Reviews The book received a positive review by Nancy Murray in the academic journal
Race & Class, calling it "a work of unsettling but scrupulous and courageous truth-telling". It was also positively reviewed in the
Journal of Palestine Studies by
Steven Salaita, who called it "one of the most important titles published on the Israel-Palestine conflict in the past few years".
Eric Alterman, writing in
The Nation, said "
Goliath is a propaganda tract...this book could have been published by the
Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed)". Blumenthal responded in another issue of the magazine, saying that the Alterman review was a smear, loaded with inaccuracies that are refuted by several authors. He defended his comparison of Israeli actions with those of
Nazi Germany. Alterman wrote a total of nine critical pieces on
Goliath. The book was criticized by
J.J. Goldberg in an opinion piece in
The Forward, saying it was biased against Israel, and pointing to errors in spelling. Petra Marquardt-Bigman in
The Jerusalem Post criticized how the book compares the Israeli state to
Nazi Germany, calling it a form of "bigotry".
Publishers Weekly wrote that the book is "a blunt look at a country where citizens are clearly divided into the "haves" and the "have nots"."
Nina Burleigh, writing for
The New York Observer, stated that the book is "a journalist's view of the country" that "balances" against the pro-Israel view promoted by the country's government that was "especially insightful" about
left-wing, pro-Palestinian Israelis, although she felt the book was not being harsh enough on Islamist figures, calling the treatment "naive".
James Fallows, the former chief speechwriter to U.S. president
Jimmy Carter, wrote in
The Atlantic that
Goliath "is no more 'anti-Israel', let alone anti-Semitic, than
The Shame of the Cities,
The Jungle, and
The Grapes of Wrath were anti-American for pointing out "extremes and abuses in American society."
Glenn Greenwald described the book as "eye-opening and stunningly insightful", and
Charles Glass wrote that "anyone who thinks he knows what is happening in Israel and its occupied territories will think again after reading this great work". Jim Miles, in his review in
Foreign Policy, described it as "a powerful and distressing book for a view on what life in modern Israel is like."
Kirkus Reviews described it as "A rich, roiling examination" of the country, while John Hudson in
Foreign Policy described the book as an "indictment of Israel's treatment of Palestinians".
Awards Goliath was awarded the 2014
Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for An Especially Notable Book. ==References==