American Intifada: Israel, the Gaza War, and the New Antisemitism by Uri Kaufman; New York: Republic Book Publishers; © 2025; ISBN 9781645-721123; 179 pages of text plus extensive end notes; $21.95.
SAN DIEGO – Uri Kaufman is an attorney and real estate developer who is a political conservative. He blames Democratic Presidents Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden, the New York Times, non-governmental agencies such as Amnesty International, and political liberals generally for forcing upon Israel a policy of accommodation for the Palestinians prior to Oct. 7, 2023.
He says that this was an outgrowth of the world view that Israel is a colonial state oppressing the Palestinians, a case of a privileged White class subjugating people of color.
This view among liberals, he says, results from cognitive dissonance. If the facts don’t fit the theory, then simply change the facts more to your liking.
The proposed two-state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis live in peace, side by side, is one example of cognitive dissonance. Palestinian leadership, he writes, don’t want to live side-by-side with Israelis; they want to replace Jews in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Kaufman not only excoriates Democratic American Presidents, he also voices scorn for liberal Israeli politicians including Yossi Beilin and most particularly Shimon Peres.
He repudiates the doctrine that if Israel were to absorb the Palestinian territories, it would be a demographic catastrophe for Jews. Arabs have a higher birthrate went the argument; Israel would have to become a non-democratic state to retain its Jewish character and majority. However, the Jewish birthrate is now higher than the Arab one, he writes, and the Jewish majority is supplemented by immigration of Jews from all over the world.
Likewise, Kaufman denounces as a lie the charge that Israel is an apartheid state. He points out that Arabs are Knesset members, and sit on the Supreme Court. Arabs also are officers in the IDF, attend universities with Jewish students, are faculty members, and serve as doctors in hospitals that treat Arab and Jewish patients alike.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.