The undeclared war in the Middle East is the abiding conflict of our era, with little apparent hope of resolution despite years of peace talks. On one side of the conflict, in the face of suicide bombings and international criticism over its military aggression, Israel asserts the right of the Jewish state to exist in Palestine. On the other, the Palestinian people struggle, some peacefully, some violently, for survival. Far beyond Israel's disputed borders, the conflict is replayed in passionate public debate by Holocaust survivors, Zionist organisations, Arab advocates, the anti-war movement, newspaper columnists, presidents and prime ministers, and politicians and activists of all shades.

In My Israel Question, a young Australian Jew, Antony Loewenstein, asks how much Zionism – the ideology of Jewish nationalism – is to blame for this intractable conflict. He fearlessly investigates the ways in which the Jewish diaspora in Australia and elsewhere have campaigned on Israel's behalf, in the media and in political and business spheres. He also considers the historical rationale for Zionism – including the centuries of virulent European anti-Semitism from which it grew – and asks how relevant and sustainable 20th-century Zionism is today.