Israel Shahak Bibliography

Shahak's output spans early human-rights reports issued through the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights and editorial or translation work on Israeli strategic documents.[3][2] His 1990s standalone books include Jewish History, Jewish Religion and Open Secrets.[4][5] Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel followed in 1999.[6] The National Library of Israel states that in his later years he also criticized fundamentalist trends in Islam and Palestinian society and wrote critical articles about Yasser Arafat, indicating that his polemical focus was not limited to Israeli or Jewish subjects.[3]

The available bibliographic record is partial. Several sources cite individual titles without supplying complete publication details, and title wording varies between sources in at least one case.[10] The entries below represent titles for which publication details have been established or partially established from library records, scans, and institutional citations.

The Shahak Report (1973) is cataloged by the National Library of Israel under Shahak's name, with the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights listed as contributor.[11] Published on February 15, 1973, by Free Palestine in Washington, D.C., it runs to 27 pages and is described in the catalog record as a report on Arab villages destroyed in Israel.[11] Shahak is identified in that record as chairman of the League in Tel Aviv.

A related 1973 volume, cataloged as Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights (The Shahak Papers), was published by the Near East Ecumenical Bureau for Information and Interpretation in Beirut and was also published by the Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center as Palestine Books no. 46.[2] Its introduction describes the volume as a collection of League reports concerning alleged human-rights violations against Arabs by the Israeli government. Its documentary section comprises seven parts: Parts I–VI reproduce League reports from 1970 to 1973, and Part VII was added to trace the League's influence.[2] Documents are arranged by subject and chronology, with editorial comments kept to a minimum.[2]

A publication note accompanying The Zionist Plan for the Middle East refers to The Shahak Papers as collections of key articles from the Hebrew press and also names The Non-Jew in the Jewish State among Shahak's books, but provides no publication dates or complete bibliographic details for either title.[12]

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East (1982) presents Oded Yinon's essay "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties"; Shahak is identified as its translator and editor, not as the author of the underlying essay.[12] The publication was issued as Special Document no. 1 by the Association of Arab-American University Graduates in Belmont, Massachusetts, and states that Yinon's essay originally appeared in Hebrew in the February 1982 issue of Kivunim.[12]

The National Library of Israel also catalogs a French edition of Yinon's essay, published as Le plan sioniste pour le Moyen-Orient by SIGEST in Alfortville in 2015. Its record credits Shahak with translating the Hebrew text into English and supplying an introduction and afterword for the earlier English version on which the French translation was based.[13] The French edition was translated from English by Maria Poumier, who also wrote its preface.[13]

Israel's Global Role: Weapons for Repression (1982) is cataloged under Shahak's name.[14] Published by the Association of Arab-American University Graduates in Belmont, Massachusetts, it runs to 59 pages and includes bibliographical references.[14]

Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years was first published by Pluto Press in 1994.[4] The volume's front matter records reissues in 1997 and 2002, each accompanied by an additional foreword—by Edward Said and Norton Mezvinsky, respectively—and a new edition in 2008 carrying an additional foreword by Ilan Pappé.[4] The original foreword was written by Gore Vidal.[4]

The book presents an overview of Judaism and Zionism focused on what Shahak characterized as anti-Gentile traditions in Jewish religious teaching.[1] Shahak argued that certain teachings, although no longer authoritative, continued to influence Jewish identity and Zionist ideology. He connected them to Israeli policy toward non-Jewish citizens and neighbors, discussing residency rights, employment rights, and equality before the law.[1]

CAMERA refers to the work as Jewish Religion, Jewish History and associates a French edition with the publisher La Vieille Taupe, without providing a publication year.[10] My Jewish Learning and the Anti-Defamation League give the title as Jewish History, Jewish Religion.[1][9] The available sources do not establish whether the reversed wording reflects an edition-specific title or inconsistent rendering.

Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies was published by Pluto Press in London and Chicago in 1997. The Internet Archive catalog identifies the scanned copy as a first publication and notes that the volume includes an index.[5] The Jewish Virtual Library also cites the book with the same publisher and year, at pages 72–73, in a footnote.[15]

An Institute for National Security Studies publication cites page 32 of Open Secrets for an account that then-defense minister Ariel Sharon proposed in 1983 that Israel and India act jointly to destroy Pakistan's developing nuclear capability.[8] The INSS publication introduces this as "another account" rather than as an uncontested finding.[8]

Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel was co-authored with Norton Mezvinsky and published by Pluto Press in 1999.[7][6] The Internet Archive catalog gives its length as xvi, 176 pages and notes that it includes bibliographical references and an index.[6] The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point cites the book in its published research.[7]

A Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs article states that Mezvinsky later updated the book and wrote a new introduction for it, although the article does not supply publication details for the updated edition.[16]

Shahak's books remain visible in later institutional research and reference literature. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point cites Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel.[7] An INSS publication and the Jewish Virtual Library cite Open Secrets in discussions of Israeli security and nuclear policy.[8][15] The multiple forewords and reissues of Jewish History, Jewish Religion also document continued republication between 1994 and 2008.[4] These citations and editions demonstrate continued use of the works as sources, though they do not by themselves imply endorsement of Shahak's arguments.

Several of Shahak's works address historically and politically contested subjects, and their reception has been sharply divided. My Jewish Learning states that the textual interpretations in Jewish History, Jewish Religion are often debatable, that the passages Shahak cited may hold negligible prominence within Judaism as a whole, and that he sometimes took passages out of context.[1] The Anti-Defamation League discusses the book as material used in a series it characterized as rhetorical attacks on Jews.[9]

A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs commentary associates Shahak with early-1970s Eurabia bulletins and attributes to him use of the terms "occupied territory," "occupation," and "apartheid" in criticism of Israel.[17] This is an attributed assessment from a commentary source rather than a neutral bibliographic finding.

The Shahak Papers and The Shahak Report present allegations of Israeli government human-rights violations; the catalog descriptions of these works do not constitute independent verification of their allegations.[11][2] Similarly, the INSS citation of Open Secrets for the account of Sharon's alleged 1983 proposal presents it as one account among others, not as established fact.[8]