John Rose reviews Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People and Shlaim’s Israel and Palestine for International Socialism

John Rose reviews Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People and Avi Shlaim’s Israel and Palestine for Issue 125 of the journal International Socialism.

I’ll risk a prediction. Shlomo Sand’s book, already a best seller in Israel and France, will accelerate the disintegration of the Zionist enterprise. Of course Israel’s military force as well as its usefulness to Western governments can allow it to hang on for some time, but its ideological credibility, already severely shaken, will now shatter more quickly. Furthermore Sand is immune to any accusation of anti-Semitism. His book, with tremendous elan and gusto, is a celebration of an unknown early history of the Jewish religion…

There is of course, as always with Shlaim, a great deal of enormous value in this book, particularly his blistering assault on the Balfour Declaration and Britain’s thoroughly nauseating record in creating the Zionist state.

Read the full review here.