Perlman gives us an account of his childhood as a Holocaust refugee, and how the deeply contrasted attitudes of various family members (the aunt empathetic to the indigenous people of Bolivia that they lived among, the aunt who viewed them as the conquistadors did centuries before, and the collaborator uncle) helped form the foundations of his attitude to Israel, a nation that to paraphrase his opening paragraph, learned nothing from the gas chambers.

Perlman critiques zionism as the messiah forced to arrive in the form of the state - and that this messiah is science, industry; to the anarcho-primitivist Perlman, the epitome of death. The cultural/spiritual desire for a messiah subsumed by material providence, provided by dehumanising all around them.

Like his other work, good if you prefer to read something metaphor-laden rather than jargon-laden - Perlman being an expert in telling you the breadth of an issue as if sat beside a campfire.

(written Sept 23rd 2018)