The Impact of Israel's Founding Myths on the Prospects for a Two-State Solution

The introduction to this book begins with the following quote: “…what you should really look for…is intellectual integrity: the willingness to admit mistakes and change course… the willingness to entertain different ideas…I’m not calling for an end to ideology…What you should seek, in yourself and others, is not an absence of ideology but an open mind, willing to consider the possibility that parts of the ideology may be wrong.” Paul Krugman in an article entitled Ideology and Integrity, NY Times, May 1, 2015 The goal of this brief book is to ask readers interested in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to accept the challenge presented by Krugman. Readers are asked to be willing to consider the well-documented historical facts presented in this book and, in that light, to (re)evaluate their understanding of: (1) The circumstances leading up to the founding of the State of Israel (2) The War of Independence fought between Israel’s founders and both the Palestinians and the Arab forces from surrounding nations. This includes an examination of the circumstances under which more than 700,000 Palestinians left as refugees and 150,000 others were displaced within what became Israel (3) The history of negotiations over the last 25 years between Israelis and Palestinians to come to a Two-State Solution: Israel and Palestine functioning side-by-side in peace and security. This analysis is done by specifying and examining 15 popularly held myths. This work starts by providing a critical analysis of five myths about the founding of the State of Israel and then six myths concerning the nature and conduct of Israel’s War of Independence, known to Palestinians as Al Nakba, The Catastrophe. Evidence is presented that these eleven statements indeed are myths, that the statements are…