University of London and The Johns Hopkins University.
For Immediate Release
ISBN: 978-0-9815131-7-1
Hardback, 440 pages, 40 illustrations, appendices,
bibliography, index, $29.95
Media Contact
Arabicus Books & Media, LLC
(703) 585-3463
arabicusbooks@aol.com
www.ArabicusBooks.com
Showing posts with label Israelis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israelis. Show all posts
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
New book challenges Arabs and Muslims to defeat extremism to win a Palestinian State
New book challenges Arabs and Muslims to defeat extremism to win a Palestinian State
Chicago -- Palestinians need to overcome the growing movement of secular and religious extremists in their own community before they can be strong enough to overcome the challenges from Israel and create their own independent Palestinian State, says award winning journalist Ray Hanania in a new book "The Catastrophe: The One-State Solution is the No-State Solution. How Palestinians can stand up to the extremistsand create a Palestinian State."
Hanania, whose writings "define the moderate Arab voice," has been a outspoken critic of extremism in the Arab and Muslim community.
Consistently denouncing violence on both sides, Hanania argues in his book that Israelis and Palestinians each face an uncertain future as the extremist secular left partners with the fanatic religious right to use violence prevent peace based on compromise, to advance the so-called "One-State Solution," and to exploit Palestinian suffering as a means of preventing them from the only viable option for statehood, the creation of a Palestinian State in the context of a Two-State Solution.
"We are watching as Palestine is being erased not just from the maps but from reality as Israel's government exploits the failures of our leadership and the uncontrolled emotions of our people," Hanania argues.
"Palestinians are being held hostage by these extremists and fanatics on the left and the right who reject any compromise and who live in a dream of the past that has become our nightmare. To save our people, we must reject the rejectionists, embrace compromise and recognize the reality of our situation in the hopes of someday rebuilding a dream that is the cornerstone of justice."
In the book, Hanania also argues that Palestinians must regain the principled moral stand and cannot succumb to the emotions of their failures over the past 60 years of Israel's existence, writing:
"Being honest about one's mistakes -- and failures -- and acknowledging the reality of history, rather than its myths, is a crucial step towards lifting oneself out of defeat. You cannot make something "better" if you do not honestly acknowledge that things are "bad" or you attempt to do so from a "bad" position. Only those who are "better" can make a situation better. Improve it. Correct it. Bring it back to the moral center.
"But just being 'better,' as a relative statement, is not good enough. You are either pregnant or you are not pregnant. There is no in-between. The road to pregnancy is pregnancy. The road to peace is peace. Either Palestinians have a state or they don't have a state. You either support peace or you don't support peace. Those who use violence to achieve 'peace' are not seeking peace at all. The use of violence is in and of itself a rejection of peace. Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims must answer this important issue correctly. We must clean our own house first before we can insist on cleaning out the houses of others, our 'enemies.' We cannot demand justice from others when we deny justice to others in our actions, in our arguments in our beliefs. Doing so is to deny justice to ourselves."
The book is available directly from the author through his web site at http://www.hanania.com/.
"The Catastrophe"
238 Pages, softcover 7 x 9 trade
$24.95
Ray Hanania Enterprises
PO Box 2127
Orland Park, IL., 60462
Chicago -- Palestinians need to overcome the growing movement of secular and religious extremists in their own community before they can be strong enough to overcome the challenges from Israel and create their own independent Palestinian State, says award winning journalist Ray Hanania in a new book "The Catastrophe: The One-State Solution is the No-State Solution. How Palestinians can stand up to the extremistsand create a Palestinian State."
Hanania, whose writings "define the moderate Arab voice," has been a outspoken critic of extremism in the Arab and Muslim community.
Consistently denouncing violence on both sides, Hanania argues in his book that Israelis and Palestinians each face an uncertain future as the extremist secular left partners with the fanatic religious right to use violence prevent peace based on compromise, to advance the so-called "One-State Solution," and to exploit Palestinian suffering as a means of preventing them from the only viable option for statehood, the creation of a Palestinian State in the context of a Two-State Solution.
"We are watching as Palestine is being erased not just from the maps but from reality as Israel's government exploits the failures of our leadership and the uncontrolled emotions of our people," Hanania argues.
"Palestinians are being held hostage by these extremists and fanatics on the left and the right who reject any compromise and who live in a dream of the past that has become our nightmare. To save our people, we must reject the rejectionists, embrace compromise and recognize the reality of our situation in the hopes of someday rebuilding a dream that is the cornerstone of justice."
In the book, Hanania also argues that Palestinians must regain the principled moral stand and cannot succumb to the emotions of their failures over the past 60 years of Israel's existence, writing:
"Being honest about one's mistakes -- and failures -- and acknowledging the reality of history, rather than its myths, is a crucial step towards lifting oneself out of defeat. You cannot make something "better" if you do not honestly acknowledge that things are "bad" or you attempt to do so from a "bad" position. Only those who are "better" can make a situation better. Improve it. Correct it. Bring it back to the moral center.
"But just being 'better,' as a relative statement, is not good enough. You are either pregnant or you are not pregnant. There is no in-between. The road to pregnancy is pregnancy. The road to peace is peace. Either Palestinians have a state or they don't have a state. You either support peace or you don't support peace. Those who use violence to achieve 'peace' are not seeking peace at all. The use of violence is in and of itself a rejection of peace. Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims must answer this important issue correctly. We must clean our own house first before we can insist on cleaning out the houses of others, our 'enemies.' We cannot demand justice from others when we deny justice to others in our actions, in our arguments in our beliefs. Doing so is to deny justice to ourselves."
The book is available directly from the author through his web site at http://www.hanania.com/.
"The Catastrophe"
238 Pages, softcover 7 x 9 trade
$24.95
Ray Hanania Enterprises
PO Box 2127
Orland Park, IL., 60462
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