A Review of the Contents

 

Introduction

The author tells the story of his discovery that Israel, which he believed at that time was one of the most moral and ethical nations on Earth, engaged in practices that he found repugnant, and that he believed in the long run would do harm to Jews around the world. (Full text in book sample.)

 

Chapter 1: Defining and Describing Terrorism

Dr. Cohen looks at various definitions of terrorism, to see which ones have the most merit. He drops definitions involving the concept of legality. If such a definition is taken seriously, Nazi Germany could have defined its terrorist tactics during World War II as legal, simply by passing laws legalizing them, thereby legalizing murder. He finds dictionary definitions involving the the concept of harm to noncombatant civilians for political purposes to make the most sense. (Full text in book sample.)

 

Chapter 2: Recent Incidents of Terrorism

The author compares acts of terrorism recently committed by both Palestinians and Israelis over several years, and finds that the terrorism committed by Israelis against Palestinians dwarfs that committed by Palestinian fighters against Israelis. He finds, for example, that all the terrorism committed by Hamas, including suicide bombings, add up to a small fraction of the terrorist acts done by Israel against Palestinians. He carefully explains what he means by terrorist acts.

 

Chapter 3: Arrests, Interrogation, and Incarceration of Palestinians

The author examines an ongoing series of Palestinian complaints about prison conditions, including substandard living conditions, poor food, and grossly inadequate medical care. He reviews two major Israeli reports on prison torture, both physical and mental, much of it aimed at extracting confessions which might not be truthful, but which are given to avoid extreme pain.

 

Chapter 4: Denial or Delay of Medical Assistance to Palestinians Causing Death

The author gives instances of the savage practice of denying ambulance access to wounded Palestinians, resulting in their bleeding to death. He also gives instances of deaths resulting from restrictions in movement of ill people in need of medical care, for example, Palestinians who are not allowed to get through checkpoints to get to doctors or hospitals.

 

Chapter 5: Breaking the Silence Testimonies

The author discusses a remarkable series of testimonies by Israeli soldiers, published on the Web, in which they admit to human rights abuses and violations of international law without naming them as such, giving details of each incident.

 

Chapter 6: Beatings

The average American has no comprehension of the prevalence of beatings in the Israeli occupation. The average Palestinian can expect to be beaten with fists, clubs, rifle butts, or have his head banged on a wall or the floor perhaps several times during his life. The author presents his compilation of incidents of brutal beatings of Palestinian civilians or fighters, under different circumstances, from 2002 to 2008.

 

Chapter 7: Property Destruction and Displacement of Palestinians (cont.)

Contents (cont).

 

Regarding property destruction, Americans do not realize that Israelis demolish homes of non-combatant Palestinian civilians perhaps several times each week, amounting to thousands of homes over a few years. The author gives instances of such home demolitions. He also discusses another common practice, destruction of farmland by bulldozing by soldiers or destruction of crops by vandalism by settlers. These practices slowly take homeland from the Palestinian people and make it part of Israel.

 

Chapter 8: Barbarism

In this chapter, the author recounts incidents in which Israeli actions were so brutal that many of them enraged him.

 

Chapter 9: In Their Own Words

Several victims of Israeli brutality tell their own experiences in their own words. They include two Palestinian newsmen, a Palestinian-American mother and her son, a Palestinian peace activist whose belief system was severely challenged by the murder of his daughter, and an activist who was beaten by Israeli settlers. This is one part of the book in which the author takes a back seat to others who have actually suffered at the hands of Israelis personally, by letting them tell their stories.

 

Chapter 10: Israeli Violations of International Law

Having given many examples to this point of Israeli violations of international law, the author presents a Human Rights Watch report, prepared in 2001, but seen by the author as still valid at the time of publication of this book, a report very carefully detailing the spectrum of violations of international law by Israeli soldiers, police, and settlers, all harming Palestinians, some literally causing Palestinians to lose their lives.

 

Chapter 11: The Siege and Invasion of Gaza by Israel

Here, the author tells how the siege of Gaza came about, starting when Ariel Sharon removed all Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip, and when a few months later, Hamas won a parliamentary majority in the Palestinian elections, and then won a battle in Gaza against Fatah Security, which was trying to weaken Hamas. The author tells how Israel, unnerved by these events, strongly clamped down on all movement into and out of Gaza, and at the end of 2008 instituted a 22-day bombardment campaign and invasion of Gaza, killing hundreds of civilians and leveling thousands of homes.

 

Chapter 12: Historical Perspective

The author relies on historical sources to discuss how the state of Israel came about, with one historian pointing out that ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was part of the plan for increasing Israeli territory. The author tells how his own family history caused him to be afraid that Jews throughout the world would be attacked, and he tries to understand how similar Israeli Jewish fears of destruction have led to abuses of Palestinians. He concludes that despite having deep-rooted cause for fears of harm, Israelis must not take their fears out on the Arabs whose lives they control.

 

Notes

There are 297 references in this edition.

 

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