A review by laurel00
The State of Israel vs. the Jews by Sylvain Cypel

informative slow-paced

4.0

Another deeply informative read that I consider necessary for anyone trying to understand the true ideologies and beliefs that constitute the basis of Zionism and that are at the core of the IDF and the overall government of Israel.

I will mention that this maybe shouldn't be the very first book you pick up on the topic, especially if you're very new to political non-fiction. There were definitely some items that were not quite as easy for me to grasp, but the fact that I have been reading a decent amount on Palestine and Israel in the past few weeks, helped me understand Cypel's deeply critical rundown of Zionism and how it works.

Some of the topics in this book that I found the most eye-opening include:

• the techniques used by the IDF to dehumanize Palestinians and desensitize their new soldiers so as to convince them to uphold the violence against the Palestinian people;
• the ties held by the government of Israel with powerful white supremacist figureheads;
• the relationship between islamophobia and antisemitism and how both of these prejudices are weaponized by the government of Israel;
• the anti-Arab racism that is taught to the people of Israel and the way that left-leading Israelis that publicly support Palestine are punished for their views and actions;
• the BDS movement and the government of Israel's dire need to control any criticisms that they undergo;
• the differing outlooks between American Jews and French Jews as well as between different generations of Jewish people;
• etc.

I will say, I didn't love the way that this book was organized. Maybe I'm biased as someone who follows along much easier when a situation is presented in chronological order, and I'm sure there are some people who would appreciate the separation of chapters by topics and detailed sub-headers. But it did make it a bit difficult for me to follow along, and not quite as smooth of a reading as it could have been.

Nonetheless, I definitely recommend it if you're looking to delve deeper into the insidiousness of Zionism and all its proponents.