Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has drawn on Zionism, the
movement behind its creation, to provide a sense of self and
political direction. In this groundbreaking new work, Ilan Pappe
looks at the continued role of Zionist ideology. The Idea of
Israel considers the way Zionism operates outside of the
government and military in areas such as the country's education
system, media, and cinema, and the uses that are made of the
Holocaust in supporting the state's ideological structure.
In
particular, Pappe examines the way successive generations of
historians have framed the
1948
conflict as a liberation campaign, creating a foundation myth that
went unquestioned in Israeli society until the 1990s. Pappe himself
was part of the post-Zionist movement that arose then. He was
attacked and received death threats as he exposed the truth about how
Palestinians have been treated and the gruesome structure that links
the production of knowledge to the exercise of power. The Idea of
Israel is a powerful and urgent intervention in the war of ideas
concerning the past, and the future, of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict.
