Raising Dust by
Dance in Palestine has a history as complex and contentious as the land itself. Dismissed as bacchantic madness by Bible tourists in the 19th Century, revived and glorified by Zionists, Pan-Arabists and Palestinian Nationalists in the 20th Century, and rejected by Islamic Reformists in the 21st Century dance in Palestine has a rich and elusive story that remains to be told. Raising Dust traces one dancer’s journey into Palestine’s past and present. Through historical archives, the memories of dancers of yesteryear and into today’s vibrant performing arts scene, Nicholas Rowe shares a vision of the Occupied Palestinian Territories that is often hidden by tragic news headlines. During tumultuous times dance has acted as a barometer of social change, a forum for debate and a means of expressing forbidden ideas. Far from apolitical, this most physical of art forms has often defined the political mood of the day. From the grapevines of the Old Testament to the municipal gardens of the Palestinian Authority, Rowe weaves dance and politics into a cultural narrative that is both personal and collective. Sumptuously illustrated, the resulting history stamps and twirls with the power, grace and determination of a dabkeh line.
On Palestine by
Operation Protective Edge, Israel's most recent assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. On Palestine is the sequel to their acclaimed book Gaza in Crisis. Noam Chomsky is widely regarded to be one of the foremost critics of US foreign policy in the world. He has published numerous groundbreaking books, articles, and essays on global politics, history, and linguistics. Since 2003 he has written a monthly column for the New York Times syndicate. His recent books include Masters of Mankind and Hopes and Prospects. Haymarket Books recently released updated editions of twelve of his classic books. Ilan Pappé is the bestselling author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: A History of Modern Palestine and The Israel/Palestine Question. Frank Barat is a human rights activist and author. He was the coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and is now the president of the Palestine Legal Action Network. His books include Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Gaza in Crisis, Corporate Complicity in Israel's Occupation, and On Palestine.
Palestine and the Palestinians in the 21st Century by
Recent developments in Palestinian political, economic, and social life have resulted in greater insecurity and diminishing confidence in Israel's willingness to abide by political agreements or the Palestinian leadership's ability to forge consensus. This volume examines the legacies of the past century, conditions of life in the present, and the possibilities and constraints on prospects for peace and self-determination in the future. These historically grounded essays by leading scholars engage the issues that continue to shape Palestinian society, such as economic development, access to resources, religious transformation, and political movements.
Palestinian Territories by 
Seeking Palestine by
Overview: How do Palestinians live, imagine and reflect on home and exile in this period of a stateless and transitory Palestine and a sharp escalation in Israeli state violence and accompanying Palestinian oppression? How can exile and home be written? In this volume of new writing, fifteen innovative and outstanding Palestinian writers-essayists, poets, novelists, critics, artists and memoirists-respond with their reflections, experiences, memories and polemics. Their contributions-poignant, humorous, intimate, reflective, intensely political-make for an offering that is remarkable for the candor and grace with which it explores the many individual and collective experiences of waiting, living for, and seeking Palestine. Contributors include: Lila Abu-Lughod, Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Rana Barakat, Mourid Barghouti, Beshara Doumani, Sharif S. Elmusa, Rema Hammami, Mischa Hiller, Emily Jacir, Penny Johnson, Fady Joudah, Jean Said Makdisi, Karma Nabulsi, Raeda Sa'adeh, Raja Shehadeh, Adania Shibli.
Shifting Sands by
Before the 1970s, "biblical archaeology" was the dominant research paradigm for those excavating the history of Palestine. Today this model has been "weighed in the balance and found wanting." Most now prefer to speak of "Syro/Palestinian archaeology." This is not just a nominal shift but reflects a major theoretical and methodological change. It has even been labeled a revolution. In the popular mind, however, biblical archaeology is still alive and well. In Shifting Sands, Thomas W. Davis charts the evolution and the demise of the discipline. Biblical archaeology, he writes, was an attempt to ground the historical witness of the Bible in demonstrable historical reality. Its theoretical base lay in the field of theology. American mainstream Protestantism strongly resisted the inroads of continental biblical criticism, and sought support for their conservative views in archaeological research on the ancient Near East. The Bible was the source of the agenda for biblical archaeology, an agenda that was ultimately apologetical. Davis traces the fascinating story of the interaction of biblical studies, theology, and archaeology in Palestine, and the remarkable individuals who pioneered the discipline. He highlights the achievements of biblical archaeologists in the field, who gathered an immense body of data. By clarifying the theoretical and methodological framework of the original excavators, he believes, these data can be made more useful for current research, allowing a more sober, reasoned judgment of both the accomplishments and the failures of biblical archaeology.
Ottoman Brothers by
In its last decade, the Ottoman Empire underwent a period of dynamic reform, and the 1908 revolution transformed the empire's 20 million subjects into citizens overnight. Questions quickly emerged about what it meant to be Ottoman, what bound the empire together, what role religion and ethnicity would play in politics, and what liberty, reform, and enfranchisement would look like. Ottoman Brothers explores the development of Ottoman collective identity, tracing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews became imperial citizens together. In Palestine, even against the backdrop of the emergence of the Zionist movement and Arab nationalism, Jews and Arabs cooperated in local development and local institutions as they embraced imperial citizenship. As Michelle Campos reveals, the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine was not immanent, but rather it erupted in tension with the promises and shortcomings of "civic Ottomanism."
The 51 Day War by
On July 8, 2014, Israel launched air strikes on Hamas-controlled Gaza, followed by a ground invasion. The ensuing conflict led to 51 days of war that left over 2,000 people dead, the vast majority of whom were Palestinian civilians. During the assault, at least 10,000 homes were destroyed and, according to the United Nations, nearly 300,000 Palestinians were displaced. Max Blumenthal was on the ground during what he argues was an entirely avoidable catastrophe. In this explosive work of reportage, Blumenthal reveals the harrowing conditions and cynical deceptions that led to the ruinous war details that slipped through the cracks of the mainstream media. Here, for the first time, Blumenthal unearths and presents shocking evidence of atrocities he gathered in the rubble of Gaza after much of the Western media had packed up. He radically shifts the discussion around a number of controversial issues, like the use of civilians as human shields by Israeli forces; the arbitrary targeting of Palestinian civilians; and widespread incitement to genocide by Israeli military personnel, political leaders, and state-sponsored clerics. Blumenthal recorded testimonies from scores of Gazan residents, documenting potential war crimes committed by the Israeli armed forces. He also documented details of the battles that took place between Israeli forces and the armed guerrilla factions of the Gaza Strip, explaining their military and political significance with intimate proximity to the subject. And he explains the outcome of the ceasefire agreement that arrived after 51 days of fighting, showing how US and Egyptian-led diplomacy makes another, even more horrifying war almost inevitable. The horrors the world witnessed in Gaza, Blumenthal argues, did not occur in a vacuum. They are reflections of the political trajectory of the state of Israeli society today. Here, Blumenthal demonstrates that while residents of Gaza are indeed victims who suffer immensely, they also engaged in dramatic acts of resistance. The 51 Day War exemplifies the fearless reporting and unflinching style that Blumenthal has become known for.
Anonymous Soldiers by
Draws on newly available documents from the National Archives in Britain to chronicle the historical events and key campaigns that led to the creation of Israel.
Beyond Oslo, the Struggle for Palestine by
With new talks in the Middle East Peace Process about to begin, the shadows of previous negotiations fall heavily across all involved. In this powerful and absorbing testimony, one of leading figures of the Oslo talks, former Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie (‘Abu Ala’) takes us behind closed doors and inside the negotiating rooms of Wye River, Stockholm and Camp David, where the terms of peace and a Palestinian state were sketched out, argued over, and eventually lost. From his poignant handshake with Leah Rabin at the murdered Premier’s funeral to his electrically-charged secret meeting with Ariel Sharon in the King David Hotel to the Machiavellian plotting inside Camp David, Qurie takes us on a gripping tour of the post-Oslo Peace Process as seen from the inside. In the minutes of these dramatic meetings - released here for the first time - larger than life characters emerge: Bill Clinton, Martin Indyk, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. Qurie recounts with candour and insight the rivalries and doubts within the Palestinian side which meant it failed to avert the double catastrophe of Camp David’s failure and President Clinton blaming them for it. This indispensable first-hand account provides a completely new perspective on the history, issues and personalities that will determine the future of the Middle East.
The Green Line by
The territorial partition between the Jewish state of Israel and its Arab neighbors came to be known as the Green Line. In turn, these Green Line boundaries, or armistice lines, came to be viewed by the world community and the combatants themselves as the border.
Israeli Apartheid by
Indispensable for the Palestinian solidarity movement, Israeli Apartheid distills the work of academics and experts into a highly readable introduction. This is the book to read if you want to understand the root of the conflict and how apartheid applies to the situation in Palestine. Ben White begins by succinctly explaining the origins of Zionist theory and colonisation and details the treatment of Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948 then proceeds to examine current examples of Israeli apartheid. Packed with absorbing content, the book is rooted in the author's extensive on-the-ground experience in the region. It also includes short testimonies by Palestinians who describe how Israeli apartheid affects their daily lives.
Kingdom of Olives and Ash by
A groundbreaking collection of essays by celebrated international writers bears witness to the human cost of fifty years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In Kingdom of Olives and Ash, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, two of today's most renowned novelists and essayists, have teamed up with the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence -- an organization comprised of former Israeli soldiers who served in the occupied territories and saw firsthand the injustice there -- and a host of illustrious writers to tell the stories of the people on the ground in the contested territories. Kingdom of Olives and Ash includes contributions from several of today's most esteemed storytellers including: Colum McCann, Jacqueline Woodson, Colm Toibin, Geraldine Brooks, Dave Eggers, Hari Kunzru, Raja Shehadeh, Mario Vargas Llosa and Assaf Gavron, as well as from editors Chabon and Waldman. Through these incisive, perceptive, and poignant essays, readers will gain unique insight into the narratives behind the litany of grim destruction broadcasted nightly on the news, as well as deeper understanding of the conflict as experienced by the people who live in the occupied territories. Together, these stories stand witness to the human cost of the occupation.
The Only Language They Understand by
In a myth-busting analysis of the world's most intractable conflict, a star of Middle East reporting argues that only one weapon has yielded progress: confrontation. Scattered over the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea lie the remnants of failed peace proposals, international summits, secret negotiations, UN resolutions and state-building efforts. The conventional story is that these well-meaning attempts at peacemaking were repeatedly thwarted by the use of violence. Through a rich interweaving of reportage, historical narrative and forceful analysis, Nathan Thrall presents a startling counter-history. He shows that Israelis and Palestinians have persistently been marching toward partition, but not through the high politics of diplomacy or the incremental building of a Palestinian state. In fact, negotiation, collaboration and state-building--the prescription of successive American administrations--have paradoxically entrenched the conflict in multiple ways. They have created the illusion that a solution is at hand, lessened Israel's incentives to end its control over the West Bank and Gaza and undermined Palestinian unity. Ultimately, it is those who have embraced confrontation through boycotts, lawsuits, resolutions imposed by outside powers, protests, civil disobedience, and even violence who have brought about the most significant change. Published as Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza reaches its fiftieth year, which is also the centenary of the Balfour Declaration that first promised a Jewish national home in Palestine, The Only Language They Understand advances a bold thesis that shatters ingrained positions of both left and right and provides a new and eye-opening understanding of this most vexed of lands.
Overthrowing Geography by
This landmark book offers a truly integrated perspective for understanding the formation of Jewish and Palestinian Arab identities and relations in Palestine before 1948. Beginning with the late Ottoman period Mark LeVine explores the evolving history and geography of two cities: Jaffa, one of the oldest ports in the world, and Tel Aviv, which was born alongside Jaffa and by 1948 had annexed it as well as its surrounding Arab villages. Drawing from a wealth of untapped primary sources, including Ottoman records, Jaffa Shari'a court documents, town planning records, oral histories, and numerous Zionist and European archival sources, LeVine challenges nationalist historiographies of Jaffa and Tel Aviv, revealing the manifold interactions of the Jewish and Palestinian Arab communities that lived there. At the center of the book is a discussion of how Tel Aviv's self-definition as the epitome of modernity affected its and Jaffa's development and Jaffa's own modern pretenses as well. As he unravels this dynamic, LeVine provides new insights into how popular cultures and public spheres evolved in this intersection of colonial, modern, and urban space. He concludes with a provocative discussion of how these discourses affected the development of today's unified city of Tel Aviv-Yafo and, through it, Israeli and Palestinian identities within in and outside historical Palestine.
Pangs of the Messiah by
Sicker provides a synthesis from a wide range of sources that have not previously been integrated to present an unromanticized recapitulation of the events and personalities that led to the troubled birth of modern Israel. Much historical writing on modern Israel, Sicker asserts, is apologetic and editorially filtered in conformity with a traditional Zionist historiography that tends to obscure as much as it reveals. As a result, the emergence of modern Israel is shrouded in a mythology that has little or no place for inconvenient facts or dissonant voices. Sicker examines the nature of the struggles within the Zionist community over the national idea and its implications, and the evolving interactions of that community with the external political environment. This leads him to assign a far more significant role to the so- called right-wing movements than is usually allotted to them in the traditional left-oriented historiography and a more critical assessment of the Zionist leadership.
He shows that virtually every major problem faced by contemporary Israel, a half-century after it came into existence, was foreshadowed by the events and circumstances that precipitated and conditioned its emergence. Sicker examines the seemingly irreconcilable differences between the left and right extremes of the political spectrum; between the religious community and the secular; and between the Zionists and the anti-Zionists. Today, a half-century later, these same issues are causing an increasing polarization of Israeli society, with uncertain ramifications for the future.
Popular Protest in Palestine by
Popular Protest in Palestine provides an overview and analysis of the role and significance of unarmed civil resistance in the Palestinian national movement. Marwan Darweish and Andrew Rigby focus on the contemporary popular resistance movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, prefaced by a historical review of the thread of unarmed civil resistance that has run throughout the history of the Palestinian liberation struggle. The authors explore this underemphasized dimension of the Palestinian struggle, arguing that at the present juncture the popular resistance movement, especially in the West Bank, is the most significant form of struggle against the ongoing occupation.
Victory for Us Is to See You Suffer by
Foreign correspondent Philip C. Winslow captures the human aspects of the [Palestinian] conflict--the daily struggles, desperation, and anger of Palestinian farmers and teachers, the hostility of extremist settlers, the complex range of responses from Israeli soldiers, officials, and peace activists, and even the breathtaking beauty of nature in this embattled place. From these unique multiple perspectives Winslow offers an uncensored view of the realities on the ground that have made a just political solution and enduring peace so difficult.
A Wall in Palestine by
The West Bank Barrier is expected to be completed in 2010. Declared illegal by the United Nations International Court of Justice, this network of concrete walls, trenches, and barbed-wire fences could permanently redraw one of the most disputed property lines in the Middle East--the Green Line that separates Israel and the West Bank. To Israel the "security fence" is intended to keep Palestinian terrorists from entering its territory. But to Palestinians the "apartheid wall" that sliced through orchards and houses, and cuts off family members from one another, is a land grab.
In this comprehensive book, Backmann not only addresses the barrier's impact on ordinary citizens, but how it will shape the future of the Middle East. Though it promises security to an Israeli population weary of terrorism, it also is responsible for the widespread destruction of Palestinian homes and farmland; with its Byzantine checkpoint regulations, it has also severely crippled the Palestinian economy; and, most urgent, the barrier often deviates from the Green Line, appropriating thousands of acres of land, effectively redrawing the boundary between the West Bank and Israel.
Backmann interviews Israeli policy makers, politicians, and military personnel, as well as Palestinians living throughout the West Bank, telling the stories not only of the barrier's architects, but also of those who must reckon with it on a day-to-day basis on the ground.
With bold, brilliant, and often impassioned reportage, A Wall in Palestine renders the West Bank Barrier--its purpose, its efficacy, its consequences--as no book before.
Perceptions of Palestine by
For most of the twentieth century, considered opinion in the United States regarding Palestine has favored the inherent right of Jews to exist in the Holy Land. That Palestinians, as a native population, could claim the same right has been largely ignored. Kathleen Christison's controversial new book shows how the endurance of such assumptions, along with America's singular focus on Israel and general ignorance of the Palestinian point of view, has impeded a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Christison begins with the derogatory images of Arabs purveyed by Western travelers to the Middle East in the nineteenth century, including Mark Twain, who wrote that Palestine's inhabitants were "abject beggars by nature, instinct, and education." She demonstrates other elements that have influenced U.S. policymakers: American religious attitudes toward the Holy Land that legitimize the Jewish presence; sympathy for Jews derived from the Holocaust; a sense of cultural identity wherein Israelis are "like us" and Arabs distant aliens. She makes a forceful case that decades of negative portrayals of Palestinians have distorted U.S. policy, making it virtually impossible to promote resolutions based on equality and reciprocity between Palestinians and Israelis. Christison also challenges prevalent media images and emphasizes the importance of terminology: Two examples are the designation of who is a "terrorist" and the imposition of place names (which can pass judgment on ownership). Christison's thoughtful book raises a final disturbing question: If a broader frame of reference on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict had been employed, allowing a less warped public discourse, might not years of warfare have been avoided and steps toward peace achieved much earlier?
Palestinian Refugees by
The Palestinian refugee issue remains a central component of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In this timely book, bringing together the most cutting-edge research from various disciplines, Rex Brynen and Roula El-Rifai explore the demographic and developmental challenges which the return of refugees to a future Palestinian state would generate. As well as outlining the social conditions of Palestinian refugee populations, the book addresses key practical questions, such as how the repatriation of refugees would affect the Palestinian economy and how the international community can effectively support the repatriation of refugees. In doing so, the authors examine and draw lessons from repatriation experiences in other parts of the world. The book provides a collection of world-class research and analysis into this complicated problem at a critical moment in the Arab-Israeli peace process, and should form the foundation of any informed policies on the subject.
Palestinian Refugees and Identity by
After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, Palestinian refugees fled over the border into Jordan, which in 1950 formally annexed the West Bank. In the wake of the 1967 War, another wave of Palestinians sought refuge in the Hashemite Kingdom. Today, 42 per cent of registered Palestinian refugees live in Jordan. In this historical context, one might expect Palestinian refugee camps to be highly politicised spaces. Yet Luigi Achilli argues in this book that there is in fact a relative absence of political activity. Instead, what is prevalent is a desire to live an ‘ordinary life’. It is within the framework of the performing and creating everyday life – working, praying, leisure activities – that Achilli examines nationalism and identity. He concludes that it is through this focus on the everyday that these Palestinian refugees are able to assert their own meanings and understandings of national identity against the more inflexible interpretations provided by the political systems in Gaza and the West Bank.
Palestinians Born in Exile by
In the decade following the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, some 100,000 diasporic Palestinians returned to the West Bank and Gaza. Among them were children and young adults who were born in exile and whose sense of Palestinian identity was shaped not by lived experience but rather through the transmission and re-creation of memories, images, and history. As a result, "returning" to the homeland that had never actually been their home presented challenges and disappointments for these young Palestinians, who found their lifeways and values sometimes at odds with those of their new neighbors in the West Bank and Gaza.
This original ethnography records the experiences of Palestinians born in exile who have emigrated to the Palestinian homeland. Juliane Hammer interviews young adults between the ages of 16 and 35 to learn how their Palestinian identity has been affected by living in various Arab countries or the United States and then moving to the West Bank and Gaza. Their responses underscore how much the experience of living outside of Palestine has become integral to the Palestinian national character, even as Palestinians maintain an overwhelming sense of belonging to one another as a people.
Palestinian Village Histories by
Throughout modern-day Israel, over four hundred Palestinian villages were depopulated in the 1947-1949 war. With houses mostly destroyed, mosques and churches put to other uses, and cemeteries plowed under, Palestinian communities were left geographically dispossessed. Palestinians have since carried their village names, memories, and possessions with them into the diaspora, transforming their lost past into local histories in the form of "village memorial books". Numbering more than 100 volumes in print, these books recount family histories, cultural traditions, and the details of village life, revealing Palestinian history through the eyes of Palestinians. Through a close examination of these books and other commemorative activities, Palestinian Village Histories reveals how history is written, recorded, and contested, as well as the roles that Palestinian conceptions of their past play in contemporary life. Moving beyond the grand narratives of 20th century political struggles, this book analyzes individual and collective historical accounts of everyday life in pre-1948 Palestinian villages as composed today from the perspectives of these long-term refugees.
1913: Seeds of Conflict by
This documentary examines a critical yet overlooked moment of transformation in Palestine, long before the Balfour Declaration and British Mandate period usually considered the matchstick for today's ongoing struggles. It was a time when identities were fluid and few Arabs or Jews living there could imagine the conflict that would engulf their region for the next century. 1913: Seeds of Conflict explores the crumbling of Ottoman rule and the rise of Jewish and Palestinian nationalism through the words of those who helped shape history: Albert Antebi, a Sephardic Jew known as the Jewish "pasha"; Ruhi al-Khalidi, the scion of a Palestine family and Jerusalem's elected representative to the Ottoman Parliament; Khalil Sakakini, a Christian schoolmaster and voice for Palestinian cultural autonomy; and Arthur Ruppin, a German Zionist who opens the Palestine Office to strategize the shape of a Jewish homeland to come.
Miral by
After she rescues dozens of children who survived a massacre in Jerusalem in 1948, Palestinian Hind Husseini establishes an orphanage that helps thousands of other children left homeless by violence. But the success of her peace-through-education institution is tested when pupil Miral gets a taste of radical politics in the region's refugee camps.
