Special edition: Book recommendations on Palestine
Dear reader,
I’ve been fascinated with books on World War II and the Holocaust since my late teens. The scale of the war, the many stories of heroism and humanity, the brutality of the Nazi regime, and the many questions I had around it fueled my reading.
How could the world sit by and let Germany get away with genocide?
How could an entire nation be swayed by one man — Adolf Hitler — and look upon an entire race as inferior?
How could human beings treat their fellow men with such brutality, wanting to wipe away an entire race from the face of the earth?
I found it hard to wrap my mind around these questions. So I read, in the hopes of finding some answers, some understanding, some assurance that we would never again stand by and watch another genocide unfold.
Dear reader, we are currently watching a genocide unfold. In real time. On our 4 inch screens.
We are seeing state-sponsored propaganda, a narrative of hatred, and words being weaponized against an entire group of people.
We are seeing supposedly compassionate human beings who cannot find it in their hearts to stand against the oppression of innocent people, innocent children, whose only mistake perhaps is their nationality.
Look through comments on any social media posts, and there is so much hate, so much disinformation, so much “what-about-that-which-makes-this-ok”.
Dear reader, all my World War II and Holocaust reading has taught me that this is how hatred spreads, festers, boils over, and results in mass killings and genocide.
As I watch this tragedy unfold, my heart aches for all the Palestinian children and families who have been killed by the Israeli military; for the Palestinians who have been driven out from their homes and ancestral lands in the West Bank.
My heart aches for all the Jewish children and families whose loved ones have been killed or kidnapped by Hamas; for the Jews who are once again experiencing the collective trauma of the Holocaust; who are witnessing an alarming rise in anti-Semitism.
And once again, I turn to books to deepen my understanding of the complexities of this region.
My initial understanding of Palestine and Israel was formed in my late teens, with Leon Uris’ Exodus and The Haj.
Both are historical fiction, but, as I learnt many years later, they are also biased, prejudiced, and misrepresentative. But for the longest time, these books shaped my understanding of Israel and Palestine.
It was only decades later, in 2011, that I read a book written from a Palestinian perspective.
Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin begins with the 1948 Nakba {which Israel is, alarmingly, calling for again}, when the Israelis forced the villagers of Ein Hod off their land and sent them to the refugee camp in Jenin. The novel traces the story of Yousef, whose love for Palestine will set him on a collision course with his brother David (Ishmael), who was lost during the nakba and brought up as a Jew.
This was the first book that cracked my perception of Israel and made me curious to seek out more books about Palestine.
That is the power of books — they can shape the way we view the world.
What follows, dear reader, is a list of book recommendations {and links to a few articles} to help us understand the collective trauma of the Palestinians — a trauma that has been largely invisible, but that we need to understand to make sense of the carnage unfolding there. Some of these I have read, some of these are on my to-read list.
It is my hope, dear reader, that you will keep an open mind, an open heart, and allow these books and stories to re-shape your understanding of not just the region, but of our shared humanity.
Fiction
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
A sweeping and lyrical novel that follows a young Palestinian refugee as she slowly becomes radicalized while searching for a better life for her family throughout the Middle East.
A must read for anyone who is interested in understanding the human cost of occupation and dissent. You can read my review here.
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967.
A haunting story of displacement and the rootlessness that is associated with the loss of home.
The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa
Violently pushed from their ancient farming village of Beit Daras, a Palestinian family tries to reconstitute itself in a refugee camp in Gaza. The Blue Between Sky and Sea is a story of strong women and lost men — of relocation and separation — but also of renewal, endurance, and hope.
This is my current read, and like all of Abulhawa’s work, it promises to be another hauntingly beautiful book.
Where the Streets Had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Thirteen-year-old Hayaat is on a mission. She believes a handful of soil from her grandmother's ancestral home in Jerusalem will save her beloved Sitti Zeynab's life. The only problem is the impenetrable wall that divides the West Bank, as well as the check points, the curfews, the permit system and Hayaat's best-friend Samy, who is mainly interested in football and the latest elimination on X-Factor, but always manages to attract trouble. But luck is on their side. Hayaat and Samy have a curfew-free day to travel to Jerusalem. However, while their journey may only be a few kilometres long, it may take a lifetime to complete.
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba – the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people – and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this ‘minor detail’ of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.
Memoir
They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom by Ahed Tamimi
A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.
I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti
Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six-Day War, the poet Mourid Barghouti spent thirty years in exile—shuttling among the world’s cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from his family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen, or a guest. As he returns home for the first time since the Israeli occupation, Barghouti crosses a wooden bridge over the Jordan River into Ramallah and is unable to recognize the city of his youth. Sifting through memories of the old Palestine as they come up against what he now encounters in this mere “idea of Palestine,” he discovers what it means to be deprived not only of a homeland but of “the habitual place and status of a person.” A tour de force of memory and reflection, lamentation and resilience, I Saw Ramallah is a deeply humane book, essential to any balanced understanding of today’s Middle East.
The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story by Ramzy Baroud
Ramzy Baroud gathers accounts from countless Palestinians from all walks of life, and from throughout the decades, to tell the story of the nation and its struggle for independence and security. Challenging both academic and popular takes on Palestinian history, Baroud unearths the deep commonalities within the story of Palestine, ones that draw the people together despite political divisions, geographical barriers and walls, factionalism, occupation, and exile.
Non-fiction
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance by Rashid Khalidi
Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members - mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists - The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory.
Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire edited by Jehad Abusalim
Gaza, home to two million people, continues to face suffocating conditions imposed by Israel. This distinctive anthology imagines what the future of Gaza could be, while reaffirming the critical role of Gaza in Palestinian identity, history, and struggle for liberation. Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment.
This is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature edited by Omar Robert Hamilton
The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008 by authors Ahdaf Soueif, Brigid Keenan, and Omar Robert Hamilton. Bringing writers to the nation from all corners of the globe, it aimed to break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, "the power of culture over the culture of power." Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, Annexe is a collection of essays, poems, and sketches from some of the world's most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival.
Articles
Two articles by author
— the first explains some of the historical background around Israel and Palestine and the second exposes Israel’s propaganda. Fariha is doing a series of dispatches on Palestine; it may be worth it to subscribe to her newsletter so you don’t miss the rest of her dispatches.This article by former Marine intelligence officer
who has worked extensively with the Israeli Defense Forces in the region.This article on the role of race and racism in the narrative surrounding conflicts and a transcendental approach to terrorism.
I pray for peace. For a free Palestine. For the safety of the Jewish people across the world. For love and compassion to unite us.