A question of Israel?

Antony Lowenstein's book, My Israel Question is due out on 1st August 2006. Here's the blurb from Melbourne University Publishing.

My Israel Question

Antony Loewenstein

The undeclared war in the Middle East is the abiding conflict of our era, with little apparent hope of resolution despite years of peace talks.

Opinion

'I can think of few books about Israel and Palestine, written by an Australian, as important as Antony Loewenstein's brave j'accuse. In challenging the propagandists to give up their addiction, he is a truth-teller bar none.' --John Pilger

'This is one of the best treatises which presents in the most lucid way possible why anti-Zionism can not be equated with anti-Semitism. Interweaving personal trips, most valuable information and clear analysis, My Israel Question will serve as an essential guide for those who dare to criticise Zionist wrongdoing in the past and Israeli policies in the present, without being deterred by false allegations of Anti-Semitism.' --Dr Ilan Pappe, Senior Lecturer at the University of Haifa, Israel, and author of A History of Modern Palestine

About this Title

The undeclared war in the Middle East is the abiding conflict of our era, with little apparent hope of resolution despite years of peace talks.

On one side of the conflict, in the face of suicide bombings and international criticism over its military aggression, Israel asserts the right of the Jewish state to exist in Palestine. On the other, the Palestinian people struggle, some peacefully, some violently, for survival. Far beyond Israel's disputed borders, in New York and Washington, London and Paris, Sydney and Melbourne, the conflict is replayed in passionate public debate by Holocaust survivors, Zionist organisations, Arab advocates, the anti-war movement, newspaper columnists, presidents and prime ministers, and politicians and activists of all shades.

In My Israel Question, a young Australian Jew, Antony Loewenstein, asks how much Zionism-the ideology of Jewish nationalism-is to blame for this intractable conflict. He fearlessly investigates the ways in which the Jewish diaspora in Australia and elsewhere have campaigned on Israel's behalf, in the media and in political and business spheres. He also considers the historical rationale for Zionism-including the centuries of virulent European anti-Semitism from which it grew-and asks how relevant and sustainable twentieth-century Zionism is today. A searching discussion from a significant new voice in one of the most important debates of our times.

About the Author

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist and author. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun-Herald, The Australian, The Bulletin, Znet, Crikey, New Matilda, The Big Issue and Counterpunch. He was also a contributor to the 2004 bestseller, Not Happy, John! He is a board member of Macquarie University's Centre for Middle East and North African Studies.
His website can be found at www.antonyloewenstein.com

Of course he has had his little local difficulties down there in the land of Oz. Hopefully they're behind him now.