Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State

What does Israel hope to achieve with its recent withdrawal from Gaza and the building of a 700km wall around the West Bank? Jonathan Cook, who has reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the Second Intifada, presents a lucid account of the Jewish state's motives. The heart of the issue, he argues, is demography. Israel fears the moment when the region's Palestinians - Israel's own Palestinian citizens and those in the Occupied Territories - become a majority. Inevitable comparisons with apartheid in South Africa will be drawn. The book charts Israel's increasingly desperate responses to its predicament: -- military repression of Palestinian dissent on both sides of the Green Line -- accusations that Israel's Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian Authority are secretly conspiring to subvert the Jewish state from within -- a ban on marriages between Israel's Palestinian population and Palestinians living under occupation to prevent a right of return 'through the back door' -- the redrawing of the Green Line to create an expanded, fortress state where only Jewish blood and Jewish religion count Ultimately, concludes the author, these abuses will lead to a third, far deadlier intifada.

'Timely and important . . . by far the most penetrating and comprehensive [book] on the subject to date. . . . This work should be required reading.' Nur Masalha, Director of Holy Land Studies, St Mary's College, University of Surrey, and author of The Politics of Denial (2003)

'An original and powerful book.' Ilan Pappe, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Haifa University, and author of A Modern History of Palestine (2004)

'Very impressive . . . Some of his findings will astound even the knowledgeable reader.' Salim Tamari, Director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies