The Zionist dilemma was perfectly and bluntly expressed by the so-called post-Zionist and professor Benny Morris which led not only to an uproar in the scientific community, but also to a deep disappointment, because Morris was considered to belong to the "new historians". In this interview with the daily Haaretz and in his article in the Guardian he presented himself as an ardent Zionist. "He encapsulates all Zionismīs major elements, its inherent implausibility as a practical project, its arrogance, racism and self-righteousness, and the insurmountable obstacle to it of Palestineīs original population, which refuses to go away." For his colonialist and racist view he was severely critiziced by Baruch Kimmerling and many others who could not understand his attitude.

Morris said incredible things: "A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700 000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population." According to him the Zionists made a mistake to have allowed some Palestinans to remain. "If the end of the story turns out to be a gloomy one for the Jews, it will because Ben Gurion did not complete the transfer of 1948. (...) In other circumstances, apocalyptic ones, which are liable to be realized in five or ten years, I can see expulsions. If we find ourselves (...) in a situation of warfare (...) acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable. They may even be essential (...) If the threat to Israel is existential, expulsion will be justified." Morris concludes, the Zionist project is faced with two options: perpetual cruelty and repression of others, or the end of the dream. These alternatives give the whole enterprise an apocalyptic touch. For the time being, the Israeli security establishment has chosen the "iron wall" concept which refers to a wall of bayonets.

Ghada Karmi shows in "The Cost of Israel to the Arabs" that the price they had to pay was horrendous. She holds not only Israel responsible but also the West, especially the United States of America, for the rejectionist attitude of the Israeli political class. They just did never considered any compromise. In this chapter the author describes the damage that Israelīs creation inflicted on the Arabs, how it has retarded their development and provoked a reactive and dangerous radicalisation. She presents a totally different picture of Israelīs role than the West is familar with. The Arabs are always asked to be realistic and recognise the facts on the ground. "The Arabs were expected to make peace with Israel – and to love it as well." Under the surface Israel has made much progress towards a normalisation with the Arab world. The Arab leaders have to conceal that truth from their own populations. Karmi views Western policy in Israelīs case to be strategic rather than ideological. The installation of the Jewish state as the local agent of Western regional self-interest was an effective way of dividing the Arabs, so as to ensure that they remained dependent and subjugated." Egypt and Jordan are the best examples.

In the Chapter "Why do Jews support Israel?" the author asks "Why did a project, which was, on the face of it, implausible in the first place and inevitably destructive of others, succeed so well? Just as importantly, why did it continue to receive support, despite a clear record of aggression and multiple breaches of international law against its neighbours that ensured its survival – not just as a state but as a disruptive force?" A number of disperate factors make up the unconditional support for Israel such as the Holocaust and its associated trauma and guilts, the exigencies of Western regional policy, religious mythology, so-called common values, and Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East" et cetera. It is difficult to find a similar phenomenon for a state in the 21st Century that gets away with massive human rights violations, colonial subjugation of another people and a disdain of international law. Not only for the American Jewish community but also for many liberal Jews "Israel had taken on a mythic quality, part-identity, part-religion, and its dissolution, as a Jewish state, became psychologically and emotionally unthinkable. The obverse of this coin was of course a paranoid suspicion and hatred of anyone who threatened Israel in the slightest way." Karmi describes the Zionist desperate attempt to prove an unbrocken chain between the Jews of Palestine and those of Europe. "Put like this, the absurditiy of the idea is obvious, but that in fact was the proposition Zionists wanted people to believe in order to justify the Jewish `return` to the īhomeland`." Because the Zionist claim rested on such shaky grounds, Jewish researchers "tried to use genetics as a way of demonstrating a link between European (Ashkenazi) Jews and their supposed Middle Eastern origins by way of finding a common ancestry with Middle Eastern Jews".

The support of Israel by the West is also manifold. This chapter is very exciting to read. The author discusses the relationship between the US and Israel and the dominant influence of the "Israel lobby", especially AIPAC which adopted a right-wing posture, both in its support for the Likud party in Israel and the political right in the US, including the Christian Zionists. Because of their bizarre and obscure ideology they pose the greatest danger to world peace. Their strange believe system is as follows: they literally adhere to the Old Testament. Fundamental was the return of the Jews to the land of Israel, which was given to them by God through the covenant with Abraham. According to this legacy all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates was denoted to the Jews. The Jewish return to Palestine (Israel) was essential as a prelude to Christīs Second Coming; in that sense, Jews were the instrument by which divine prophecy would be fulfilled. However, they were obliged to convert to Christianity and rebuild the Jewish Temple. Seven years of tribulation would follow, culminating in a holocaust or Armageddon, during which the converted Jews and other godless people would be destroyed. Only then would the Messiah return to redeem mankind and establish the Kingdom of God on earth where he would reign for a thousend years. The converted Jews, restored as Godīs Chosen People, would enjoy a privileged status in the world. At the end of all this, they and all the rightous would ascend to heaven in the final `Rapture`. The Jewish role in all this meant: "Jews restored to Israel and converted, leading to the Second Advent, leading to mankindīs redemption." If this set of strange and weird ideas would not have attracted influential and powerful politicians in the US and Great Britain it would not be worrysome. But these crazy beliefs have a representative in the White House which makes it so deadly dangerous. George W. Bush is a reborn Christian and pretends that he gets his orders from the Almighty! Would such a guy not be better taken care of by a psychiatrist than grant him "responsibility" over thousands of nuclear warheads? Beyond that Karmi discusses the pro-Zionist influence and the media, Israel and the Great Powers, Europe and Israel and what it means for Europe, and what it all means to the Arabs. The Arab ignorance and naivety in the face of the challenge of Zionism "was probably the most important factor that enabled the Israeli project to survive and even thrive in the region".

In chapters four, five and six the author critizices the so-called peace process, Arafatīs role in destroying the Palestinians and Israelīs attempt to revive the Jordanian option. In signing the Oslo agreement, "Arafat hat legitimized Zionism, the very ideology that had created and still perpetuates the Palestinian tragedy". She continues: "Nevertheless, to have the blessing of the victim, especially without having earned it, is like the icing on the cake, an unlooked-for boon to the perpetrator." The Israeli aim to destroy the Palestinans could not have been better described as in the words of the Israeli sociologist professor Baruch Kimmerling who wrote in this book Politicide that the process of gradual military, political and psychological attrition whose aim was to destroy the Palestinians as an independent people with a coherent political and social existence would made them vanish by their fragmentation and irrelevance. "Forty years of Israeli politicide had done its work on the Palestine question as a national cause. The Palestinians, already in an unenviable position of physical fragmentation after 1948, became politically fragmented with the Israeli occupation." In the chapter "Solving the problem" Karmi shows that a two-state solution is out of reach. Consequentely, she calls in chapter seven for a one-state solution. "In a single state, no Jewish settler would have to move and no Palestinian would be under occupation." The author thinks that creating a Jewish state was "crazy" at Herzlīs time and even now, therefore "creating a unitary state of Israel/Palestine, far less implausible than the Zionist project ever was, should be no less successful".

Refering to Hangebiīs statement that Israel as a "colonial state" cannot survive, Karmi proposes an unthinkable idea: "The best solution to this intractable problem is to turn back the clock before there was any Jewish state and return history as from there." But at the end, she turns back to realism: "The clock will not go back and, although the Jewish state cannot be uncreated, it might be, so to speak, unmade. The reunification of Palestineīs shattered remains in a unitary state for all its inhabitants, old and new, is the only realistic, humane and durable route out of the morass. It is also the only way for the Israeli Jewish community (as opposed to the Israeli state) to survive in the Middle East."

The author unfolds the destructive impact of Zionism on the Palestinan people and the Arab world. Pluto Press and its publisher Roger van Zwanenberg can be congratulated for their courage to publish this excellent book, especially in the light of the attack against Joel Kovelīs book Overcoming Zionism by the "Israel Lobby". For the sake of freedom of speech one can hope that the University of Michigan Press will not succumb to this baseless and mean pressure. Anybody who is interested in a plain description ot the conflict should read Karmiīs book. It is a must read.

Ludwig Watzal

Yakov Rabkin leads the readers right into the thinking of anti-Zionist orthodoxes, for whom Zionism is the antithesis of Judaism and therefore a heresy. He shows convincingly the split between Judaism and Zionism. Although the readers might think these people Rabkin writes about are a "lunatic fringe", their arguments are still valid and have been bothering the Zionist leadership. In traditional Judaism the Torah is central. "The Zionist movement and the creation of the State of Israel have caused one of the greatest schisms in Jewish history." The Zionists used major elements of Jewish thinking for their political goals. In the eyes of most Rabbis this is blasphemy. The biggest "sin" for them is the establishment of Israel because only the Messiah can create the Jewish nation. For the orthodox rabbis "Zionism represents a negation of Jewish tradition". Any human attempt to build a Jewish state is seen as a violation of Godīs will and will lead to a disaster. The author explains why a commitment to the Torah forms the common denominator for religious opposition to Zionism. For him the Jews have demonstrated that a people can preserve its identity over the course of more than two millennia without a state of its own. In the prologue Rabkin asks critical questions: "Has the emergence of Zionism and the State of Israel so transformed the Jewish people as to bring its unique history to an end? Could it be that Israel, in the light of Jewish tradition, is not at all Jewish?"

The book draws extensively on the rich tradition of rabbinical thought. Rabkinīs book explains how a commitment to the Torah forms the common denominator for the religious opposition to Zionism. Pious Jews believe that they have an obligation to criticize Zionism publicly, for two reasons: Firstly, to prevent the desecration of the name of God; secondly, to preserve human life. With this kind of criticism they hope to protect Jews from the outrage they believe the State of Israel has generated among the nations of the world. The last two opinion polls by the EU and the BBC show how relevant their concerns are: The State of Israel is seen as the "greatest threat to world peace" followed by Iran and the United States of America. In seven chapters Rabkin unfolds countless unknown sources of serious arguments against the Zionist enterprise as he calls it. What Rabkinīs book also reveals is the fact that most orthodox people do not recognise Israelīs right to exist. Why does the west force the Hamas led government to recognise it and not the large numbers of orthodox Jews in Israel and in the US?

The author states in the first chapter "Orientations" that there has been a permanent Jewish presence in Palestine even after the destruction of the second Temple. The coexistence between all three religious groups – Jewish, Muslim and Christians – who lived peacefully together in the "Old Yishuv" until the Zionists arrived in Palestine. This holds also true for the coexistence between Jews and Muslims in the Arab countries. The "New Yishuv" (Zionist settlements) and the State of Israel were an incarnation of European concepts derived from the realities faced by Jews in the Russian Empire. Secular Jewish culture dominated the entire Zionist enterprise. The oriental Jews who came from the Muslim countries to Israel found these concepts alien to them. There has been a massive opposition against the Zionist movement from the start. Not only from the Jewish orthodox like the Haredim, but also from cultural Zionists, reformists, and the non-Zionist secularists.

In the chapter "New Identity" Rabkin states that Zionism has put forward a new definition of what it means to be Jewish. Longing for the Messiah has been a constant notion in Jewish history. The Zionists turned this transcendental concept into a political program which constituted a break with the tradition. The Jewish tradition traces the origins of the Jews to the shared experience ot the epiphany of the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. As a group, the Jews are defined by the commitment to the Torah, the normative bond with the Torah remains the determining factor. It is exactely this bond which obliges them to follow the commandments of the Torah, which makes Jews the "chosen people", a status that implies no intrinsic superiority, writes Rabkin. It was under Josef Stalin that the birth of the concept of the "secular Jew" was invented. The Jews of Russia had fewer opportunities to assimilate into their sourrounding society unlike the Jews in Germany and France. Under Stalin Jews ceased to be defined by Judaism and got a "Jewish nationality", this was marked in their identity cards. The great Jewish philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz stated that "Our nation exists only in the Torah." He continues: "Zionism is indeed the negation of Judaism." For the critics of Zionism the Hebrew revival had nothing to do with Judaism, it was just "another revolt against tradition". The "New Hebrew Man" did not "trust in God" (bitahon), but in "military security" which has been the dominating concept in Israel until now.

The author shows in chapter three the deep cultural gap which exists between the Zionist concept of the Land of Israel and the Jewish one. Traditional Jewish culture discourages political and military activism of any variety, especially in the Land of Israel. Contrary to orthodoxy the National Religious stressed the importance of "the Jews' return to history" and to take pride in the normalization of the Jews whom Zionism has liberated from their "age-old passivity". Right from the beginning, Zionism has encouraged love of the land, a love which has taken political and ideological forms, writes Rabkin. "For the Zionists, love to the land is possessive: it can tolerate no other claimant. The land cannot truly be home to another people that had long inhabited it." This contradicts the traditional Jewish viewpoint in which "the settlement in the Land of Israel will be brought about by the universal effect of good deeds rather than by military force or diplomacy. It will follow the advent of the Messiah, unlike the biblical conquest of Joshua, which was achieved by the use of power." Rabkin also rejects the interpretation of the Bar Kokhba or the Maccabees revolt against the Romans. "The Zionist moral of the story is also opposed to the Jewish tradition." Salvation of the Jewish people can only come about through messianic intervention rather than military force. According to Leibowitz: "The idea of return to the Land of Israel achieved by political means is alien to the idea of salvation in Jewish tradition." And he continues that the Jews had never been "a people of the land", quite the contrary holds true: am ha-aretz, meaning "ignoramus".

Jewish tradition over the last two mellennia can only be described as pacifist. The templeīs destruction and the following exile are interpreted as devine punishment for transgressions comitted by the Jews, according to the traditional Jewish argumentation. This was the dominant tradition until the twentieth century when "Zionism restored to military heroism". Zionist ideology transformed the Maccabees into "the patriotic victors of war of national independence. It is a travesty of history", writes Ruth Blau. This secularized image of the Maccabees was the blueprint for several modern Jewish authors, including Zeev Jabotinsky. Rabkin hints at a very interesting trait of Zionism which could deliver an explanation for the aggressive and violent behaviour of the Israeli occupation forces. It is its Russian background. Russian Jews not only made up a majority of the founders of the State of Israel, "they also became the most influential group within its military elite. The man who did more than any other Zionist to introduce terror into Palestine was the Russian Avraham Stern, a member of several paramilitary groupings." Rabkin writes that Moshe Dayan, Ezer Weizmann, Itzhak Rabin, Rehavam Zeevi, Raphael Eitan and Ariel Sharon were all desendents of Russian Jews, "whose propensity for the use of force can only be linked to their estrangement from Jewish tradition". Quoting Martin Gilbert, Rabkin writes that the composition of the Knesset twelve years after the founding of Israel and despite the almost total prohibition of emigration from the Soviet Union for more than four decades, over 70 percent of the members of this political elite were Russian-born, while 13 percent were born in Palestine/Israel of Russian parents. "The American Zionist elites, whose support was crucial for Zionismīs success, were also composed primarily of Jews of Russian origion ... Even in Morocco, Zionist ideas and activities were introduced almost exclusively by Russian Jews." The Israeli right-wing parties, which draw much of their support from voters of Russian background, "bear out the Russian dimension of the Zionist enterprise".

The first who resisted the new Zionist settlers were the Jewish rabbies of the Old Yishuv. They feared that the nationalist ambitions of the new settlers would create tensions with Arabs, with whom the religious communities had always coexisted in peace, writes Rabkin. The leaders of the Old Yishuv saw the Jewish settler, and not the Arab population, as the looming threat. Until now, the "memory of cordial relations between Jews and Arabs continues to motivate the anti-Zionists, who question the strong-arm approach they attribute to the Zionist concept of the state". The Satmar Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum is said to have often prayed for the disappearance of the State of Israel without any Jew suffering as a result. "He looked upon the state as a serious threat to the Jews." The political assassination of Jacob Israel De Haan bore bitter fruit: discord among Jews and Arabs. "The assassination of De Haan was probably the first terrorist act to be committed by the Zionists in Palestine." The opposition to the Zionists portrayed them as "Amalek". Aviezer Ravitzky confirms that the decision to cast the Zionists as a "diabolical force was far from being an improvised one: it drew instead on an entire legal and philosophical tradition".

In chapter five "Collaboration and its limits" the author describes the resistance against the Zionist enterprise by the pious Jews. They viewed the newcomers as "rebels against the Torah and thus as persons both evil and dangerous". Most of them saw in it a rejection of Judaism. Compared with that the Arab reaction to Zionism was slower to gather strength. At first, the local Arab population enjoyed cordial relations with the Zionist leaders. Only when Arab leaders became fully aware of the political ambitions of the Zionist movement did their views come around to those of the pious Jews in taking a rejectionist stance, which has remained dominant in the Arab world ever since.

Opposition against Zionism was particularly strong in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century. German Jews refused to allow the first Zionist congress to be held in their country so that it was transferred to Basel. Rabkin describes the anti-Zionist positions by Agudat Israel, the Haredim, the Hasedim and the reform movement. An exception is the National Religious Party which tried to merge Zionism with Judaism. The difference to the other groups is that they see the Zionist enterprise as an expression of divine will, "the finger of God".

In the chapter "Zionism, the Shoah and the State of Israel" Rabkin presents two very different viewpoints of the tragedy. For the Zionists, the Shoah is the ultimate proof of the threat that hangs over the head of every Jew in the diaspora. After World War II., the Zionist movement presented its political project as a reaction to the Shoah. Consistent with this argument, prevention of another Shoah also justifies the military hegemony the new state acquired early and has steadily reinforced ever since. The Zionist message is: the state of Israel must be militarily strong to prevent another Shoah. A totally different interpretation of the Shoah is given by the pious Jews.

From the Judaic point of view shared by most pious Jews, the tragedy of the Shoah calls out for the closest scrutiny of oneīs own behaviour, for individual and collective atonement, writes Rabkin. For them it is not an occasion for accusing the executioner and even less an attempt to explain his behaviour by political, ideological or social factors. "The executioner – be he Pharaoh, Amalek or Hitler – cannot be anything but an agent of divine punishment, an undoubtedly cruel means of bringing the Jews to repentance." Following the same logic, only divine providence can explain the catastrophes that have afflicted the Jews, affirmed Rabbi Elhanan Wassermann. For him the Nazi persecutions, of which he was soon to become a victim, "were the direct consequences of Zionism". Wassermannīs condemnation of Zionism resulted in the fact that it was a sharp beak with Jewish continuity.

Both the Zionists and their detractors agree that the hostility encountered by the Jews through the centuries exceeds all normal bounds: it is a hostility quite unlike all others. While the Zionist habitually attribute the phenomenon of intense hatred to the political and military powerlessness of the Jews, pious Jews tend to locate its root in the seriousness of the sins committed by the Jews. Rabkin mentions another difference between the Zionists and their pious critics concerning anti-Semitism. The Zionists hoped to solve the problem of anti-Semitism trough the establishment of a Jewish state and defines any critique of Zionism and any attempt to question the State of Israel as anti-Semitism. The first critics, as early as the late nineteenth century, mentioned that the establishment of a Jewish state would not eliminate anti-Semitism, "but would in fact place the Jews in greater peril by intensifying and focusing hatred of the Jews. Jewish tradition considers the concentration of Jews in any one place as hazardous. ...Israelīs assertive policies and their defence in the name of all Jews by the Zionist organisations may thus be seen as an extraordinary source of danger."

The difference in outlook is also shown in the chapter "Prophecies of Destruction and Strategies for survival". While the National Religious believe the destruction came to an end in 1945, seeing the Shoah as a point of departure for redemption, the rabbinical anti-Zionists insist that both the Shoah and the very existence of Israel are part of the same process of destruction. In their view, all the accomplishments of the Zionist enterprise will be eradicated before the Messiah arrives, who will find the Holy Land in a state of total devastation. From this perspective the State of Israel can be nothing but an obstacle on the path of redemption. The emphasis is placed on the exclusive role of God in redemption, writes Rabkin. This view is categorically rejected by Zionist messianism.

For the author the civic religion of Israel remains a fragile construction. The Haredim have never accepted it, because it has been introduced to replace Judaism. While criticism of Israeli policies may sometimes be tolerated, all Judaic critiques of Zionism are de-legitimized. Left-wing Jews can easily be discredited by Zionists as "non-Jewish", "self-hating" or even "anti-Semitic" while it would not be convincing to describe the Lubavitch or the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Wassermann or Hakham Alfandari, as anti-Semitic, states the author. The anti-Zionist literature regularly evokes the apocalyptic danger that Israel represents for the whole world. "They are convinced that the creation of Israel, which they see as an arrogant revolt against God, may well touch off a catastrophe of worldwide proportions." They believe that the Zionist structure of the state has perpetuated the conflict.

Rabkinīs book shows that Zionism has never been monolithic, and anti-Zionism has reflected this complexity. Despite defamation Judaic opposition to Zionism has shown remarkable perseverance. It seems as if this opposition will persist as long as the Zionist enterprise continues in the Holy Land. They all insist on the primacy of the Torah and its values like peace and dealing justly with the neighbors. Such ideas are subsitituted in Zionism by militarism and conquest. This exceptional book is an outcry for universal justice and a must read. It should find many readers.

Ludwig Watzal

Arthur Neslen, Occupied Minds. A Journey through the Israeli Psyche.
Pluto, London-Ann Arbor 2006, 291 pp, € 25.

The founding-fathers and founding-mother (Golda Meir) of Israel wanted to create a nation of "new Jews" which was never to be led to the "slaughter-house" again. Therefore, Israel had to be strong. A more than understandable attitude in view of the Nazi horrors which came upon the Jewish people in Europe. In the course of time this strength turned to a synomym for 40 years of occupation and oppression. The journalist Arthur Neslen, who worked for Al Jazeera, rightly asked how it could happen that the former "victims" turned into "perpetrators", but still see themselves as "victims". The author grew up in Great Britain, in a family which clinged to the traditions of the Bund, a secular and anti-Zionist Jewish Socialist party that once had been the mainstream of East European Jewish life. According to Neslen, it was still possible in the 1970s and 1980s to stick to this views in some Jewish communities. Today, Israel has come to dominate diaspora existence and everybody has to define themselves and their brands of thinking. The interviews the author conducted are about Israeli Jewish identity. The impression he got was "more complex and sad". "The Zionist 'counter-identity' is something I still find ugly, but Israelis themselves are rarely monsters - and never two-dimensional." Neslenīs book "is an exploration of the world through the Israeli mindīs eye".

Theodor Herzl, "father of modern Zionism" and author of the book "Der Judenstaat" wanted Israel to become "a nation like others". From the establishment of a Jewish state he expected the solution of the rampant anti-Semitism in Europe. This idea was a false conclusion. "To Herzl, becoming 'a nation like others' involved the dissolution of traditional Jewish identities on a nationalist cauldron." It is the notion of equality in other nations and peoples which the so-called friends of Israel do not want to materialise. They argue that Israel is something special and different from all the other nations. In 1948, Zionism was still a heresy to the majority of the worldīs religious Jews, because it rejected holy scriptures that prophesied the stateīs founding only after the Messiahīs arrival.

The Israeli society is dominated by Ashkenazim who ethnically are European Jews. They intended to build a modern, secular European-style Jewish national identity in which the Mizrahim, who are Eastern or Oriental Jews, were only numbers. The Ashkenazim hold the most important centres of political and economic power. By contrast, almost half of the population consists of Mizrahim who had lived well-integrated in their countries of origin. The majority of them see themselves as Arab Jews. "In Iraq, for example, Jewish social and religious institutions flourished and Jews served as government ministers, as Communist party leaders and they practically invented the countryīs financial and monetary system in 1932." But after political actions by the Israeli Mossad they left for Israel, a decision which many regretted. Before the creation of Israel, 80 000 Jews lived in Iraq. Ezra Levy, the last Rabbi of Baghdadīs last synagogue, Mer Taweig, came to Israel in 2003 and was totally disappointed: "The Muslims were more than a family to me. I donīt know why I left them to come here. Itīs better to have good friends than Jewish friends." Ezra saw himself as an "Iraqi Jew, not a Jewish Iraqi". Upon arrival in Israel, the same Baghdad Jews, who had led Iraqīs cultural renaissance, were sprayed with DDT and sent to tin shack transit camps, reports Neslen. The discrimination against the Mizrahim and the immigrants from Ethiopia by the ruling Ashkenasi elite has not yet been adequately discussed in Israel.

Until June 1967, large sectors of the religious establishment resisted the secular Zionist concept. The military success in the June War was interpreted by many religious Jews as a sign that the Messiah had returned. The religious believed that "Israelīs destiny was to become 'a light unto the nations' rather than a nation like any other". Their Jewish identity is rooted in "bītochen", which means "faith", and not in "bitachon", which means "security". Both concepts may bring together 80 per cent of Israel that is Jewish, but it also tears them apart, the author claims.

In ten chapters, immigrants and Sabras, Israelis born in the country, speak about their feelings, longings, sorrows, and disappointments. Since the establishment of Israel the country has followed a "melting pot" strategy, initially called "Kur Hitukh" (melting reactor) for newly arrived Diaspora Jews. Their old identities would be dissolved and fused into a nation rising from the ashes of the Holocaust. For the Mizrahim the concept has brought about only moderate success like Rabbi Ezra Levy mentioned. But there are other immigrants who are exited about living in Israel like David Weizman, a 37-year-old French PR executive, who made the Aliyah after anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2003. For Weizmann, "Israel is a miracle", and he wants to be "part of it". He believes in the countryīs values. "Israel is the solution for Jewish security and I wanted to raise my three kids here." By comparison, Olga und Dimitri are totally disappionted. They do not feel like Israelis but as Russians. "Russia is still my homeland, my culture, my language. We brought Russia to Israel." Both want to emigrate to Canada, because the Israelis are biased towards Russians. "I think the government realised that we had the potential to change this society. They were afraid and so they tried to stop us, by denying us opportunities. īZionism` is an empty phrase. Itīs like a soup balloon." Most of the Russian immigrants are heavyly baised towards Palestinians. They "only understand the language of force and power. I believe the army should show them no mercy. They should take radical measures. Itīs like Chechnya. We donīt have a negotiating partner. They should use all means to fight the terror."

Other underdogs like the Mizrahi Jew Rafi Shubeli do not want to leave Israel. He is on the board of the Keshet Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow, a civil rights group. He considers himself a non-Zionist, because "Zionism is racism directed at me, and the Arab world". The situation of the Jews in Yemen "had become impossible because of Zionists here". "We were victims of Zionism." On the question whether the Mizrahim have suffered a īcultural holocaust` Shabuli answers: "Yes, we are suffering it still. I see kids poisoned in schools and I can do nothing. My nephew told me īI donīt like studying Arabic because Arabs are bad people`."

Completely different from all the others in this row is Hanan Porat, the most famous religious Zionist in Israel. He was a former leader of the far-right National Religious Party. Porat studied together with Moshe Levinger and Menachem Froman at Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kookīs Merkaz Ha Rav yeshiva. They founded the Gush Emunim (block of the faithful) settlerīs movement. His views are extreme and bizarre: "Undoubtedly, itīs not just Sharon, itīs the general attitude in the western world that you should understand and compromise with terror. Arab terror is a whole philosophy which wants to control the world. In that context, Sharonīs plan is a criminal act because it cuts people off from their land for political - not security - reasons. Thatīs why I objected to the peace-time transfer of Arabs." The evacuation of Israelis from the Gaza strip was "immoral, unJewish and violates human rights". In contrast to Porat, Menachem Froman was a close friend of Yassir Arafat's. Despite his support for the Palestinians he provided a strange definition of the occupation: "The Palestinans are under Israelīs control for the same reason that the tigers in London Zoo are not free."

Arthur Neslen also shows that there is a movement beyond Zion. Some Israelis are searching for a new identity for their country. "The diaspora clock, which Zionism tried to turn back to year zero, is ticking again." Whether or not Yaron Peīer represents other Israelis except himself may be doubtful. From Greek discent, he lives as a musician in Ras-as-Satan in the Sinai peninsula; he has a very interesting personality. For him, God does not belong to the people. He "is not Jewish". One loses oneīs richness, if "you talk about the Jewish God because itīs also the Muslim God and the Christian God. Through the one you can see the many." "In a certain way I feel more secure outside Israel. I think a big desaster is coming which will take Israel to the bottom of the bottom, a place where the father will finally understand that the one child he lost was also lost on the other side, and the one child that is left is very precious." An colorful mosaic of Israeli identity and a fascinating book on Israelīs multiplicity.