I had a discussion with a friend about the Isreal-Palestine-conflict and the position of Isreal. It became a heated discussion. My naive standpoint is, that every person needs a place to live, to call their home, and idiology should not be able to claim possession over a land casting people out that have another opinion.
Still I realized that I know next to nothing about jewish history or the history of Israel (exept for the cruelties by the Nazis). So I think I will have to do a lot to catch up on that topic.
The author, Israel Shahak, was an Israeli professor of organic chemistry, at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Holocaust survivor and a former chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights. In his book he explains the anti-gentile stance in historic orthodox judaism which seems to be the foundation of zionism.
He takes a stance against the apologetic arguments of proponents of a jewish state by explaining the history of judaism. I learned a lot about the Talmud as authoritive text in orthodox judaism, and how it preaches anti-gentile sentiments and how judaism was just as bloodthirsty as any other religion.
I still have a lot of reading to do to form an actual opinion, as this might be just one perspective. Still I recommend it a lot to everyone intestested in this topic.
If there is a book you think I should read, I would be delighted if you could share it with me. I love to get to know more diverse opinions.