The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In this well-written, powerful sequel to Faith and Fratricide , the Ruethers (she is author of Women-Church ; he is acting director of the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign) argue that Israel and the U.S.not the Palestiniansare the chief obstacles to peace in the Middle East. The authors believe that the PLO's implicit recognition of Israel's right to exist ``needs to be accepted and tested in good faith.'' Their philosophically grounded discourse traces elements of exclusivism and fanaticism in the three major monotheistic faithsJudaism, Christianity and Islam. Surveying Christian attitudes toward Judaism and Zionism from Jerry Falwell at one end of the spectrum to Arab Christians at the other, the Ruethers propose an ethic of solidarity between Jews, Christians and Muslims with the goal of a just peace, which in their scenario could mean either a separate Palestinian state or ``one binational or cantonal state.'' (Mar.)