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Mythologies Without End: The Us, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917-2020
The history of modern Israel is a fiercely contested subject. From the Balfour declaration to the Six-Day War to the recent assault on Gaza, ideologically-charged narratives and counter-narratives battle for dominance not just in Israel itself but throughout the world. In the United States and Israel, the Israeli cause is treated as the more righteous one, albeit with important qualifiers and caveats.
In Mythologies Without End, Jerome Slater takes stock of the conflict from its origins to the present day and argues that US policies in the region are largely a product of mythologies that are often flatly wrong. For example, the Israelis' treatment of Palestinians after 1948 undermined its claim that it was a true democracy, and the argument that Arab states refused to negotiate with Israel for decades is simply untrue. Because of widespread acceptance of these myths in both the US and Israel, the consequences have been devastating to all of the involved parties. In fact, the actual history is very nearly the converse of the mythology: it is Israel and the US that have repeatedly lost, discarded, or even deliberately sabotaged many opportunities to reach fair compromise settlements of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. As Slater reexamines the entire history of the conflict from its onset at the end of WWI through the Netanyahu era, he argues that a refutation of the many mythologies that is a necessary first step toward solving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Focusing on both the US role in the conflict and Israel's actions, this book exposes the self-defeating policies of both nations policies which have only served to prolong the conflict far beyond when it should have been resolved.
In Mythologies Without End, Jerome Slater takes stock of the conflict from its origins to the present day and argues that US policies in the region are largely a product of mythologies that are often flatly wrong. For example, the Israelis' treatment of Palestinians after 1948 undermined its claim that it was a true democracy, and the argument that Arab states refused to negotiate with Israel for decades is simply untrue. Because of widespread acceptance of these myths in both the US and Israel, the consequences have been devastating to all of the involved parties. In fact, the actual history is very nearly the converse of the mythology: it is Israel and the US that have repeatedly lost, discarded, or even deliberately sabotaged many opportunities to reach fair compromise settlements of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. As Slater reexamines the entire history of the conflict from its onset at the end of WWI through the Netanyahu era, he argues that a refutation of the many mythologies that is a necessary first step toward solving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Focusing on both the US role in the conflict and Israel's actions, this book exposes the self-defeating policies of both nations policies which have only served to prolong the conflict far beyond when it should have been resolved.
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First published December 3, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 25, 2025
We live in a world where most of the important events in Israeli history are obfuscated by hegemonic pro-Israeli talking points. This book refutes those. It's at its best as a reference work to pick up the next time you hear something like “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Its treatment of these various historical episodes is even-handed and rigorous.
There isn't really a strong overall thesis or treatment of nationalism. Of course this is a famously difficult subject. The author describes himself as sort of an ex-Zionist, and seemingly hasn't shaken off his old views on the inevitability and desirability of ethnic partition, although he is clearly wrestling with them. These critiques are well-articulated in a review on here by “C”.
Nevertheless this doesn't harm the book's value as a reference against talking points. I have not seen a similar work so wide-ranging and helpful in this regard.
There isn't really a strong overall thesis or treatment of nationalism. Of course this is a famously difficult subject. The author describes himself as sort of an ex-Zionist, and seemingly hasn't shaken off his old views on the inevitability and desirability of ethnic partition, although he is clearly wrestling with them. These critiques are well-articulated in a review on here by “C”.
Nevertheless this doesn't harm the book's value as a reference against talking points. I have not seen a similar work so wide-ranging and helpful in this regard.
January 28, 2024
Slater predicted October 7th. After reading a book review, I found out that he predicted a security disaster for Israel in the preface (which I ironically skipped, haha).
This is the most most useful book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I've ever read. It debunks a lot of myths, such as that Arafat was offered 95% of the West Bank, and that all Arabs want to do is destroy Israel and kill Jews.
Slater is a (once passionate) Zionist, and he even wrote a letter to the Israeli embassy to help with its army against Egypt. Then he later found out the Egyptians were being reasonable while Israel was being a punk. Throughout the book, he demonstrates that it's been Arabs who were willing to make compromises that was often rejected by Israel. Now and then the Arabs would do some stupid crap. Like Nasser using genocidal rhetoric on a people only a decade removed from the Holocaust. U.S. intelligence showed that he wasn't going to attack, but that would scare Israel into launching a pre-emptive attack. Really dumb move.
A lot of new material I didn't know was included in the book, including:
- Had Israel stayed within its UN partition borders, it would soon have had an 80% Jewish majority without ethnically cleansing a single Arab. Then Jews could've had a refuge from the Holocaust without this conflict.
- The Palestinian Authority, and even Hamas, made a lot of efforts to constrain terrorists from attacking Israel.
- Of all the countries that attacked Israel after its 1948 declaration of independence, none of them wanted to do it and the ones that did only sent small forces, none of them would've done it had Egypt, the largest army, not entered the war, and Egypt wouldn't have entered the war had Israel not expelled Palestinians and created so many refugees.
This book can serve as a good answer book just like Alan Dershowitz's A Case for Israel, but for the other side, except that it's not plagiarized from a hoax and has been vetted by the peer-review process. After reading this, you'll be wondering how the Israeli propaganda machine has been able to pull the wool over people's eyes for so long.
This is the most most useful book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I've ever read. It debunks a lot of myths, such as that Arafat was offered 95% of the West Bank, and that all Arabs want to do is destroy Israel and kill Jews.
Slater is a (once passionate) Zionist, and he even wrote a letter to the Israeli embassy to help with its army against Egypt. Then he later found out the Egyptians were being reasonable while Israel was being a punk. Throughout the book, he demonstrates that it's been Arabs who were willing to make compromises that was often rejected by Israel. Now and then the Arabs would do some stupid crap. Like Nasser using genocidal rhetoric on a people only a decade removed from the Holocaust. U.S. intelligence showed that he wasn't going to attack, but that would scare Israel into launching a pre-emptive attack. Really dumb move.
A lot of new material I didn't know was included in the book, including:
- Had Israel stayed within its UN partition borders, it would soon have had an 80% Jewish majority without ethnically cleansing a single Arab. Then Jews could've had a refuge from the Holocaust without this conflict.
- The Palestinian Authority, and even Hamas, made a lot of efforts to constrain terrorists from attacking Israel.
- Of all the countries that attacked Israel after its 1948 declaration of independence, none of them wanted to do it and the ones that did only sent small forces, none of them would've done it had Egypt, the largest army, not entered the war, and Egypt wouldn't have entered the war had Israel not expelled Palestinians and created so many refugees.
This book can serve as a good answer book just like Alan Dershowitz's A Case for Israel, but for the other side, except that it's not plagiarized from a hoax and has been vetted by the peer-review process. After reading this, you'll be wondering how the Israeli propaganda machine has been able to pull the wool over people's eyes for so long.
December 27, 2021
A thoroughly-researched, timely, and decidedly necessary account of the players in the Israel-Palestine/Arab-Israel conflicts. A bit of a "broken record" at times to the tune of Israel and her allies' ultimate blame for the breakdown of so many opportunities for resolution. Empathetic and humanitarian towards the struggles of everyone involved, this book sheds needed light on the historical accuracy of the held values and mythological narratives that pervade this region.
March 5, 2024
Good information but pretty unfocused.
Read
November 2, 2023Really good but dense! I feel much more educated. going to read some other books on this history now that I have a fair grasp of it
February 2, 2025
Dense and detailed - not an easy read. But well-researched and extremely helpful in gaining further understanding of Israel-Palestine. So many lost opportunities to live and let live.
August 31, 2025
Very interesting.
April 28, 2024
In this book, Slater offers a decent look at the role of narratives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And, in doing so, attempts a corrective at various mistruths surrounding the topic.
Slater, however, never entirely settles on what he wants its primary subject to be. It is, at once, an exposition of Zionist historiography relating to Palestinians, and literature review of historiography on the conflict in general. At times, it analyses the US-Israeli dynamic, at others it posits potential "solutions". Nowhere does it entirely rest on a central thesis.
His handling of nationalist narratives is especially shaky. On the one hand, he rightfully recognises the historical misrepresentations of nationalisms. He correctly notes how every 'every nation constructs a "narrative" [...] about its history, or rather its imagined history' (p.28). And he admirably observes that the Palestinian nationalist aspirations have significant historical weight (p.32). On the other, despite his observations on p.28, he fails to acknowledge that all nationalisms do this, including Palestinian. In spite of his saying 'the problem with national narratives [...] is that no matter how sincere and deeply felt they may be, they invariably include mythologies that can't stand up to serious and dispassionate scrutiny' (p.29), Slater nevertheless spends the remainder of the book trying to square the circle of nationalist boundary demarcation and seems to rather naively expect Zionist arguments to recede under the weight of their own irrationality. This is not how nationalist mythologising works. While greater historical education might go some way towards blunting the more insidious aspects of nationalism, people will continue to believe nationalised historical myths anyway - at least, until the fundamental normative assumptions of nationalism in general is deconstructed.
On pp.36-7, he assesses the supposed legitimacy of nationalist territorial claims in light of the passage of time, recognising the Bosnian right to reclaim dispossessed homes from Serbs taken during the Yugoslav wars, but then dismissing Native American claims to US territory because 'the passage of 150 years is too long' (p.36). Nowhere, however, does he offer a working criteria for what constitutes a passage of time "too long", yet he presents this argument as though it is commonsensical, universally established fact. Whatever criteria seems to exist only in Slater's mind.
Another minor fault is his claiming the Egyptian-Czechoslovakian arms arose out of Nasr's threats to go to the US if the Soviet Union proved unwilling to provide him with the arms he wanted.
About halfway through the book he warns that a century of 'mutual violence and hatred, [and] an influx of millions of Palestinians would be a formula for civil and religious warfare', then claiming: "There are no contemporary precedents or models of two peoples long at war with each other suddenly becoming capable of living together in peace and harmony within the confines of one small state" and names Northern Ireland as one (p.251). This is simply incorrect and there are no two ways about it. Either Slater doesn't know the first thing about Northern Ireland, or (more likely) he thinks the peace that exists there constitutes the "formula for civil and religious warfare" he refers to above. This assertion is laughable and totally ignores that the violence in both Israel-Palestine and Northern Ireland is not some magical perennial disposition of two particular ethnically conscious groups, but the result of tangible, material and symbolic grievances to be redressed in any such settlement. Indeed, in Northern Ireland, recognition of this fact has helped generate a stable, albeit far from perfect, peace. For all it's faults, to not only ignore that NI was successful in largely ending the violence, but that it's actually an example where such a formula for warfare is ripe, is incredibly careless.
Other problems arise in his handling of the various peace processes (or lack of). While he dismisses binationalism as a "utopian fantasy" (p.369), for instance, he still seems unable to think outside of the linear, majoritarian nation-state box and stands stubbornly by the two-state paradigm. One wonders why, in spite of four decades of international bungling on this "solution", this is still seen as the sensible option, while other frameworks remain "utopic". Slater doesn't offer any answer and sticks blindly to the orthodoxy.
Slater, however, never entirely settles on what he wants its primary subject to be. It is, at once, an exposition of Zionist historiography relating to Palestinians, and literature review of historiography on the conflict in general. At times, it analyses the US-Israeli dynamic, at others it posits potential "solutions". Nowhere does it entirely rest on a central thesis.
His handling of nationalist narratives is especially shaky. On the one hand, he rightfully recognises the historical misrepresentations of nationalisms. He correctly notes how every 'every nation constructs a "narrative" [...] about its history, or rather its imagined history' (p.28). And he admirably observes that the Palestinian nationalist aspirations have significant historical weight (p.32). On the other, despite his observations on p.28, he fails to acknowledge that all nationalisms do this, including Palestinian. In spite of his saying 'the problem with national narratives [...] is that no matter how sincere and deeply felt they may be, they invariably include mythologies that can't stand up to serious and dispassionate scrutiny' (p.29), Slater nevertheless spends the remainder of the book trying to square the circle of nationalist boundary demarcation and seems to rather naively expect Zionist arguments to recede under the weight of their own irrationality. This is not how nationalist mythologising works. While greater historical education might go some way towards blunting the more insidious aspects of nationalism, people will continue to believe nationalised historical myths anyway - at least, until the fundamental normative assumptions of nationalism in general is deconstructed.
On pp.36-7, he assesses the supposed legitimacy of nationalist territorial claims in light of the passage of time, recognising the Bosnian right to reclaim dispossessed homes from Serbs taken during the Yugoslav wars, but then dismissing Native American claims to US territory because 'the passage of 150 years is too long' (p.36). Nowhere, however, does he offer a working criteria for what constitutes a passage of time "too long", yet he presents this argument as though it is commonsensical, universally established fact. Whatever criteria seems to exist only in Slater's mind.
Another minor fault is his claiming the Egyptian-Czechoslovakian arms arose out of Nasr's threats to go to the US if the Soviet Union proved unwilling to provide him with the arms he wanted.
About halfway through the book he warns that a century of 'mutual violence and hatred, [and] an influx of millions of Palestinians would be a formula for civil and religious warfare', then claiming: "There are no contemporary precedents or models of two peoples long at war with each other suddenly becoming capable of living together in peace and harmony within the confines of one small state" and names Northern Ireland as one (p.251). This is simply incorrect and there are no two ways about it. Either Slater doesn't know the first thing about Northern Ireland, or (more likely) he thinks the peace that exists there constitutes the "formula for civil and religious warfare" he refers to above. This assertion is laughable and totally ignores that the violence in both Israel-Palestine and Northern Ireland is not some magical perennial disposition of two particular ethnically conscious groups, but the result of tangible, material and symbolic grievances to be redressed in any such settlement. Indeed, in Northern Ireland, recognition of this fact has helped generate a stable, albeit far from perfect, peace. For all it's faults, to not only ignore that NI was successful in largely ending the violence, but that it's actually an example where such a formula for warfare is ripe, is incredibly careless.
Other problems arise in his handling of the various peace processes (or lack of). While he dismisses binationalism as a "utopian fantasy" (p.369), for instance, he still seems unable to think outside of the linear, majoritarian nation-state box and stands stubbornly by the two-state paradigm. One wonders why, in spite of four decades of international bungling on this "solution", this is still seen as the sensible option, while other frameworks remain "utopic". Slater doesn't offer any answer and sticks blindly to the orthodoxy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews