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On the Border | Praise
"Profoundly moving, beautifully written, intellectually penetrating, On The Border … is an outstanding political memoir of the generation of sixties radicals. Warschawski is the most eloquent and effective anti-colonialist leader Israel has produced."
—International Socialist Review
"Michel Warschawski, 'Mikado' as he is universally known to Israelis
and Palestinians, is a powerful voice that deserves to be heard in this country.
His courageous critique—in On the Border—of the forces he believes
are systematically destroying Israel, even as they harm the Palestinians, should
be carefully considered by all those who want peace and justice, or who care for
the future of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples."
—Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies, Columbia University
"On the Border is the passionate cry from the heart of Israeli anti-Zionist
activist and lover of Israel, Michel Warschawki. It is a memoir and a history
and a voice crying in the wilderness all at once, beautifully written and compellingly
argued, a clarion call for a new movement of justice, brotherhood, and peace
to save both the Jewish People and its intimate Others, the Palestinians. Telling
the thrilling story of Matzpen (and later the Alternative Information Center),
the tiny saving remnant of Israelis who withstood the near-unanimous pro-occupation
consensus after the six-day war, and calling for a new radical resistance to
the current Israeli and Jewish near-consensus of support for apartheid of the
Palestinians, this is the most important book on Israel that will be published
this year, or, I dare say, for many years to come. Anyone who cares about justice
for Palestine and about the fate of the Jewish people should read it."
—Daniel Boyarin, Taubmann Professor of Talmudic Culture, University of California
at Berkeley
"Not only is On the Border a page-turner, it’s also essential reading
for anyone working for peace and justice in the Middle East. Warschawski gives
people of conscience and activists a powerful framework for understanding the
ground we must stand on if we want to build a just peace."
—Liat Weingart, co-director, Jewish Voice for Peace
"Michel Warschawski is a non-Jewish Jew, a non-Zionist Israeli and a non-Arab
Palestinian … an embodiment of trans-border loyalty to the higher values
of human solidarity. A Talmudic pupil who had accomplished his 'aliyah,' the clash between his spiritual values and the harsh reality of Israeli oppression
of the Palestinians turned him into a staunch anti-Zionist and an unrelenting
fighter for the cause of the oppressed. And yet, he remained deeply attached
to the internationalist interpretation of Jewish identity, scornful of both
secular and religious brands of Zionist chauvinism. Michel Warschawski’s
memoir reads like a fascinating novel, packed with philosophical and political
thoughts which only add to the pleasure of reading."
—Gilbert Achcar, author of The Clash of Barbarisms and Eastern Cauldron
"Equal parts theory, memoir, and post-Zionist historiography, this monumental
piece of writing on Israel is destined to become a classic in the literature
of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Warschawski's criticisms of the Zionist left
have particular relevance for Diaspora Jewish critics of the Occupation in need
of truly progressive Israeli allies. I can't recommend On the Border
more highly."
—Joel Schalit, author of Jerusalem Calling
"On the Border could not have come at a better time for the American reader, because its bold and honest examination of the dangerous schism that the Palestinian question has opened in Israeli society warns us of the similar schisms that the war on terror is opening in ours."
—The Journal of the Lincoln Heights Literary Society
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