Genesis, Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict by John B. Judis (review)

John B. Judis, an intellectual and scholar, is a senior editor at the New Republic, author of two major political works, and he has contributed to several major newspapers.

His latest work, a book entitled: Genesis, is a unique book, rational, poignant, and passinate on the American contribution to the founding of the State of Israel. Focusing on President Truman’s policy and the Israeli Lobby, the introduction presents the case of the Palestinians that has been disregarded for decades. Thus, over seventy years of conflict and conflagration between the Arabs and the Israelis has continued unabated.

Judis clearly places the blame for the failure to achieve peace on President Truman’s dilemma - Jewish financial contributions for his party versus freedom of action on Palestinian rights, as a mediator, while the Palestinians leaders were weak and divided (pp. 369–371); and, he shows that these circumstances are still manifest in the policies of all American presidents down to Obama’s vacillations on the rights of the Christian and Moslem Palestinian people (pp. 370–373).

Clearly, this author is on the Palestinian side of the fence. The key problem is that the Zionist Lobby controls American Foreign Policy on the Arab/Israeli Conflict. And, Genesis poses the question can an American President and the Congress fairly recognize both the rights of the Palestinians as we did the rights of the Israelis. Perhaps we can, but the United States must free itself from the Zionist Lobby’s hold on the presidency and the Congress for a resolution to the Arab/Israeli Conflict to occur.