The Idea of Israel

A major new history of Zionism and Israel, by the renowned author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Since Israel’s foundation in 1948, one guiding idea has been the cornerstone of its identity, its politics and its actions: Zionism. In this groundbreaking new history, Ilan Pappe looks at the role of ideology in Israel’s development, from its inception to the present day. In doing so, he considers the role of the country’s universities, education system and media, looking at their production of knowledge and information, and the way such knowledge has been used to provide an ideological scaffolding for the state and to shape realities on the ground. He explores how, in the course of one decade, the Oslo years of the 1990s, this idea came under sustained questioning for the first time—since when, former critics have once more rallied round the national consensus. Was this episode, he asks, a one-off, or does it promise a new direction for Israel?