Goliath, Max Blumenthal
Goliath, Max Blumenthal
2 Rating(s)
List: $29.95 | Sale: $20.97
Club: $14.97

Goliath
Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

Author: Max Blumenthal

Narrator: Richard Powers

Unabridged: 22 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/01/2013


Synopsis

In Goliath, New York Times bestselling author Max Blumenthal takes us on a journey through the badlands and high roads of Israel-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under the siege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of the Palestinians deepens.Beginning with the national elections carried out during Israel's war on Gaza in 2008/9, which brought into power the country's most right-wing government to date, Blumenthal tells the story of Israel in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo peace process.As Blumenthal reveals, Israel has become a country where right-wing leaders like Avigdor Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu are sacrificing democracy on the altar of their power politics, where the loyal opposition largely and passively stands aside and watches the organized assault on civil liberties, where state-funded Orthodox rabbis publish books that provide instructions on how and when to kill gentiles, where half of Jewish youth declare their refusal to sit in a classroom with an Arab, and where mob violence targets Palestinians and African asylum seekers scapegoated by leading government officials as "demographic threats."Immersing himself like few other journalists inside the world of hardline political leaders and movements, Blumenthal interviews the demagogues and divas in their homes, in the Knesset, and in the watering holes where their young acolytes hang out, and he speaks with those political leaders behind the organized assault on civil liberties. As his journey deepens, he painstakingly reports on the occupied Palestinians challenging schemes of demographic separation through unarmed protest. He talks at length to the leaders and youth of Palestinian society inside Israel now targeted by security service dragnets and legislation suppressing their speech and provides in-depth reporting on the small band of Jewish Israeli dissidents who have shaken off a conformist mind-set that permeates the media, schools, and the military.Through his far-ranging travels, Blumenthal illuminates the present by uncovering the ghosts of the past—the histories of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages now gone and forgotten, how that history has set the stage for the current crisis of Israeli society, and how the Holocaust has been turned into justification for occupation.A brave and unflinching account of the real facts on the ground, Goliath is an unprecedented and compelling work of journalism.

About Max Blumenthal

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He is a writing fellow for the Nation Institute. 

About Richard Powers

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory, and Bewilderment was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Clif on January 27, 2022

I'm a typical American in that I accepted "The Story of Israel" and cheered the Israelis on in the 1967 war without having the slightest idea of the situation in the Middle East. As far as I was concerned, Israelis were "just like us" and therefor worth supporting. I accepted that there were two equa......more

Goodreads review by Mary on November 29, 2013

Brilliant, infuriating, troubling, illuminating, depressing, inspiring - this book provoked so many feelings in me! It is excellent journalism; as another reviewer has said, even those who think they know a fair bit about the situation will find themselves learning a lot. Blumenthal narrates his exp......more

Goodreads review by Marcy on December 12, 2013

What a truly engrossing read. Blumenthal does a tremendous job of showing the apartheid state if Israel in all its true colors. What I appreciate the most about this book is the way Blumenthal weaves together threads of Palestinian history and current events in context while simultaneously illustrat......more

Goodreads review by Murtaza on April 02, 2014

In this book Blumenthal makes what seems to be a pretty compelling case that Israel is descending (or has already descended) into a form of fascism, driven in part by the occupation of the West Bank but also as a natural result of the states' founding ideology. The book is basically a series of vign......more

Goodreads review by David on August 18, 2018

I don't like Max Blumenthal, although I've never met the man. He's a leftist convinced of his own moral superiority, and quick to judge any rube whose world view or manners don't conform to his standards. He's the sort of fellow who calls someone "racist," after which analysis stops. However, he's wr......more


Quotes

“Brash, gritty, personal, and close to the ground, this is a report from an Israel and a Palestine we seldom see in the mainstream media. The sharp-edged scenes and portraits in this disturbing book show why the chances for lasting peace in the region have gone from bad to worse.” Adam Hochschild, New York Times bestselling author

“The only worthwhile, honest discussion of Israel can come from someone who possesses two attributes: fearlessness and expertise. Max Blumenthal wields both in abundance, and the result is an eye-opening and stunningly insightful book about the dramatic plight of a country central to America’s political fortunes.” Glenn Greenwald, New York Times bestselling author

“A rich, roiling examination of ‘the State of Israel during a period of deepening political and societal crisis’…Dense, in-the-trenches reportage revealing details that go from grim to grimmer.” Kirkus Reviews

“It is about time someone wrote this book. Anyone who thinks he knows what is happening in Israel and its occupied territories will think again after reading this great work.” Charles Glass, American author, journalist, and broadcaster specializing in the Middle East

“Blumenthal’s Israel is represented by its basest instincts, a blunt look at a country where citizens are clearly divided into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’” Publishers Weekly