The book examines mainstream Zionism's representation—the academic and cinematic historiography—‌of the 1948 Palestine war and founding of the State of Israel. Pappé asserts that the Zionist narrative was necessary to market the newly-formed Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East, to explain the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs, and condemn their resistance to the establishment of a Jewish state. He notes that this narrative attributes resistance to Israel to Islamist fanaticism and a culture of violence in the Arab world.[2][3][4]