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Man-made Israel [Book Review]
Erasure of Palestinian history has become an obsession.
What do you get when you mix ten decades of biblical studies, an Old Testament, the ideology of Zionism, and a tablespoon of politically motivated archaeology, all mixed in a bowl of historical evidence? Author Keith W. Whitelam undertook this recipe and reports on the results in “The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History”. The short answer to the question is that one is left with a toxic modern state, hell-bent on crafting an umbilical cord between itself and a mythical 2000-year old past. In other words, the State of Israel.
By Keith W. Whitelam
Routledge, 1997, 296 Pages, £24.79
If no one were hurt during this process, one could just turn a blind eye and be content that, To each his own. But when the results of the recipe never produce a stable product, and an entire people are continuously being battered into oblivion, we each have a responsibility to step in and say enough is enough.
“The Invention of Ancient Israel” is not an easy read. It is one of those books that when you finish reading the last lines and look up you feel like you just emerged from a washing machine. Utilizing a heavy dose of quotations…
