"No one knows more about Israel's existential dilemma than Alan Dershowitz-or writes about it better. From its explosive beginning to its startling climax, The Trials of Zion excites and intrigues, even as it depicts the unique dangers of a lethal part of the world. This is a terrific novel." -- Richard North Patterson "For a legalist, mired for years in towers of ivory not even hewn from the teeth of endangered elephants but constructed, indeed, and solely, of the casuistic and notional, Mr. Dershowitz writes a real good rip-snorter." -- David Mamet "A thought-provoking thriller set in two of the world's most gripping arenas of conflict, the Middle East and the courtroom." -- Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought,and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction "As in all his essays, in his novel also, Alan Dershowitz demonstrates his great love for Israel as well as his inspired passion for Jewish memory, justice, and storytelling." -- Elie Wiesel A shocking act of terror brings the Middle East to the point of explosion. As the resulting political conflict threatens to erupt, a young Jewish-American lawyer joins the defense team of an arrested but possibly innocent Palestinian. Soon the lawyer's father, a famed criminal attorney, must win the Palestinian's case or risk losing his daughter forever. To do so, he must take into account the tormented history of the Holy Land from every possible angle. The Trials of Zion combines the tension of the greatest courtroom dramas with the action of a fast-moving thriller, all set against the colorful backdrop of one of the most complex cultural settings in the world. Filled with memorable characters, this novel offers readers not only compelling suspense, but a panoramic view of the history of a beloved and bitterly contested land, and a sharply controversial perspective on the sources of--and the possible solutions to--the world's longest and most crucial international crisis.

"A novel of Israel today, a place where warring factions from within and outside the Middle East continue to battle for the soul of a land they all regard as holy."--Provided by publisher.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has attracted the interest of politicians and academicians, and generated extensive research, since the tract first appeared in the early twentieth century. Despite having repeatedly been discredited as a historical document, and in spite of the fact that it served as an inspiration for Hitler’s antisemitism and the Holocaust, it continues, even in our time, to be influential. Exploring the Protocols’ successful dissemination and impact around the world, this volume attempts to understand their continuing popularity, one hundred years after their first appearance, in so many diverse societies and cultures. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book covers themes such as: Why have the Protocols survived to the present day and what are the sources from which they draw their strength? What significance do the Protocols have today in mainstream worldviews? Are they gaining in importance? Are they still today a warrant for genocide or merely a reflection of xenophobic nationalism? Can they be fought by logical argumentation? This comprehensive volume which, for the first time, dwells also on the attraction of the Protocols in Arab and Muslim countries, will be of interest to specialists, teachers, and students working in the fields of antisemitism, the far right, Jewish studies, and modern history.

In reaction to the Irving v. Penguin/Lipstadt (winter, 2000) trial, the editors of this volume sought to provide a text that moves away from the Holocaust itself to ask broader questions about the stubborn persistence of anti-Semitic invective and historical distortion despite legal verdicts to the contrary, historical correctives and media reportage. In these essays the authors explore the assumptions and methods of their disciplines that limit or enhance the ability of any single approach (historical, legal, or journalistic) to challenge the racism and/or anti-Semitism which underlie the persistence of such forgeries as The protocols of the elders of Zion and the fallacies of Holocaust denial. Teachers of college and graduate courses on the Holocaust are increasingly faced with proliferating print and web based assertions and re-assertions of premises whose veracity have been long since disproved. This text encourages students and professionals to explore through three trial contexts (Protocols of Zion, Eichmann/Nuremberg, and Holocaust denial) the way in which claims related to the fate of Jews in the twentieth century have been made, struggled over, and fixed in the law, in historical canon and in the popular imagination. The Protocols are a forgery and crimes against humanity and genocide against the Jewish people did happen. This volume marks the ways in which we present and re-present the historical facts, the journalism, and the legal proofs that support the truth of those assertions in the face of invective and denial.