In Goliath, New York Times bestselling author MaxBlumenthal takes us on a journey through the badlands and high roads ofIsrael-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under thesiege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of thePalestinians deepens.
Beginning with the national electionscarried out during Israel's war on Gaza in 2008/9, which brought into power thecountry's most right-wing government to date, Blumenthal tells the story ofIsrael in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo peace process.
As Blumenthalreveals, Israel has become a country where right-wing leaders like AvigdorLieberman and Bibi Netanyahu are sacrificing democracy on the altar of theirpower politics, where the loyal opposition largely and passively stands asideand watches the organized assault on civil liberties, where state-fundedOrthodox rabbis publish books that provide instructions on how and when to killgentiles, where half of Jewish youth declare their refusal to sit in aclassroom with an Arab, and where mob violence targets Palestinians and Africanasylum seekers scapegoated by leading government officials as "demographicthreats."
Immersing himselflike few other journalists inside the world of hardline political leaders andmovements, Blumenthal interviews the demagogues and divas in their homes, inthe Knesset, and in the watering holes where their young acolytes hang out, andhe speaks with those political leaders behind the organized assault on civilliberties. As his journey deepens, he painstakingly reports on the occupiedPalestinians challenging schemes of demographic separation through unarmedprotest. He talks at length to the leaders and youth of Palestinian societyinside Israel now targeted by security service dragnets and legislationsuppressing their speech and provides in-depth reporting on the small band ofJewish Israeli dissidents who have shaken off a conformist mind-set thatpermeates the media, schools, and the military.
Through hisfar-ranging travels, Blumenthal illuminates the present by uncovering theghosts of the past—the histories of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages nowgone and forgotten, how that history has set the stage for the current crisisof Israeli society, and how the Holocaust has been turned into justification foroccupation.
A brave andunflinching account of the real facts on the ground, Goliath is an unprecedented and compellingwork of journalism.
