A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem With Israel
A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel, by Robin Shepherd, has now been published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Readers can purchase the book at the link to Amazon at the bottom of this article.
Every author wants his work to be read as widely as possible. So, I make no apology for a rather blatant piece of self-promotion here on my blog!
No country in the world has attracted as much censure and vilification in Europe in recent years as Israel. It seems to me that a more reasonable state of affairs will continue to elude us until we truly understand why this has happened.
It is up to others to assess how successful I have been in that aim. I called the book A State Beyond the Pale as a rather obvious play on words. Israel has been pushed beyond the pale of polite society across Europe. But could it be that it is Europe that is putting itself beyond the pale by immersing itself in bigotry?
Europe’s indignant opinion forming classes believe they are in a position to do the judging on this issue. They are convinced that it is they who hold the moral high ground. I beg to differ, and I seek to show how an obsessive and virulent anti-Zionism reflects deep seated weaknesses in the political culture of Europe. Europe is no position to do the judging. It does not hold the moral high ground. The great paradox is that the conflict is judging Europe. The anti-Israeli agenda tells us more about the people who are pushing it than they might care to admit.
Finally, the book does not focus on the usual suspects at the fringes. Focusing on far-Left or far-Right groups, let alone Islamist extremists, would have been to go for the easy targets. The value of such an approach would have been reduced accordingly.
A State Beyond the Pale focuses instead on anti-Israeli sentiment inside the mainstream of the public discourse. That is the core of the problem and it is there that the problem must now be addressed. So, I look forward to all your comments which are probably best directed to my email account on this site.
To purchase the book on Amazon for yourself or friends, click on the following link:
Love of the Land: A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem With Israel
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