The Founding Myths of Modern Israel [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I have to say that this excellent book "The Founding Myths of Modern Israel" by Roger Garaudy is the most stunning and best-written account of the subject matter that I've ever read to date (and I've read a tremendous amount). The author provides an extremely accurate and scholarly analysis, and a truly unbiased and very readable presentation, of the legitimate and troubling realities promised in the book title.

The reviewer below, of 1/23/04, sounds like a "true believer", and his misleading review makes obvious that he literally didn't even read this book at all. I caution that the truths this book documents will be troubling to certain individuals, as the previously mentioned reviewer so clearly illustrates. However, to open-minded readers who are genuinely interested in historical accuracy instead of disinformation, in facts instead of propaganda, this book is a priceless find. Please do allow yourself a chance to read this truly outstanding work by Roger Garaudy. You will understand a great deal more about our world today if you do - and the information that you learn might even make you a little angry.

[To any readers who found my review useful, I also highly recommend, and ask you to please consider, "The Holocaust Industry", Second Edition, by Norman G Finkelstein; "The Thirteenth Tribe" by Arthur Koestler; and "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" by Israel Shahak.]

I am relatively new to the subject of the real history of Zionism, Israel, WWI and WW2 and the holocaust. I had, like so many, been aware that there were revisionist accounts but hesitated both out of skepticism--I couldn't believe that the mainstream narratives could be so wrong--and reluctance to associate myself with something that is invariably ascribed to racists and bigots alone. Do racists and bigots reject the mainstream historical narrative of the holocaust? They do, but not simply because they want to, but for the same reason they tend to believe that the earth revolves around the sun--the evidence is compelling. Shall we therefore reject the heliocentric model of our solar system too?

My own awakening came after learning of the work of Jewish Canadian revisionist scholar David Cole, whose videotaped tour of Auschwitz was one of the most fascinating and eyeopening things I have ever watched. Learning subsequently that David Cole renounced his revisionist work as a result of death threats made against him by the Jewish Defense League (a terrorist group according to the FBI--they have plotted to bomb mosques and even a US congressman's office)I realized that the only reason for such actions by the JDL and by those governments that have imprisoned revisionist scholars for simply talking about the issue is that the traditional account of the holocaust rests on a precariously thin body of evidence that grows thinner every year as mainstream historians are themselves forced to revise things like the number of Jewish people killed and the existence of gas chambers at several camps where they were once claimed to exist but no longer.

I discovered that not even supporters of the traditional narrative claim any longer that the bodies of Jewish victims were used to make lampshades or soap as I was taught as a child. Why, I wondered, would these stories have to have been invented if in fact the Nazi's crimes were already so awful?

It should be made explicitly clear that neither this book nor the revisionist case generally comes close to saying that the Nazis were good people or that Hitler was not a racist and cruel dictator. The issue is one of scale--were the crimes committed by the losers of WW2 any worse than those committed by the victors? Was the "final solution" to the "Jewish question" proposed by Hitler's Germany the extermination of the world's Jews or was it their expulsion from Europe? Were the deaths in the concentration camps which no one denies were harsh centers of forced labor really a result of homicidal gas chambers or the result of diseases like typhus, for which reason Zyklon B gas was used to kill the lice that spread the disease? What evidence is there in support of the traditional narrative? Have you ever looked for it?

This book makes abundantly clear that the reason for the distortion and exaggerration of the extent of the Nazis' war crimes was to create a sacred myth that would place the suffering of Jewish people above that of all other victims of WW2 and thus lend support both externally and internally to the new European colonial outpost, Israel, which was formed at the expense of the lives of those who had previously inhabited the "promised land".

While it is no doubt a difficult truth with which to come to terms, it is upon sober reflection undoubtedly the real story of the tragically violent 20th century.

Do not be intimidated by those who have their reasons for not wanting anyone to examine the revisionist case. Read, think, and decide for yourself what to believe. You won't be sorry.

This book is especially good for those who want to get a good grounding on the subject. Mr. Garaudy does not condemn the entire Jewish community. He concentrates on the real culprits; the Zionists. One should also read Israel Shahak's books, as well as Alfred Koestler's on the "Thirteenth Tribe" and you will have a fairly complete picture as to why Jews in general and the Zionists in particular were not very popular in the past or now. I have noticed an annoying trend when a Jew reviews books by author such as Israel Shahak. Those reviewers almost always refer to the author as "self-hating Jews". How unfortunate that they don't have a better argument! What the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians now violates the old maxim that two wrongs don't make a right. What the Nazis did was certainly wrong and you would think that Ariel Sharon and his fellow thugs would feel some guilt about what they are perpetrating now. This is the main theme of Mr. Garaudy's fine book, one that every thinking American should read for the other side of the story.