Blood and Religion: The unmasking

of the Jewish and Democratic State

Published by Pluto Press in Britain in April

and in the United States in July 2006

For details about how to buy the book

in the UK:  from Pluto Press, click here or Amazon click here

in the US:  from Michigan University Press, click here or Amazon click here

Praise for Blood and Religion:

‘Jonathan Cook’s timely and important book on the Palestinians in Israel is by far the most penetrating and comprehensive on the subject to date ... [He] builds, through exhaustive reference to the Hebrew press, a convincing picture of ethnocratic Zionism constantly preoccupied with a central dilemma: how to rid the land of its indigenous people. This work should be required reading.’
Nur Masalha, Director of Holy Land Studies, St Mary’s College, University of Surrey, and author of The Politics of Denial (2003)

‘An original and powerful book.’

Ilan Pappe, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Haifa University, and author of A Modern History of Palestine (2004)

‘Very impressive … Some of his findings will astound even the knowledgeable reader.’

Salim Tamari, Director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies

Reviews:

By Raymond Deane on Electronic Intifada

By Dr Ludwig Watzal on Anis-Online

By Jim Miles on Palestine Chronicle

By Wim de Neuter (in Dutch)

By Isabelle Humphries, Holy Land Studies, Vol 5 No 2, November 2006, pp. 233-34

By Oren Ben Dor, Global Dialogue, Vol 9 No 1-2, Winter/Spring 2007, pp. 109-13

By Rami G Khouri on Agence Global

By Stephen Lendman on Global Research

By Wim de Neuter in Le Monde diplomatique (in French)
 

Extracts from the book:
 

To look at the contents page click here

On the problems of defining a state as Jewish (in PDF) click here

On demography and the Gaza disengagement (in PDF) click here

From the back cover:

What does Israel hope to achieve with its recent withdrawal from Gaza and the building of a 700km wall around the West Bank?

Jonathan Cook, who has reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the Second Intifada, presents a lucid account of the Jewish state's motives.  The heart of the issue, he argues, is demography.  Israel fears the moment when a region's Palestinians - Israel's own Palestinian citizens and those in the Occupied Territories - become a majority.  Inevitable comparisons with apartheid in South Africa will be drawn.

This book charts Israel's increasingly desperate responses to its predicament:

• military repression of Palestinian dissent on both sides of the Green Line

• accusations that Israel's Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian Authority are secretly conspiring to subvert the Jewish state from within

• a ban on marriages between Palestinians living under occupation and Israel's own Palestinian population to prevent the right of return 'through the back door'

• the redrawing of the Green Line to create an expanded, fortress state, where only Jewish blood and Jewish religion count

Ultimately, concludes the author, these abuses will lead to a third, far deadlier intifada.

About the author:

Jonathan Cook, a former staff journalist of the Guardian and Observer newspapers, has also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, international Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net

He is based in Nazareth, Israel.

Translations
An Arabic edition is available from: Obeikan Research & Development (Ord) Publishing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. To order, contact Mr Tareeq Sharabasy at Sharabasy@obeikanbookshop.com.sa  or Mr Ahmad Hanafi at hanafi@obeikanbookshop.com

A Portuguese edition is forthcoming.

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Jonathan Cook News Archive,  last updated on Tuesday, 17 June 2008