Pataki also delves into the realm of pop psychology by theorising that Zionists, such as myself, are motivated by ‘guilt and shame’ over Israel’s misdeeds. When I look at Israel, I see a vibrant democracy that has thrived in the face of the genocidal hostility of its neighbours. While, like all other human societies, it has many problems and shortcomings, I find it hard to conceive of any society that does not consist of angels doing much better in the circumstances. I have absolutely no guilt, regret or hesitancy in saying so.

In fact, the only mildly redeeming quality of this review is that, while sympathetic to Loewenstein’s world view, Pataki concedes the glaring shortcomings of My Israel Question as an attempt to promote it. He is correct that the book is ‘dense’ and ‘slack’, and that it ‘wants careful editing: whole pages are chaotic mysteries’. Even the pretence of balance is so glaringly absent from My Israel Question that Pataki feels obligated to comment on the book’s ideological bias. He might have gone on to point out that the book not only contains no original research beyond a brief trip to Israel to speak to some ideological soul mates, but that the secondary sources Loewenstein uses are almost all themselves polemical tracts which also rely on secondary sources. Together, these points make it clear that My Israel Question amounts to a sloppy, personalised polemic, with very little to add to the debate about the Middle East beyond making those who already agree with Loewenstein, such as Dr Pataki, feel good about themselves.

Colin Rubenstein, Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, South Melbourne, Vic.

Tamas Pataki replies:

Dear Editor,

I cannot address all of the distortions and muddles that Colin Rubenstein has crammed into his letter, but I will make a start. The appalling Lebanese civilian casualty toll was largely a consequence of disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks by Israeli forces, constituting war crimes: in some cases, civilians and civilian infrastructure were deliberately targeted; in many others, there was culpable failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets or to avoid unnecessary collateral damage.

Hezbollah’s practice of locating military objects amongst civilian populations, tendentiously described as ‘using civilians’ as ‘shields’, and its unconstrained rocket attacks on Israel, constituted war crimes. But, first, it is a malicious diversion to suggest that shielding was responsible for the high casualty toll. Human Rights Watch’s Kenneth Roth concluded: ‘the image that Israel has promoted of such shielding as the cause of so high a civilian death toll is wrong.’ Second, the shielding does not mitigate the criminality of Israeli responses which repeatedly breached the international laws that apply even in these cases. These points are beyond serious contention, and I suspect Rubenstein of disingenuousness. His analogising between Lebanon’s and Nazi Germany’s casualties is too inept to warrant comment.

The fact that conflict between Palestinians and Israel began before the 1967 occupation does not diminish the obvious truth that the main cause of conflict today is the illegal occupation. Rubenstein’s argument is transparently invalid.

It gives me no pleasure to criticise Israel or to read criticism. It is painful, but less so than watching what Israel is doing day after day to the Palestinians, and to herself. I know that this will be lost on Rubenstein, but it seems to me that critics such as Loewenstein are better friends to Israel than the apologists and blind loyalists who stand behind her come what may, and encourage her to ever greater brutalities and lawlessness.