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One of Israel's most virulent anti-Zionists has been nominated for this year's prestigious JQ-Wingate literary prize.
The inclusion on the longlist of The Idea of Israel by Ilan Pappé, who also wrote The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and has called Israel a "racist apartheid state", was condemned by the Zionist Federation.
ZF chairman Paul Charney said: "The judges do a disservice to the other candidates by including Ilan Pappé. It is offensive that the blinkered hatred of the Jewish state that he promotes should be legitimised in this way."
But Gabriel Josipovici, chair of the judges, defended Mr Pappé's nomination. "We were looking at quality - whether a book raised interesting questions and dealt with them in a persuasive way. This work passed all of those criteria.
"It's not a polemic; it's a very specific discussion of the idea of Israel, and the more people who read it rather than just saying that because he's a controversial figure they won't read him, the better. A prize like this should open up questions rather than repeat a tired consensus."
Historian Simon Schama and Haaretz reporter Ari Shavit are among the other writers on the list.
Mr Schama is included for his The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, an epic work charting the Jewish people's journey from 1000 BCE to the expulsion from Spain, while Mr Shavit features for My Promised Land, a liberal Zionist account of Israel.
Gary Shteyngart's Little Failure, which takes its title from the nickname his mother gave him, reflects the popularity of memoirs on this year's list, with the Russian-born writer describing his emigration to America in stark, self-deprecating terms.
Prize director Rachel Lasserson said: "This generation of writers was born into stories of epic scale. Our longlist reflects their struggle to make sense of these huge stories."
The shortlist will be announced in January , ahead of the award ceremony on March 4, where the winner will receive £4,000. The prize was established in 1977 to recognise writing which explores Jewish concerns.