Wrestling with Zionism: Jewish Voices of Dissent, edited by Daphna Levit

A Chronology of voices, from the birth of Zionism until today Theodor Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Noam Chomsky, Tanya Reinhart, Zeev Sternhell, Uri Avnery, Tikva-Honig Parnass, Shlomo Sand, Tom Segev, Simha Flapan, Baruch Kimmerling, Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, and Michael Sfard Portrayals of Israel in mainstream Western media as the "homeland of the Jews" and "the only democracy in the Middle East" are commonplace. Since the realities behind them are rarely shown, these truisms have become habitual assumptions underlying news coverage, public policy, and ordinary conversation. At the same time, while criticism of a government's policies is considered an essential right and safeguard of democracy, criticism of Israeli policy is persistently attacked as anti-Zionist—or even anti-Semitic—by a majority of Israelis and by those outside the country who claim to be Israel's friends. The views of i