Image and Reality of the Israel–Palestine Conflict

{{Short description|1995 book by Norman Finkelstein}}

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{{Infobox book

| name = Image and Reality of the Israel–Palestine Conflict

| image = File:Image and Reality of the Israel–Palestine Conflict, first edition.jpg

| caption = Cover of the first edition

| author = Norman Finkelstein

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| country = United States

| language = English

| series =

| subject = Israeli–Palestinian conflict

| publisher = Verso Books

| pub_date = 1995

| media_type = Print (paperback)

| pages = 256 (second edition)

| isbn = 978-1859844427

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}}

File:Norman finkelstein suffolk.jpg author of Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History]]

Image and Reality of the Israel–Palestine Conflict is a 1995 book about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by Norman G. Finkelstein. Finkelstein examines and scrutinizes popular historical versions of the conflict by authors such as Joan Peters, Benny Morris, Anita Shapira and Abba Eban. The text draws upon Finkelstein's doctoral political science work. The 2003 revised edition offers an additional appendix devoted to criticism of Michael Oren's 2002 bestseller Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.

Finkelstein, expanding upon his doctoral thesis, writes that the modern Zionist historical tradition is based on a series of ideologically-charged systematic biases, all of which face considerable problems when measured up with the actual record in his view. For example, he specifically refers to the Palestinian exodus before Israeli independence and the purported causes. Finkelstein credits Zionist military aggression upon Palestinian villages and calls for a transfer of populations as driving Palestinian refugees out of their lands, rather than a voluntary exodus occurring mixed in with orders to leave from Arabic leaders and other factors as Israeli historians have written. He goes into detail on issues such as Israel's exploitation of water rights.{{cite book|last1=Finkelstein|first1=Norman G.|title=Image and reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict|date=2003|publisher=Verso|location=London|isbn=1-85984-442-1|page=174|edition=2nd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vNb5VkyxDlYC&q=the%20modern%20Zionist%20historical%20tradition%20is%20based%20on%20a%20series%20of%20ideologically-charged%20systematic%20biases&pg=PA174|accessdate=15 August 2014|quote=Although Israel does 'recognize Palestinian water rights in the West Bank', these rights do not include the 'ownership of the water', which will be the subject to the permanent status negotiations. Indeed, Israel already claims the legal title to most of the West Bank water on the basis of 'historic usage'. That is, having stolen Palestinian water for nearly three decades, Israelis now proclaim it is theirs.}}

His book received praise from commentators critical of Israel such as Noam Chomsky and William B. Quandt.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oB8xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT185|title=The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders|last=Bogdanor|first=Paul|date=5 July 2017|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781351480482|quote=Finkelstein's tract [as] greeted with extravagant praise by William Quandt, Noam Chomsky, and other veterans of the anti-Israel lecture circuit}} Positive reception appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, The Guardian{{cn|date=April 2024}} and the London Review of Books.