Whitewashed history

Clear bias towards Zionist views.
The book uses soft language to describe atrocities, including Palestinian villages being "abandoned" when they were actually ethnically cleansed, and focusing on the land being Israel, rather than Palestine, or Palestine-Israel. The authors describe ethnically-cleansed Palestinian villages as “uprooted,” and never mention who, how, or why these villages were “uprooted.” Soft language that dismisses Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.

Palestinians, or "the Arabs," as referenced in the book, are merely citizens of Israel, rather than being victims of Israel's ethnic cleansing and its Nakba of the Palestinians.

The authors claim to be Zionist, so at least they are honest. But reading the book was difficult with its soft language, and clear white settler-colonialist-centric views. The authors do attempt to bridge peace between Palestinians and Israelis, but I am disappointed at how Israel's crimes, both historical and ongoing, are softened and relegated to "events."

Everything references Israel, Israelis, and Israeli culture, and how “the Arabs” are “part of the Israeli culture.” This disregards, at best, the colonization, land theft, life theft, and destruction of Palestinian freedom and sovereignty, and subsumes the Palestinians under Israeli control. There is such a blatant bias in this book that it was difficult to get through without feeling that the history within was so whitewashed and the writing itself is a testament to the colonization of the Palestinians by the Israelis. The entire book was Israeli-centric, even as it purports to be sympathetic, and even empathetic to their “Arab neighbors.”

The entire book is a testimony of Israeli domination and control of Palestinians, packaged with a faux-sympathetic voice. I find it hard to believe the authors learned anything from their conversations with Palestinians, and instead walked away from them feeling smug in their Zionist worldview and that they are gracious enough to consider Palestinians as human and equals.

I did wonder if some of these "conversations" were made up, because they seem so unbelievable, and not how people speak. I understand it's not a verbatim script, of course, but something felt off about them, and I can't help but wonder if the authors took liberties in finagling a different messaging than the original speaker intended.

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