Arab And Jew In The Land Of Canaan

A compelling analysis of Jewish thought from ancient times to the present on the issue of the gift of the land of Israel and the fate of the Canaanites.

Few modern political dilemmas have been more difficult to control and less comprehensible than dominance over Palestine. Overtime, various solutions have been proposed based on demographics, economics, nationalism, prejudice, and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. Fred Kohler Holbrook's Palestine-Whose Homeland? approaches this problem from a perspective founded, remarkably, not in zealotry or greed, but in what he calls "information seeking." And, like a logical man, he begins at the beginning, in Biblical times, unraveling the intertwined stories of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Mohammed and Moses, and their involvement in Palestine. Mr. Holbrook weaves his religious and historical study with dozens of citations from the Old and New Testament, the Qu'ran, Jewish texts, and various books of commentary. If nothing else, the reader will gain a heightened appreciation of the complex interweaving of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures, to the vanished civilizations of the Babylonians and Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and modern contenders, notably the British imperialists, the Zionists, and the Islamics - which have fought over and occupied the Holy Land for most of recorded Western history. The author invokes more little known sources than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Qu'ran, including Abrahamist volumes and the scriptures of the Church, of which he is a member. The result is an erudite, well-balanced, and intriguing investigation of the endless strife that hangs over Palestine.

Whether real or imagined, the past filtered through their collective memories has an influence on how Jews and Arabs perceive themselves. This work highlights the effects of historical memory on the Arab-Israel conflict, demonstrating that Jews and Arabs use stories of distant pasts to create their identities and shape their politics.

A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland? Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths. After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.

What is a homeland? When does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. The invention of the modern concept of the "Land of Israel" in the nineteenth century, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel, it is also what is threatening Israel's existence today.

What has the land of Israel meant for the Jewish imagination? This book provides a lively and readable answer, covering Biblical times to the present. Its aim is to pierce the mystery of the images of Israel, to grasp their meaning and function, to trace their origins and history, and to resituate in historical terms the fertile mythology that has peopled and continues to people the Jewish imagination, interposing a screen between a people and their land. Describing the real, however, is not sufficient to disqualify the myths. The authors believe, with the famous French historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet, that: “Things are not so simple. Myth is not opposed to the real as the false to the true; myth accompanies the real.” Today, Israel is an undeniable fact and no longer has to legitimize its existence. It is in the midst of living through the crises of adulthood. The authors simply want to reconstitute and trace the genealogies of these contemporary crises. Only upon a clear understanding of this present and this past can a future be constructed.