Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the Israeli Arab city…." He’s a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers. He’s also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth Press Agency.

 

Cook states why he’s in Nazareth as follows: to give himself "greater freedom to reflect on the true nature of the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict and (gain) fresh insight into its root causes." He "choose(s) the issues (he) wish(es) to cover (and so is) not constrained by the ‘treadmill’ of the mainstream media….which gives disproportionate coverage to the concerns of the powerful (so it) makes much of their Israel/Palestine reporting implausible."

 

Living among Arabs, "things look very different" to Cook. "There are striking, and disturbing, similarities between" the Palestinian experience inside Israel and within the Occupied Territories. "All have faced Zionism’s appetite for territory and domination, as well as repeated (and unabated) attempts at ethnic cleaning."

 

Cook authored two important books and contributed to others. His newest one, just published was reviewed by this writer. It’s called "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East." Advance praise accompanied it, and noted author John Pilger calls it "One of the most cogent understandings of the modern Middle East I have read. It is superb, because the author himself is a unique witness" to events and powerfully documents them.

 

Cook’s earlier book was published in 2006. It’s titled "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" and is the subject of this review. It’s the rarely told story of the plight of Israel‘s 1.4 million Arab citizens, the discrimination against them, the reasons why, and the likely future consequences from it. Israel‘s "demographic problem" is the issue Cook addresses. It’s the time when a faster-growing Palestinian population (excluding the diaspora) becomes a majority, and the very character of a "Jewish State" is threatened. Israel‘s response – state-sponsored repression and violent ethnic cleansing, in the Territories and inside Israel.

 

Arab-Israeli citizens are referred to as "Israeli Arabs." It’s  how many of them refer to themselves as do Israelis. They’re the sole remnants of the Palestinian population Israel expelled in its 1948 War of Independence. Palestinians call it the Nakba that alnakba.org describes as follows: …."the Nakba (cataclysm)….saw the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages." Noted Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, believes 800,000 were affected. Cook uses 750,000. Whatever the true figure, it was huge and changed everything for Palestinians henceforth.

 

Authorities have worked ever since to hide the past and "de-Palestinize" those remaining inside Israel – to erase their "national and cultural memories and turn them into identity-starved ‘Arabs.’ " So far, it’s failed. There’s been a resurgence of "Palestinian-ness" for at least two reasons. Palestinians believe that Israel won’t ever grant them a viable independent state and will always regard them as a "fifth column." They’re also denied a national or civic identity. Nonetheless, they prefer Israeli citizenship to life in the Territories where people have no rights under occupation. They live with a hope Israelis are obsessed to deny them – that one day Israel will change from a Jewish State to a democratic one for all its people.

 

So far, it’s nowhere in sight, Cook documents it in his book, and he states his premise upfront: "Israel is beginning a long, slow process of ethnic cleansing" Israeli Arabs from Israel as well as Palestinians from the parts of the Occupied Territories it wants for a Greater Israel.

 

Introduction – The Glass Wall

 

Israel has a penchant for walls, fences and barriers as exemplified by its best known one being erected in the West Bank. It’s mammoth in size and when completed will encircle most of the Territory’s inhabitants and measure nearly 700 km. It’s ghettoizing Palestinian communities, cutting them off from each other, and isolating them all from the outside world. It devours the landscape, uproots ancient olive groves, destroys pastures and greenhouses, and expropriates around 10% of occupied Palestine by an inexorable land-grab masquerading as security.

 

In 1994, a similar barrier went up in Gaza – an electronic fence around the Territory, and again security was cited. Both walls reflect early Zionist thinking – that Palestinians won’t ever be dispossessed so "unremitting force" has to subdue them. It affects Palestinians under occupation and "rarely mentioned" Israeli Arabs who comprise one-fifth of the population or a slightly greater percentage than when Cook wrote his book. At year-end 2007, Israeli society broke down as follows: 7.24 million total of which 75.6% (5.47 million) are Jews, 20% (1.45 million) Arabs and 4.4% (320,000) Christians and others.

 

Walls and fences keep those in the Territories constrained. An invisible "glass wall" inside Israel is just as "unyielding and solid as the walls around the West Bank and Gaza." Its aim is the same – to imprison the people, force them into submission, hide what’s happening from view, and do it for a reason.

 

Israel‘s problem is demographic and its danger is twofold:

 

— a far higher Palestinian birth rate threatens the Jewishness of the state; and

 

— right of return UN Resolution 194 guarantees compound the problem.

 

Walls and fences are meant to solve it – physical and glass, and Cook suggests the latter is the greater obstacle to Middle East peace.

 

They exist for a purpose – to intimidate and silence captive people in different ways. In the Territories, brute force is used, but inside Israel efforts are more subtle to preserve an image of a democratic state. In other words, "the glass wall is essentially a deception." It creates the impression of normality that "bears no relation to reality" that, in fact, is harsh, unyielding and has been unrelenting for decades. In a nominal democratic state, Israeli Arab rights are denied, they’re considered hostile non-citizens, and when they demand equal treatment to Jews, it causes "howls of outrage."

 

No matter what they do or how they try, they’re Arabs first, and in Israel that’s the "enemy." In a Jewish State, they’ll "never be equal to a Jew." The state, in Jewish eyes, belongs to Jewish people, not its non-Jewish citizens, and Israeli courts affirm a Jewish State. Its a legal concept found nowhere else in the world, most countries could never get away with it, yet the world community ignores what Israel does.

 

Cook notes the racist implications. Nearly all Israeli land is in trust for Jewish people living anywhere. Arab Israelis have no right to it and legally can be excluded from parts of their own country. This notion was embodied in Israel‘s Law of Return. It was passed in 1950, and it’s purpose is still relevant – to erase the demographic threat of a Palestinian homeland in a Jewish State. It grants every Jew in the world the right to automatic Israeli citizenship if they choose to live in Israel, and the reason is simple – to ensure a continued Jewish majority in perpetuity. So far it’s worked, but it’s threatened. More on than below.

 

Israel‘s Declaration of Independence enshrined a Jewish State identity. It only recognizes Jewish people, their history and culture as well as Zionist movements. They include the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund that legally may discriminate against non-Jews.

 

Israel is rare in another respect as well. Like the UK, it has no formal constitution although its Declaration of Independence pledged one would be produced in six months. It never was because embodying Jewish values can’t avoid discriminatory language. So Israel instead has 11 Basic Laws, none of which guarantee free speech, religion or equality. Israel‘s 1992 Law on Human Dignity and Liberty is the closest it comes, but it, too, excludes equality as a guaranteed right.

 

Other anomalies also exist. For example, each religious community regulates issues relating to births, deaths and marriages. No civil institutions or courts have authority. As a result, the state has no power over marriages, divorces or to intervene in these matters. In addition, Judaism is privileged, only the Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays are recognized, and conversions to Judaism are rare and allowed only after rigorous vetting.

 

On the other hand, suffrage is universal, but two factors dilute it. Arab parties are excluded from government coalitions and decision-making bodies so it makes voting for them largely symbolic. In addition, all political parties must pledge allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic" state. If Arab Israeli politicians demand a democratic one for everyone, they risk violating the law. Jews profoundly reject the notion of one state for all because it challenges rigid customs:

 

— a "Jewish and democratic" state favoring Jews;

 

— Zionism’s founding presumption that Israel was exclusively for persecuted Jews; and most threatening

 

— democratization in its truest sense could empower a "demographic monster that could devour the Jewish state almost overnight." An eventual Palestinian majority in Greater Israel would end the Jewish State.

 

The idea of true democratization emerged in the late 1990s, it became a frightening vision, and state authorities feared it could become a national insurrection once the second Intifada began. It was thus confronted with lethal force inside Israel and the Territories. Palestinians have been harassed ever since, most severely in Gaza, marginally less in the West Bank, but also inside Israel – unreported and out of sight.

 

Cook’s book mostly addresses Israeli Arabs and contends the following – that their treatment is key to understanding why reaching a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so elusive. At its root is Israel‘s refusal to end discrimination because that would force it to do what it can’t and won’t – atone for its War of Independence crimes that have been carefully suppressed for 60 years. Further, Zionism conceptually sanctifies Is

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