Synopses & Reviews
These essays, written between 1966 and 2010 by lifelong Israeli activist and theorist Moshé Machover, cover diverse aspects of Israeli society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Elaborating on the ideas of the Socialist Organization in Israel (Matzpen), two interrelated themes appear throughout the collection: the necessity of understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a regional context and the connection between Palestinian liberation and the struggle for socialism throughout the Middle East.
Review
"It is no exaggeration to say that this book is the best possible introduction to the topic for English-speaking readers. Its inestimable virtue is that it affords a historical overview of the whole Zionist enterprise, without which it is impossible to situate the struggle in any meaningful sense, much less reach a conclusion as to how it might successfully be resolved. Machover does both these things, and the result is a volume which Anglophone socialists must read."
Chris Gray, The Weekly Worker
This collection of Moshé Machovers writings from the mid-1960s to today brings together a coherent and consistent vision of Zionist colonialism and the dispossession and discrimination which have been its hallmarks throughout the whole period. [A] valuable book in its historical reach, accessible style, and forthright debunking of the peace process and other lazy myths...”
Victoria Brittain, former associate foreign editor of the Guardian and author of Hidden Lives, Hidden Deaths
"These books, [Israelis and Palestinians, and False Prophets of Peace] are important contributions not only for historical perspective but for present-day understanding
The fundamental insights of the formative Israeli revolutionary left remain as impressive as ever inspiring in their clarity of vision, even if its distressing to see how, if anything, political discourse about Israel and Palestine has regressed as much as advanced in half a century."
David Finkel, Against the Current
The quality of [Machovers] writing is clear, precise, accessible, free of cant, challenging, and unswerving in its commitment, and its content is the very stuff of struggleall marks of an organic intellectual.”
A. Sivanandan, director, Institute of Race Relations
Moshé Machover has been consistent in his belief that socialism provides the best framework for the organization of human affairs and this governs his perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict. While many have internalized the nation-state as the most sublime form of social and political organization, he remains undaunted in his rejection of nationalism.”
Musa Budeiri, author of The Palestine Communist Party, 19191948: Arab and Jew in the Struggle for Internationalism
This collection of essays reflects Matzpens resolutely socialist perspective for understanding the root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.... [Machover] not only elaborates on constructing a solid basis for a socialist alternative to Zionism but enriches the general Marxist and socialist theory on colonialism and imperialism in our era.”
Tikva Honig-Parnass, author of False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and The Struggle for Palestine
Synopsis
A lifelong activist, Moshé Machover's essays, written as an Israeli socialist in solidarity with the Palestinian people, are collected here.
Synopsis
Comprising analysis and polemics, these essays cover diverse aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israeli society. Two inter-related themes run throughout: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a regional context, and the connection between Palestinian liberation and the struggle for socialism.
Moshé Machover is an Israeli mathematician and lifelong socialist activist.
About the Author
Moshé Machover was born in 1936 in Tel-Aviv, Palestine. As a teenager he joined the left-Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, from which he was expelled in 1952 for questioning its ideology. As a student, he joined the Israeli Communist Party, from which he was expelled in 1962 for challenging the lack of democracy and subservience to the Soviet Union. In the same year he helped found the Israeli Socialist Organization.
Moshé Machover is also a mathematician who has taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the university of Bristol, and at Kings College, London. He is emeritus professor at London University, and has been living in London since 1968.
Apart from academic books and papers on mathematical logic and social choice (the mathematical theory of collective decision-making), he has written extensively on socialist theory, particularly as applied to Israel, the Middle East and the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.
With Akiva Orr he co-authored Peace, Peace where there is no Peace (1961) on the IsraeliPalestinian conflict (Hebrew; English translation available online: .)
With Emmanuel Farjoun he co-authored Laws of Chaos: A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy (Verso, 1983), a critical reconstruction of Marxian political economy using a stochastic approach borrowed from statistical mechanics.