The Ishmael Factor:

 Seeing the Heart of the Middle East Conflict

 

Introduction

 

1.   Explaining the Blame Game

i.        Diagnosis: Misplaced Blame

            ii.       Diagnosing the Diagnosis: the Meta-Question  

            iii.      Introducing Ishmael  

            iv.      Exploring the Postmodern Challenge  

            v.       Seven Explanations 

            vi.      Self-justifying Explanations

            vii.     The Mirage of Scientific Objectivity

            viii.    The Story in the Stories  

 

PART ONE: THE PLAYERS 

Transition to Part One: Righteous Anger? 

 

2.   The Hidden Player   

            i.        Failure to Understand  

            ii.       Transcendence as the Hidden Player 

            iii.      Multi-layered Analyses 

            iv.      Justifying Explanations Revisited 

 

3.   The Postmodernists and Religious Pluralists 

            i.        Postmodernism

            ii.       The Pluralists   

 

4.   The Excusers 

            i.       Liberalism 

            ii.       Marxism   

iii.      Humanism, Romanticism, Paganism and Satanism 

 

5.   The Correctors  

 

6.   The Defenders   

 

 

 

 

7.   The Attackers  

 i.        Understanding “Jihad”

            ii.       The Search for the Moderate Muslim 

            iii.      The Religions as Players 

iv.      Islamic Protectionism    

v.       The Ummah                  

 

8A Anti-Semitism and Zionism  

                i.        We have met the enemy    

            ii.       Zionism and Anti-Semitism  

iii.      Strangers in a Strange Land 

 

8B. Christian Zionism  

            iv.      Torah and the Gospel

            v.       Messianic Judaism   

 

8C.          The Settlers   

vi.      Destiny and Rightness 

            vii.     Those Settlements  

viii.    Almighty Shekel   

 

 

PART TWO:  SCRIMMAGES AND SKIRMISHES  

Transition to Part 2: Blame Game on the Horizon  

 

9.   Facts and Stories

            i.        The Human Jihad  

ii.       Piracy and Colonialism

            iii.      David and Goliath  

iv.      Left Jabs  

   

10. Facts and Interpretations 

            i.        Just the Facts 

            ii.       Bernard Lewis and Edward Said 

            iii.      Dershowitz v. Finkelstein . . . and Chomsky 

            iv.      The Streets of Cairo and New York  

 

PART THREE:  THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE NARRATIVES 

            Transition to Part 3: Biting the Bullet

 

 

11. Departments of Self-Defense

            i.        Eating of the Tree  

            ii.       The Fall 

            iii.      Subjective Survival 

            iv.      Lost in Space 

 

12. The Cain Factor

                i.        The First Murder 

            ii.       The Wanderer

            iii.      The Mark of Cain

 

13. Abraham’s Plan B

i.        Plan B in Action 

            ii.       Religion as “Fear of Man” 

            iii.      Religious Division 

            iv.      Religious Struggle and Jihad  

 

14. Hagar’s New Religion

            i.        Hagar the Horrible, not-so-Jewish Mother

            ii.       The God Who Sees Me 

            iii.      The Well

iv.      Scripture and History

 

15. Meanwhile, Back at the . . . Coliseum?

             

  Epilogue: God Hears 

     

      References