Customer Reviews
Exploration of Manifest Destiny in Jewish History - By: Gary Selikow, 21 May 2008 
In this highly cynical, irreverent & philosophical volume, Dimont presents us with a cross between a history & explorative essay on the question as to "Is there a manifest destiny in Jewish history".
The book is divided into three acts attempting to fit Jewish history into a kabbalistic framework.
Act 1 explores the period between the founder of the Hebrew nation, Abraham & the Jewish founder of Christianity, Jesus.
Act II describes the Jewish exile by the Romans from 70 CE to the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland when the Jews marched out of the concentration camps to found the Jewish State, & Israel wars of deface up to the Six Day War 0f 1967.
He describes the religious revolution of Abraham's innovation- monotheism & the origins in the Torah & Jewish civilization of the judicial system of democracies today.
As the author so correctly points out:
'The laws in the Torah regarding man's relations to man constitute mankind's first "bill of rights". These laws boldly proclaim that man's freedom is his supreme right. He has the right to personal liberty, free speech & private property. His life & person are inviolate. Charges against him must be made in open court, where he has a right to confront his accusers & defend himself. A century before Jesus, the Jews added yet another innovation, the right to cross examine a witness, so movingly illustrated in "Susanna & the Elders".
There are several places where he is off the rails though, including his bizarre comment ( though most historians have been guilty of this misguidance) claiming that after the Jews entered Canaan, "Canaan, the land of the Canaanites is subdued & becomes Palestine", referring to the split of the United Kingdom of Israel & Judah in 922 BCE as the "division of the Kingdom of Palestine".
The term "Palestine" came from the name that the conquering Roman Empire gave the ancient Land of Israel in an attempt to obliterate & de-legitimize the Jewish presence in the Holy Land. The name "Palestine" was invented in the year 135 C.E.
Before that it was known as the Land of Israel (if you want another neutral name then refer to the holy Land of the Levant), David & Solomon's kingdom named the United Kingdom of Israel & Judah .
The term "Palestine" came from the name that the conquering Roman Empire gave the ancient Land of Israel in an attempt to obliterate & de-legitimize the Jewish presence in the Holy Land. The name "Palestine" was invented in the year 135 C.E.
The Roman Procurator in charge of the Judean-Israel territories was so angry at the Jews for revolting that he callled for his historians & asked them who were the worst enemies of the Jews in their past history. The scribes said, "the Philistines." Thus, the Procurator declared that Land of Israel would from then forward be callled "Philistia" [further bastardized into "Palaistina"] to dishonor the Jews & obliterate their history. Hence the name "Palestine." Hence "Palestine" was a colony of various empires between 135 CE & 1948 (never an independent country). To refer before or after this to "Palestine" is simply incorrect.
How can the author refer to Saul as the "first King of Palestine" when the term Palestine was not to come into use for over another thousand years.
The author also wrongly refers to the liberation struggle by the Maccabees against Greko-Syrian tyranny as a war of intolerance by the Maccabees, & refers to the bloodthirsty tyrant Antiochus as "one of the most enlightened & tolerant kings of his age."
?????
The author also bizarrely refers to Marxism as having roots in Jewish thought just because Karl Marx was a baptized Jew. Absolute garbage, There is nothing Jewish about Marxism.
On the positive side the author is incredibly accurate about the origins of Islam & Christianity & the truth about the crucifixion.
The author refers to the trials & tribulations of the Jews in exile in Europe, but considerably little about Jewish communities in North Africa & the Middle East.
He does point out that the Khazars of Central Asia, whose aristocracy converted to Jewish in 740 CE, to Christianity 200 years later by Duke Sviatoslov of Kiev 200 years later. So much for the anti-Semitic slur that Ashkenazic Jews are descended from the Khazars. He also does establish that during the Barbarian invasions of Europe, & the subsequent Crusades & pogroms, there was rape of Jewish girls & women which led to the infusion of European strains into the Jewish bloodlines of Europe but as the Talmud views Jewishness as reckoned through the mother, the offspring of these incidents were fully fledged Jews by dint of birth.
The author also succintly explains the bottom line of the Arab/Moslem-Israeli conflict (This was written in 1971 shortly aftter the Six Day War but none of it has changed): "Ironicallly, the independence message of the Balfour Declaration helped the Arab dream more than the Jewish. Before World War I, the Arabs established by violence, politics, & war eighteen independent states & shiekdoms, the most important of which are Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen & Iraq. Most were carved out of territory formerly belonging to the Ottoman Empire, France, Italy & Spain. This Arab landmass totals 4 626 000 square miles, greater than the United States by one & a half million square miles.
In contrast to the expansion of the Arab world Palestine contracted. After World War I, when liberated by the Allies from the turks, Palestine embraced 45 000 square miles. In 1949 after she was granted her sovereignty by the United Nations & secured it on the field of battle, she had shrunk, through successive partitions, to 8 000 square miles, or one fifth of her former size, an area constituting but 0.02 percent of the Arab landmass. The Arabs say that they must have this 0.02 percent to add to their 4 626 000 square miles or die".
This is indeed the bottom line of the 87 year old conflict.
The struggle for Israel's survival is not only the struggle for Jewish survival but that of human rights for minorities around the world.
The media & leftwing political & academic establishment today today ignore the rights of minority groups.
