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ePALESTINE NOTES
ePalestine.ps - Sam Bahour

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News & opinions from a Palestinian-American
living & working in Ramallah/Al-Bireh, Palestine

BY TOPIC: Israeli Settlements, Settlers, and Settler Colonialism

38 post/s found with this tag.


The Bible Is Not a Baton [Book Review]

The Bible Is Not a Baton [Book Review]

by | September 15, 2023 | Books, Writings

The opening line of Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, the People, the Bible says it all: “For Palestinians, including the Palestinian Christian community, Palestine is a real land with real people.” It seems self-evident, but in a time when more people are in love with some majestic idea of Israel/Palestine rather than the real Israel/Palestine, it needs to be reiterated. This short read debunks many falsehoods that have taken root in parts of the Christian community over time and have been kept alive by constant watering by the State of Israel and the Zionist movement.


An Israeli Settler I Want to Live Beside [Book Review]

An Israeli Settler I Want to Live Beside [Book Review]

by | January 2, 2021 | Books, Writings

The author, Jeff Halper, is a long-time friend, a thought partner, a fellow activist, and someone for who I have the utmost respect. The first two-thirds of this book (how Historic Palestine has been colonized) makes it to my top recommended readings on Palestine/Israel. The last third (how Palestine and Israel can be liberated from the horrendous outcome of this colonization process) gets filed into my growing filing cabinet of grand ideas to get all stakeholders past their pasts and engaged in building a joint future worth living between the River and the Sea.


Understanding American Jewish Philanthropy [Book Review]

Understanding American Jewish Philanthropy [Book Review]

by | October 20, 2020 | Books, Writings

Fundraise long enough and you start to learn that it is an industry, like most other domains, but very few people have the wherewithal and persistence to dig deep into the black box of how the mechanics of fundraising developed and exists in today’s world. Professor and Author Lila Corwin Berman clearly does not fit that description and her book is a fascinating read.


Perpetual Turmoil: A man-made holy pandemic that never ends [Book Review]

Perpetual Turmoil: A man-made holy pandemic that never ends [Book Review]

by | April 17, 2020 | Books

Before Israel prohibited me from having free access to Jerusalem, I would meet up for lunch in East Jerusalem with Avner, a Jewish Israeli friend of mine, at the Ambassador Hotel, owned by a mutual friend of ours. Our political arguments always ended on the same note. I would claim that Israel has, and always had, a master plan and acts with full intention. Avner would counter that claim saying I’m giving the Israeli side too much credit and that much of what we are facing are a hodgepodge of haphazard missteps that have created an unfortunate reality on the ground. Enter Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron by Menachem Klein, another Jewish Israeli friend of mine. The book unintentionally offers Avner and myself an answer to our ongoing debate. It turns out we are both correct. How so? Read on.


“God does not exist, and he promised us this land” [Book Review]

“God does not exist, and he promised us this land” [Book Review]

by | April 8, 2020 | Books, Writings

Few countries provoke as much passion and controversy as Israel. What is Modern Israel? convincingly demonstrates that its founding ideology – Zionism – is anything but a simple reaction to antisemitism. Dispelling the notion that every Jew is a Zionist and therefore a natural advocate for the state of Israel, Yakov Rabkin points to the Protestant roots of Zionism, in order to explain the particular support Israel musters in the United States. (Publisher’s Review)


“The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017” [Recommended]

“The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017” [Recommended]

by | January 28, 2020 | Books

In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.


“Our American Israel: The Story of an Entangled Alliance” [Recommended]

“Our American Israel: The Story of an Entangled Alliance” [Recommended]

by | September 17, 2018 | Books

An essential account of America’s most controversial alliance that reveals how the United States came to see Israel as an extension of itself, and how that strong and divisive partnership plays out in our own time. Our American Israel tells the story of how a Jewish state in the Middle East came to resonate profoundly with a broad range of Americans in the twentieth century. Beginning with debates about Zionism after World War II, Israel’s identity has been entangled with America’s belief in its own exceptional nature. Now, in the twenty-first century, Amy Kaplan challenges the associations underlying this special alliance.