Mythologies Without End

Book excerpt: The history of modern Israel is a fiercely contested subject. From the Balfour declaration to the Six-Day War to the recent assault on Gaza, ideologically-charged narratives and counter-narratives battle for dominance not just in Israel itself but throughout the world. In the United States and Israel, the Israeli cause is treated as the more righteous one, albeit with important qualifiers and caveats. In Mythologies Without End, Jerome Slater, a senior scholar on the conflict and a perceptive critic of Israel, takes stock of the conflict over time and argues that US policies in the region are largely a product of mythologies that are often flatly wrong. Because of their widespread acceptance, there have been devastating consequences to the true interests of both countries. However, the historical truth is very nearly the converse: it is Israel and the US that have repeatedly lost, discarded, or even deliberately sabotaged many opportunities to reach fair compromise settlements of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. As Slater reexamines the entire history of the conflict from its onset at the end of WWI through today, he argues that a refutation of the many mythologies is a necessary first step toward solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Focusing on US role in the conflict, this book exposes the self-defeating policies of both the US and Israel, which have served to prolong the conflict far beyond when it should have been resolved.