Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians

Rating:
Summary: Nonsense
Review: Ariel Sharon has been responsible for evicting all the Jews from Yamit. Now he's declared that he'll evict all the Jews from the Gaza strip. And I suppose that's ethnic cleansing. But it is hardly politicide.

However, that isn't the charge Kimmerling makes. In Kimmerling's story, it is the Arabs who are being destroyed. By Sharon and Israel! The fact that Arabs are increasing in numbers both in Israel and the West Bank does not seem to make any difference to the author. And even if Sharon were expelling Arabs, that would hardly count as "politicide" against the Arab people.

The point of this book appears to be to confuse us readers and distract us from real human rights violations in the region.

Rating:
Summary: Superb study of Sharon's fascistic policies
Review: In this extremely useful book, the Israeli historian Baruch Kimmerling shows how the Sharon government is committing politicide by destroying the Palestinian public sphere, including its leaders, schools, universities and hospitals, destroying the Palestinian private sphere by making everyday life unbearable for people, in an effort to dissolve the Palestinian people as a legitimate society, polity and economy.

Kimmerling details Sharon's record as a warrior against civilians, and his consistent use of a strategy of provocations: the 1953 massacre in Qibiya, the 1955 Gaza raid into Egypt, his forces' killing of 1,000 civilians in the Gaza Strip between 1967 and 1970, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon which killed 18,000 people, his connivance in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and how he provoked the September 2000 Intifada.

Kimmerling describes Israel's growing fascist tendencies: he says it is becoming `a Thatcherite and semi-fascist regime', with reduced freedom of expression, all opposition smeared as treason, the army's growing involvement in politics, one-man rule, the demonising of Palestinians and Arabs, and the destruction of Palestinian society through economic privation, violence and terror.

Menachem Begin admitted that Israel attacked Egypt in 1967, in the war that led to Israel's brutal and illegal occupations. Now, in re-occupying Palestinian territories, Israeli forces have killed 250 Palestinian children, and 72 Israeli children have been killed. Since September 2000, 2,546 Palestinians and 892 Israelis have been killed, and 23,930 Palestinians and 5,973 Israelis have been injured. 2,202 Palestinian homes have been completely destroyed, and 14,436 partially; one Israeli home has been destroyed

Sharon's strategy is failing: killing Palestinians and destroying their society is not protecting Israeli citizens from terrorist acts; Jews are safer anywhere else in the world. The only way forward for Israel is a two-state settlement, whereby the two peoples accept each other's existence, renounce violence and commit to cooperation and peaceful coexistence.



Rating:
Summary: A portrait of a man and the Israeli Right
Review: Politicide by Kimmerling, is in many ways remarkable as both Israeli historiography and as an Israeli political event: this detailed history by an internationally known member of the Israeli elite (Professor Baruch Kimmerling holds an appointment both at Hebrew University and at the University of Toronto, he is a sociologist) of Ariel Sharon is both an engaging portrait of a famous Israeli officer turned politician, and a succinct characterization of the politics of the Israeli right; the role of successive raids and many military provocations by the Israeli army that preceded all of their wars (with the Arabs); and, therefore and by extension, a description of the inherent violence of the Zionist state entity in its many faceted dealings with the Arabs, since 1948.

Details are provided the reader, as well, of IDF approved, or permitted, massacres of Palestinians in their refugee camps and villages , and other politically motivated murders: these events few of which are known outside of Israel are regarded (in context) as an integral part of the making of an important military career (within both the early culture of the IDF and that of Israeli popular culture too). This career is made visible by the present prime minister of Israel. Details of Ariel Sharon's early growing up and how this may have presaged the choices of the future man are also introduced .

The strategic Israeli plan that is presently being implemented now on the ground to create and maintain a kind of Bantustan out of all the West Bank areas (and Gaza too) is described as long held planning by some in the Israeli political and military elite, and as a personal 'vision' of Sharon and those in the Israeli Right, among them the settlers and their political parties. A vision which if fully implemented would mean, according to Professor Kimmerling, the extinction, for all practicable purposes, of the Palestinians as a recognizeable, historical entity. Kimmerling introduces to his readers the sociologist's technical term 'Herrenvolk' (roughly translated as 'master race' ) to describe present day Israeli (state) relations to all Palestinians, both those within , and without, the present Israeli borders. He frequently uses the term 'military settler society' to characterize present Israeli society (he has written about such things in professional journals) With a decent bibliography and a useful index.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent and Important Work
Review: Prof. Baruch Kimmerling's new book about the checkered career, heinous war crimes and diabolical treachery of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is of such critical importance to understanding the expolsive Middle East crisis, that one would think it would make the cover of Newsweek, and be the subject of discussion and debate from the New York Times to the CBS Nightly News. Needless to say, publicity for Kimmerling's expose has been tightly suppressed by the Establishment media, who have a vested interest in portraying the Butcher of Beirut as an honorable, if hawkish warrior and Zionist "patriot."

The truth, according to Kimmerling's formidable research, is very different. The bill of indictment is eye-popping. Sharon is a Nazi, a racist and an assassin intent on imposing a defacto concentration camp on the Palestinians. Extreme? Yes, but Sharon is the epitome of extremism.The bloody wreckage of Palestinian AND Israeli lives is effectively the basis for "Politicide."

Put aside the System-approved fantasies by Bernard Lewis, Dore Gold and Steve Emerson. Instead, study this courageous and revealing work from a writer who embodies a voice of conscience and dissent against what is done in the name of the Jewish people to the hapless natives of Palestine.

The fact that this book is being denied publicity by the corporate media is one hint of its power. The System seeks to protect at all costs the reigning paradigm. In "Politicide," Kimmerling indicts mass murderer Sharon, and he does so without polemics, with a cool recitation of facts.

"Politicide" is fallible and there are a couple of errors: the author upholds the official Israeli line on the Jenin massacre and the attack on the Church of the Nativity; and there is one noteworthy omission: all mention of Baruch Goldstein's 1994 massacre of 40 Palestinians as the flash point that initiated suicide bombings, beginning in April of that year.

With those caveats noted, this book is nonetheless a huge embarrassment for the legion of Sharon partisans in the American media and US government ,and they are doing their worst to keep "Politicide" in the deep freeze. But if Kimmerling's work gains a wide American readership, I predict that Sharon's usefulness to the Cryptocracy will be finished and many lives may be saved.

Rating:
Summary: How to expel Palestinians: programs for an ethnic cleansing
Review: This is a good book. It's not a perfect one - because, focussed as it is on the blaming of Sharon, it often forgets what the Israeli Labour party was able to do against Palestinians when it was its turn to hold power.
But this book is a timely one. Already in 2003, Baruch Kimmerling was able to point out to the risk that, should Sharon go on unhampered, he can reach his next objective: the expulsion of Palestinians from the land they live on. This can be obtained not only "by the sword", but by making their life impossible. And this is exactly what's happening: at the beginning of April, UNRWA had to stop the feeding of Gaza strip, because Israel had been successful in blocking its activities. Secondly, this book is prophetic for another reason: because it signalled that what Sharon wished to build up was a Palestinian "state" made up of non-communicating encalves. This is the project Bush signed, not many days ago. And the risk is that Palestinians, since this is a plan that none of them can approve, carry out other suicide bombers - alienating more and more the Israeli opposition, and intellectual public opinion overseas, away from them. The day public opinion only sees the suffering of Israeli civilians, and forgets about Palestinian deaths and hunger - the moment public opinion turns a blind eye on them - Sharon can do what he wishes
This is what we can read quite at the end of the book (p. 211): "All of these conditions are, according to Sharon, designed to lower Palestinian expectations crush their resistance, isolate them, make them submit to any arrangement suggested by the Israelis, and eventually cause their "voluntary" mass emigration from the land". So, Sharon's plans, and the way he wants to implement them, must be fully known; and this book must be read and widely distributed

Rating:
Summary: A portrait of a man and the Israeli Right
Review: _Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians_ by the Israeli scholar Baruch Kimmerling is about the questionable career of Israel's current prime minister. Verso Books publishes it, the same house that published _The Holocaust Industry_ by Norman Finkelstein, and an imprint of the "New Left Books". As far as an indictment of the State of Israel, its leadership, its policies, and its "strategic relationship" with the United States goes, this is hardly the best book available. Kimmerling does a good job at defining what his title blurb "Politicide" means--the attempt to eradicate any influence a religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc., has in its own political affairs. To whit, this is what the State of Israel, especially as personified in the Ariel Sharon regime, is perpetrating on the native Arab Palestinians. The problem with _Politicide_ is it does not exactly define what kind of book it is supposed to be. Kimmerling states that he is writing an essay to get his point of Israel's tyranny in the Holy Land across, which is fine except that if his essay was not over 200 pages long. It would have been more interesting as a history, citing its sources, rather than presenting information as assumed knowledge. This is particularly important, as this subject should not be dismissed as the ranting of ultra-left, pro-Islamic fundamentalist, anti-American, pro-terrorist or Nazi apologist ideologues. Better books for those interested in the topic of Israel's relationship to the United States and its position in the Middle East (especially why the Islamic world is monolithically distrustful of Israel) are _Jewish Power_ by J. J. Goldberg, anything by Israel Shahak, and Verso's other title, _The Holocaust Industry_.

Rating:
Summary: Politicide: The Cure for Insomnia
Review: _Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians_ by the Israeli scholar Baruch Kimmerling is about the questionable career of Israel's current prime minister. Verso Books publishes it, the same house that published _The Holocaust Industry_ by Norman Finkelstein, and an imprint of the "New Left Books". As far as an indictment of the State of Israel, its leadership, its policies, and its "strategic relationship" with the United States goes, this is hardly the best book available. Kimmerling does a good job at defining what his title blurb "Politicide" means--the attempt to eradicate any influence a religion, ethnicity, nationality, etc., has in its own political affairs. To whit, this is what the State of Israel, especially as personified in the Ariel Sharon regime, is perpetrating on the native Arab Palestinians. The problem with _Politicide_ is it does not exactly define what kind of book it is supposed to be. Kimmerling states that he is writing an essay to get his point of Israel's tyranny in the Holy Land across, which is fine except that if his essay was not over 200 pages long. It would have been more interesting as a history, citing its sources, rather than presenting information as assumed knowledge. This is particularly important, as this subject should not be dismissed as the ranting of ultra-left, pro-Islamic fundamentalist, anti-American, pro-terrorist or Nazi apologist ideologues. Better books for those interested in the topic of Israel's relationship to the United States and its position in the Middle East (especially why the Islamic world is monolithically distrustful of Israel) are _Jewish Power_ by J. J. Goldberg, anything by Israel Shahak, and Verso's other title, _The Holocaust Industry_.

Rating:
Summary: Tough, tough topic but mr kimmerling takes it on
Review: _Politicide_ by Baruch Kimmerling is a highly controversial work dealing with the politically charged conflict in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians. In the wake of the tragedy of September 11, 2001 many Americans have turned to Israel and its leader Ariel Sharon as a fundamental ally in a conflict with what is perceived as a terroristic menace arising out of the Arab world. President George W. Bush has declared a "War on Terror" and has enlisted the support of the Israeli regime under the control of Sharon in his fight against Arab terrorism. However, as this book shows total and complete support by Americans for Israel may be highly problematic. Baruch Kimmerling argues from a particular point of view and presents Sharon as a right wing dictator who is attempting to politically neutralize the Palestinian people. Kimmerling traces the history of Zionism and Sharon's particular biography in his rise to power from a general in the Israeli army to a political opportunist. On February 6, 2001 Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel. Since that time according to Kimmerling, a systematic attempt has been made by Sharon to root out the Palestinian people and remove their political presence from Israel. Kimmerling shows by examining the history of Israel and the military career of Sharon that various crimes have been committed against the Palestinian people. In retaliation, many of these Palestians have been forced to engage in terrorist tactics - "the last weapon of the weak". The Middle Eastern conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is perhaps the most geopolitically charged conflict in the world today. It continues to result in tragedy for all concerned and oppression. Various religious "fundamentalisms" (including Christian Zionists) regard the return of the Jews to the Holy Land as a fulfillment of prophecy and the first step along the way towards the Second Coming of Christ. In addition, many Jewish and Christian fundamentalists (including former President Bill Clinton) believe the Temple of Solomon is located beneath the Temple Mount. However, this Temple Mount is currently the location of the mosque al-Aqsa, the third holiest shrine in Islam. It is within this mythically charged situation that the conflict between world religions and indigenous peoples of the Middle East exists. Individuals such as Sharon believe the Jews have a mandate for the Holy Land and believe in the continual expansion of the borders of the Jewish Israeli state. However this presents a particularly troublesome demographics problem in that it would result in Jews becoming a minority within their nation. For the Israeli "right wing", this is a troublesome issue. On the other hand, Palestinians continue to feel oppressed by a people who they do not recognize as having rights to their land. I do not believe there will be an easy or even any solution to this question; however, the potential travesty that can and continues to result within the Holy Land may one day escalate to apocalyptic proportions. In the meantime, the United States continues to face the menace of Arab terrorism and the Israelis and Palestinians continue to do battle with each other.