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Arabs and
Israel for Beginners
by Ron
David, illustrated by Susan David
Most of the
literature on the Middle East is so distorted
in favor of Israel that it bears virtually
no relationship to the truth. Anyone who
wants the truth must dig through daunting
works by people like Chomsky, Lilienthal,
Said and a handful of other scholarly writers.
But when it comes to books written in plain
English for regular people there is virtually
nothing, just a huge gap. ARABS & ISRAEL
FOR BEGINNERS, part of the 30-year running
"Beginners Series," was written
to fill that gap. The very identity of the
series (which could be described in a word
as "anti-footnote") is to communicate
complex subjects with clarity and wit so
that regular people can understand them.
It is a concept perfectly suited to Democracy,
especially when it is as painstakingly researched
as this book.
Since it
was the author’s goal to learn the
real truth (not one side’s version
of it), he never settled for only one source
on anything. If he couldn’t corroborate
it he didn’t use it. In virtually every
case, the author used Israeli or Jewish
sources (including Israeli newspapers) to
"prove" the Arab side of the story;
or irrefutably "white bread" sources
(like "Britannica") that, if they
bent the truth, would NOT bend it to favor
the Arabs; or official documents available
to anyone (Wilson's King Crane Commission
Report; U.S. State Dept. documents uncovered
by Stephen Green; facts [population, etc.]
underlying the UN's 1947 partition of Palestine,
etc.).
ARABS &
ISRAEL FOR BEGINNERS tells the plain truth
in plain English – with a sense of
humor, and well-suited for both children and adults.
Reviews
"Take
the research of Noam Chomsky, enliven it
with skillful drawings, then trace 12,000
years of turbulent history with the irreverence
of Saturday Night Live, and you have Ron
David’s ARABS & ISRAEL FOR BEGINNERS."
- John Mahoney, Americans for Middle East
Understanding
"For
those of us raised on the prevailing myths
about the Middle East, this book is a serious
eye-opener. If you are wondering about the
who, what, when, where and why of the tortuous
Middle East crisis this is a great place
to start. There is never a dull moment in
this book."
- Amazon reader, Ottawa, Canada
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