The main theme of the book is to exposed Israeli apologist tactics of using anti-Semitism to silence critics toward brutal Israeli occupation. In his preface, Finkelstein pointed out that, many of the solutions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are highly uncontroversial. On settlement for example, World Court ruled that it “have no legal validity”, citing article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention. The UN also in accordance to General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948) upheld Palestinian refugees “right of return”.

When Gazan moved to elect Hamas to power, they received harsh collective punishment. One cannot help but ask, what kind of democracy do the West is championing, does popular support means anything? Although Hamas support two-state solution, majority of Israeli, vehemently opposed a sovereign Palestinian state that control their own border, water and airspace. Yet, Israel suffers no punishment. Why the double standard?

Israeli apologist often suggested that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is due to ‘Arab anti-Semitism’, ‘Arab fear of modernity’ or that the conflict is uniquely cosmic clashes which is not easy to understand. Finkelstein pointed out that, even Israeli historian, Benny Morris stated clearly that the animosity is due to “fear of territorial displacement”. As simple as that, easy to understand. Finkelstein made a reference to the case of Native American, historian will be mocked if they suggest that their struggle against European settler as anti-Christian or anti-Europeanism , its just a native population defending their right. Same with Palestinian Arab struggle.

Finkelstein also devoted large part of his book, criticizing Alan Dershowitz, Harvard professor turned Israel’s apologist. He went extra length exposing Dershowitz false argument and poor evidence. In his word, Finkelstein described Dershowitz’s book The Case for Israel as “complete nonsense” and “spectacular academic frauds ever published”.

Finkelstein, in exposing the use of ‘anti-semitism’ to silence critics of Israeli occupations aggression analyzed the work of Phyllis Chesler in her book ‘New Anti-Semitism’. He pointed out vast of Chesler’s claims which are not correct and contrary to serious scholarly account. For example she claimed that “Many Palestinians were actually born in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria”, which was a myth and in Finkelstein’s own word, a “Zionist fairy tale”.

Many of Israeli apologists such as Elie Wiesel claimed that everything about Jew is unique. These uniqueness includes anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, Israel were used as ideological function that “Israel shouldn’t be bound by normal moral standards”. In various events everything which has to do with Palestinian liberation was classified as anti-Semitism, in order to push forward the Zionist political agenda. Although in many study, hatred toward Jews were intensified during the peak of Israeli military aggression, the apologist never considered, that to put a stop to it can be done simply by ending the occupation.

Anti-Semitism also was fueled by Jewish organization themselves, when they lend uncritical support to every Israeli policy. By labeling every critic on Israeli violation of human right as ‘anti-Jewish’, doesn’t that equate Israel with Jew? As the line was made blurred, is it a mystery why International antagonist attitude toward Jew rises when Israel continue its brutal aggression? Indeed, Finkelstein noted that “anti-Semitism alongside ‘war against terrorism ‘serves as a cloak for a massive assault on international law and human rights”.

Many pages in the book from preface, chapters, right into appendices were devoted to expose Alan Dershowitz “threadbare hoax”, namely his book ‘The Case for Israel’ which Finkelstein compared to the work of Joan Peter ‘From Time Immemorial’ which he said “grossly distorts the documentary record”. Finkelstein destroyed many of Dershowitz false claims with vast documentary evidence from human right groups including Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Human Right Watch (HRW) and many others. According to Dershowitz, when it comes to house demolition, Israel is not a “racist state”.  This claim however was destroyed by documentary evidence from various human right group which maintain that Israel specifically target Palestinian houses as a collective punishment. For example, Amnesty International in their report Killing The Future: Children In The Line Of Fire, London, October 2002. Pg. 7 wrote:

“Three children, Abdallah, Azam, Anas al-Shu’bi, aged four, seven, and nine years, their pregnant mother and four other relatives died under the rubble of their house which was demolished by the IDF on 6 April 2002 in the Qasbah (Old City) of Nablus during a period of strict curfew imposed by the IDF. Two survivors were eventually pulled from under the rubble, nearly one week after the house was demolished. Neighbours of the family interviewed by Amnesty International stated that the IDF had given no warning before beginning to destroy the house with bulldozers, and that they had been fired upon by the IDF when they defied the curfew in an attempt to search for survivors under the rubble of the destroyed house.”

In the appendices, Finkelstein continue his analysis and provide clear documentary proof that Dershowitz plagiarized his book, The Case For Israel from Peters. As you read further and further, you will find that Dershowitz did not even know his subject (or his book), he seems a little bit more like a joker than a Harvard Law Professor. Among other things Finkelstein help to clarify, is Dershowitz claim that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini “was a full-fledged Nazi war criminal”. A scholarly consensus however proves otherwise.

To conclude, the saga between Finkelstein vs Dershowitz, its worth quoting in length, the conclusion drawn by Frank J. Menetrez, who study their feud as an independent investigator. His essay was included in the updated edition of 2008 Beyond Chutzpah, where he wrote:

“From these facts it appears reasonable to conclude that, with the possible exception of the plagiarism issue, Dershowitz has been unable to find a single false statement in Beyond Chutzpah. And its follows that, as far as Dershowitz himself can now determine, his own book The Case for Israel is full of falsehoods concerning Israel’s human rights record and the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, while Finkelstein’s book contains none.”

This article is a review of ‘Beyond Chutzpah’ by Norman Finkelstein.

 

This article is a review of Darell Huff’s book ‘How to lie with statistics’.

First of all, this book is hilariously fun. Yet, the subject is important. Huff in the introduction emphasized why we should know the flaws in statistics. In his own words, he said “honest men must learn them in self-defense”.

The first chapter explored on how sample that have been chosen determined the final product of statistical analysis. Random sample is crucial to produce a fair an unbiased result. A truly random sample is very expensive and hard to get. That is why Huff said “you can’t win”. Statistics also are not safe from interpretation, statisticians interpretations may not the same as what the public understands or defines certain things. As an example of this, Huff said “the word ‘average’ have a loose meaning”. This loose meaning can present a misrepresentation, whether unintentionally or intentionally.

Talking about the sample, which we already discussed, that it needs to be random, the other important aspect of a sample is that, it need to be big and broad to represent the correct whole results. If we heard that a survey said that “50% of men own a Ferrari”, we should ask “which men?”. The hard question as Huff pointed out, is, how big is big?

Another myth Huff help uncover is on the effect of average. For example study on a pool of babies might come up with an average of age a baby should start walking. Say the figure is 1.25 years old. Parent who read this figure might think their baby is slow or retarded if they start walking after 1.25 years. The fact is, there are high chances that none of the babies from the sample pool start walking at exactly 1.25 year. It is just a figure that came when you do the arithmetic average. The right way to approach this, is by giving the range of normal age in which babies start walking, instead of a singular decimal.

The use of graphic to represent a set of data makes ‘manipulation’ easier. As saying goes ‘seeing is believing’. The drawing will gave a different impression even though below the drawing precise numbers are written. So you can compare two set of data that said that one is twice as big as the other, but the optical illusion will gave the reader an image of four times bigger. That image have a lasting effect compare to the numbers quoted.

Deception also can be used by the means of attaching, as Huff said, ‘the semi-attached figure’. You can say for example ‘this product is 50% more effective to reduce migraine’, but apart from the figure, the details are left out. The number can mean anything if concrete details are not given. Maybe the original studies is tested onto ‘lab rat’, who knows that rat also can contract migraine. And maybe the effect on human are not the same from the result produced by the rat.

Say for example your company profit last 2 years was $100, last year was $200 and this year, its $300. You can say that your company grow by $100 each year. That is honest, but it’s not interesting. You can divide your current year’s profit from the previous year and come up with more interesting representation. A 150% increase in profit. Or, you can use last 2 years profit, which will give you a smaller base and more impressive percentage. 300% increase in profit compare to last 2 years! So you can choose whichever way to represent your exact data, depending on purpose at hand.

Statistics also frequently help misled people on relationship between two set of data, Huff mention it as “assumptions of causality”. For example study shows that more people died in accident in weekdays on the road during the evening compared to driving during the night. We may think that driving in the evening cause accident. What the statistics did not mention is that more people driving in the evening back from work, of course more cars will gave a higher number of accidents.

In conclusion, Huff recognized that statistics should not be thrown out of the window, we still need them to make predictions and informed future decisions, statistics is better than our wild guess. The catch however, is to always be skeptic and ask questions. Don’t rush into conclusion without finding how the figure is derived and what does it actually mean. We also need to find, what have been left out of the stories, and how the conclusion would be if we take them into account.

 

I personally think Howard Zinn is a legend. As far I remembered, the first time I heard of his name is from my younger brother, who studied in Canada and shared his reading on him. But, back then I am not yet interested in his work. As I read many of Chomsky’s books, I get interested in the idea of American Exceptionalism, this is when eventually I discovered Zinn’s lectures over Youtube. His explanation, as always, very clear and simple to understand, he does not shy to said something for what it is, he does not hide important aspect in history behind any euphemism. I literally watch almost all his lecture in Youtube, from his speech in Google, C-span, all the way through his interview with Democracy Now. Ironically, I first found this book in Lincoln’s Corner inside Georgetown’s public library in Penang. After finishing the first chapter, I decided to return the book and get myself a copy.

Howard Zinn served in the US army in WWII, he recalled his experience in bombardment campaign, dropping bombs in small villages in France. He later continues his study in history (minor in political science) and was awarded a PhD. He then was employed by Spelman College where he gets involved in the civil right movement. He also played significant role in anti-war movement to oppose US military campaign in Vietnam and Iraq.

A People’s History of The United States was his most famous and influential book. It was first published in 1980 and quickly gained traction, millions were sold out, and reprinted. In the book, Zinn collected accounts and speeches of people who were disfranchised, massacred, and crushed. He seek to re-tell history not from a victor’s point of view, but from the perspective of the red Indians, black slaves, poor farmers, ordinary soldiers and workers. He wrote:

“My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflict of interest between conquerors and conquered…” (pg. 10)

The book starts with the story of the Arawaks, a tribe who welcome Columbus and his company on their mission to search for gold. Zinn wrote on how the Indians were mistreated, captured and shipped to Europe as slaves, enslaved to mine and work in plantations. As the European came in, they were systematically depopulated. As years passed by, and during the Revolutionary years of the 1760s, the wealthy elite have three main concerns. One is the Indian hostility, second is the black slaves revolts and third was the angry propertyless poor whites. If ever these despised groups combined, the power of the ruling elites would be shaken.

Many Americans during the Revolutionary war were reluctant to fight. Neutral people are forces to duty while the very rich can buy their way out to avoid conscription. The ruling elites understand that war help them navigate through internal trouble, and gave them a more stable and secure position. It was the poor who did much of the actual fighting, during 1775 and 1783 they are the one who suffer the most.

Zinn also noted on how Washington’s first administration, ally them self with the rich, passed tariff to help manufacturers, agreed to pay the war bond holders, and passed law on tax to raise money for tax redemption. Talking on the Founding Fathers, Zinn wrote:

“They certainly did not want an equal balance between slaves and masters, propertyless and property holders, Indians and white.” (pg. 101)

Zinn also recounted speeches from Frederick Douglass when exploring the subject of slavery in 1857. Douglass note that there are no progress without struggle, and if the black slaves want to set themselve free, they should all embrace the struggle, either morally or physically. The later continue that there will be no progress without struggle, he then said “They want rain without thunder and lightning’.

It was thought that Abraham Lincoln fight the American Civil War against the confederate’s forces, as a moral fight to abolish slavery. Zinn debunked this myth, the move to emancipate black slave was a military move to win the war. He recalled one of Lincoln letter where he wrote to Horace Greeley “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery.” (pg. 191)

There are still traces of exploitation even after slavery has been abolished. This new kind of exploitation is very much disguised, it was branded with a fancy name ‘free market’ and ‘free enterprise’. The maldistribution of wealth is concealed, and protected by law, which make it look fair on the outside. The use of law to protect the rich leads to civil unrest, labor strikes and riot. In 1872 working people formed National Labor Union, went on strike and won the eight-hour day. Throughout the book, Zinn portrayed the American history as the history of the working people, fighting for their rights.

Government behavior resembled what Karl Marx has described, as a capitalist state. The government “pretending neutrality, serving the interest of the rich, settle upper-class disputes peacefully, control lower class rebellion and adopt policies that provide long-range stability to the system.” (pg. 258). The policies will never undergo any important change, be it Republican or Democrat who wins the election. Zinn also elaborate on how corporation made donation to both party, in which whoever wins, they have their say in the policies.

On the reason America went on war with Japan, Zinn disputed that Roosevelt was telling the truth. Roosevelt, Zinn said ‘lied to the public’ and misstated the facts. This is an important lesson Zinn always talk throughout many of his lectures, that the presidents have been lying in the history, and when president rush the public into war, it is important for the public to take a step back and analyze the evidence. He also criticized US involvement in El Salvador and put a spotlight to the massacre of civilians in El Mozote by soldiers trained by the US.

In his critics to the Reagan’s policy to cut funding for children, he quoted Marian Wright Edelman from Children’s Defense Fund. She said “our misguided national and world choices are literally killing children daily” (pg. 610).

My favorite chapter of the book is ‘The coming revolt of the guards’ where Zinn sum up many of his perspectives, giving a glimpse of the solution and gave us the hope for change. He discussed about how the ordinary working people are the guardian of the current system, and if they are awaken, if they suddenly believe that what they are doing is morally wrong, and if they stop working, the system will fall apart. The power, according to Zinn, rest on the people.

When discussed about the state of economy, Zinn’s offer another perspective. When the government spending to maintain military machine constantly high, when the trade multiplied, the top corporation recorded an increase in profit, but the wages of people are in steady decline, can we said that the economy is healthy? His answer, depend on which group of people you are referring to.

Zinn constantly questioned the need of war and the abandonment of diplomacy. Asking hard question whether the lucrative commercial gain in supporting undemocratic tyrant abroad justify the human cost suffer by the population. He examines several of US unilateral intervention, and emphasized on the non-military option which can solve the conflict at the same time saving the innocent lives in the process. He called for ‘non-militant’ solution for the world problems.

Through his writing I felt that the ideal world to live in is not beyond reach. A reasonable way to govern a nation is not something so utopian, it is within reach if we are bold enough to make some radical changes. In the afterword, Zinn envisaged a thinking to wiped out national boundaries in our thought. This will made our decision much clearer, and we will no longer see the need for war, for war is always against the children. In the absent of national boundaries, Zinn said “indeed our children” (pg. 685)

Redefining patriotism – is one of the important contributions of this book. I felt that this review is incomplete without a quote from Eugene Debs which he said “They tell us that we live in a great free republic, that our institutions are democratic, that we are free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars, the subject class has always fought the battles.” It is not unpatriotic to denounce war, as Noam Chomsky has suggested when questioned how to end terrorism, he said “stop participate in one”.

 

When you enter a marriage, many thought that their life will change drastically. In many cases, it is not the case. Life continue in usual rhythm except for minor twist and tweak here and there. But when life gave you, your first child – that is when your life will turn upside down. That is when you cease to live life with many personal time.

The first few month will take you on a roller coaster. You will learn how to sleep 2 hours a day – or no sleep at all. The quiet house will be bless with a background music of a crying baby, either hungry for milk, have a wet dryers or simply want a hug and feel the warmth of your body. This is also a period when you start seeing the true color of your partner, how she handle the pressure, how she think when problem arise – as a husband, you also will slowly show your true nature – the limit of your patience.

Luckily you are not alone. Fatherhood has been a common misery (or blessing, depending on your view) for men since the beginning of time. One way of understanding this turbulent period of life is by talking to fellow fathers. This is where ‘The Councils of Dads’ written by Bruce Feiler came in handy. Written with a very funny phrases, you will understand that what you endure is nothing but normal. Every father have their own experience handling that cute little monster, and by sharing stories and experiences, we will be more equipped physically and mentally to handle them.

This article is a review on a book title ‘The Council of Dads: A Story of Family, Friendship & Learning How to Live’ by Bruce Feiler. Published by William Morrow, 2011.

 

This book is cleverly written. If you have read Freakonomics, this book follows similar method but applied it onto politics. It gave reader practical understanding using simple argument which make sense and does not elaborate much on theory. It debunked the conventional wisdom and presents the problem in a much simpler way. I think this is the quality of good books, they talk about complex topic in a simple way which make sense.

In the introduction, Mesquita and Smith introduced a simple way of thinking, politics is about getting into power and staying in power. To rule one need a loyal circle, nobody rule alone. They argue that we should stop thinking about politics from the view of national interest, state does not have any interest, people does. Every action of a leader will be best understand as a way he want to maintain his power.

As what  Machiavelli have thought us, this book share similar value. Mainly, we should see politics on how it works not what we think how it should work. We think that politic should work to serve the people, but we have to accept like it or not, it will not work like what we want.

To break the idea into simpler form which readers can relate, they break supporter to any leader into 3 main categories, which were the interchangeable, influential, and essentials. The idea which is very interesting that I would like you to read for yourself to explore more. The best part of the book, as I dive more into it, was a vast examples and case studies been put forward. They studied Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in Cuban power struggle, the fight between Gorbachev and Yeltsin in Russia, and even the struggle of Damasus to become the Pope. It does not stop there, business structure also been scrutinized and analyzed closely. They also explain the differences on the challenges to seize power and the challenges to remain in power.

Observing democracy, they analyzed why in multi-party system, there are many parties but at the end every time, only one party won. This is not a coincidence, smaller fringe parties are allowed not because of freedom, but because they break the oppositions vote and serve the interest of the dominant party.

We often wonder why nation with abundance natural resources ended up being poor and undeveloped. This is called resources curse. Leader needs money to operate their administration. This was usually achieved by taxation, but in order to tax, the population need to work and some liberal policy need to be put in place. This policy might pose a strategic threat to a leader politically. When natural resources is abundance, leader can generate revenue and depend less on taxation. Extracting resources from the earth is fairly straight forward, it can be done using a small labor and exclude the general population, leaving them to remain poor.

The book also explain the logic why democratic government did not promote democratization of other states. This is because democratic state can easily buy foreign policy from autocratic dictatorship, rather than from democracies. They documented how US facilitated the overthrowing of leaders elected democratically, including Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, Salvador Allende in Chile, and Mosaddeq in Iran. This logic also explain why Saudi Arabia and many middle east countries which are US ally, never democratize. They also explain how foreign aid was used to salvaged despotic regime while maintaining the people in misery.

The book offer different perspective to understand politics, instead of using moral, ideology, and national interest, the book takes us on different road. To look into politic in the sense of power struggle, by which leader behave to make sure that they have the power and stay in power. The idea is very much like what Machiavelli proposed, looking at politics simply as the game of political survival. Some people might argue that its an inhumane way on looking into politics. But in the end, politics played by its rule, not by what we want it to be, and if we fail to accept it, we will most probably fail.

This article is a review of a book title ‘The Dictator’s Handbook : Why Bad Behavior Almost Always Good Politics’ written by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita and Alastair Smith. Published by Public Affairs, 2011.

 

What is the similarity between a banana and a government?

It turns out that both of them exist as a reality. Banana is a physical reality. We can touch it, taste it, and eat it – and it’s also occupy physical space. Government in contrast exist, albeit fictionally. We know that government exist, we fear them we can read about them in the news. But government unlike banana is a fictional reality, government is a concept which was created and overtime accepted as a reality. If all people cease to believe they exist, it will cease from existence.

This is the sort of question Yuval Noah Harari explored in his famous book Sapiens: A brief history of humankind.

He explored why human species thrives while other species went extinct. In term of physical characteristic, other species were far more superior than us. Cheetah has a stronger leg muscle and run faster than us, gorilla have a stronger and bigger arm, fish can breathe inside waters. Yet, something is missing from them which left them inferior than us.

What missing according to Harari is the ability to trust and collaborate between each other. When we took our morning bus to office, we barely know the driver, yet we trust that they will drive us safely to our destination. When we eat at a cafe, we never knew the cook personally, but we trust that what they prepared for us is safe for consumption. Many of ideas put forward by Harari are simple yet profound. What he write will radically change what we thought about human species.

 

 

This article is a review of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Re-published by Penguin Classics in 2015

Many thought that Communism has failed as a political system, it is perceived as an evil ideology and always associated with dictatorial regime. When we speak of Communism, what come into our mind is the brutal regime under Joseph Stalin in Soviet Union, people also will associate Communism with Mao Zedong in China. People always overlooked that actually Communism, particularly Marx’s idea has a contribution, which is very essential.

The work and thinking of Marx has a profound contribution, namely ‘the capitalist system has problems’. The solution however, as suggested by Marx in his manifesto might seems less feasible. The abolition of family, religion and private property as a solution suggested by Marx have been tested and failed, but through his thinking capitalism has been reformed significantly. Capitalism as we know it today, have changed significantly, it is not the same capitalism which exist at the time of Marx and Engels. So the question we want to look at is, why there are still significant interest in his work today? As we seen, Soviet Union has collapsed while China has embraced capitalism in their business practice.

In the manifesto, Marx noted that the capitalism foster a culture that always seek to satisfy want, new want emerged causing destruction of old industries and the birth of new industries, and to sustain itself this trend need to be continuous. Many of the post-soviet generation feels that this was true. We saw today, advertised in front of our very eyes everyday. New shoe, new fashion, new car, as if new product equals to good products. Instead of using what we have that is still operating, we are urged to throw it away and buy new product instead. This culture of consumerism which was fostered by capitalism led to fast depletion of natural resources and destruction of the environment in industrial scale.

The crisis capitalism brought, as highlighted by Marx is over-supply and over-production. Most people will ask, whats the bad thing if we have more than enough to feed ourselves? The answer to that question is the distribution of wealth. On state level, we can see that many of the rich people live their life lavishly, they throw away foods which is still consumable. On the same time, we have the poor people, who barely have anything to eat for the entire week. This problem does not confine to specific state or nation only, globally we can see some nation are very rich, while others are very poor. The system does not distribute wealth sensibly.

Marx also highlighted on how the system enriching few people, while wages decline. “Extensive used of machinery and division of labor” destroyed what Marx identified as “charm for the workman”. In other words, they were forced to do things without much thinking, and the value of workmanship has been lost. In the old time, carpenter build a furniture, he can saw his labor transform raw material into finished products. He can have a sense of satisfaction seeing his workmanship. This is not the case today, where the division of labor has been applied on a global scale. Take computer. The chip might be manufactured in Israel, the screen might be outsourced to a company in Malaysia, the keyboard might been design in Germany and manufactured in Vietnam. All of these parts then shipped and assembled in China. Workers from each of the countries can’t see the finished product, they did not shared the feeling of satisfaction as their ancestors did.

The clash Marx noted, is always arises from ‘class antagonism’ where in many places workers club together to form union to demand for their right. Often the struggles broke into riots. Capitalism often concern with profit and capital gain from any mode of adventure and manufacture. If a job can be outsourced somewhere with less labor cost, this is good in capitalist point of view. It does not concern on the wellbeing of workers of impact to society.

These are the reasons why people still looking into Marx’s thinking today. While he might don’t have a feasible solution, Marx diagnosed the Capitalist system and show us the flaws. Through his writing we saw what was needed to be look into more detail. While he has open the way, it is up to us today to find the suitable remedy.