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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

Books

Overview | Recently Added | Full List


The Wages Of Force: Expansion, Not Peace [Book Review]

The Wages Of Force: Expansion, Not Peace [Book Review]

by | March 27, 2009 | Books

In 1997 Hamas offered Israel a 30-year truce. Jordan’s King Hussein delivered the offer: Israel’s response was to send Mossad agents to Jordan where they tried to kill Hamas leader Khaled Meshal by dropping poison in his ear. The incident (described by former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy in his book, Man in the Shadows), not only deeply embarrassed the King, it also failed to kill Meshal. (Other peace bids were made; all were rejected, though none, perhaps, as dramatically as this.)  The 1997 assassination attempt illustrates what Zeev Maoz, in his landmark work, Defending the Holy Land, calls Israel’s “over my dead body” approach to peace.


“Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Disappearing Landscape” by Raja Shehadeh [Book Review]

“Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Disappearing Landscape” by Raja Shehadeh [Book Review]

by | July 19, 2008 | Books

The simple things in life, like one’s relation to a landscape, are what are being effaced by the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Raja Shehadeh is one of Palestine’s leading writers. He is also a lawyer and the founder of the pioneering Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq. “Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks provides a rare historical insight into the tragic changes taking place in Palestine.” – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.


“Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History” by Norman Finkelstein [Recommended]

“Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History” by Norman Finkelstein [Recommended]

by | June 2, 2008 | Books

“His research is painstaking, his evidence persuasive and his conclusions devastating.”—London Review of Books. In Beyond Chutzpah, Norman Finkelstein moves from an iconoclastic interrogation of the new anti-Semitism to a meticulously researched exposé of the corruption of scholarship on the Israel–Palestine conflict, especially in the work of Alan Dershowitz. Pointing to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record, Finkelstein argues that so much controversy continues to swirl around the conflict because apologists for Israel contrive it. (Publisher’s description) “A very solid, important and highly informative book. Norman Finkelstein provides extensive details and analysis, with considerable historical depth and expert research, of a very wide range of issues concerning Israel, the Palestinians, and the United States.”—Noam Chomsky


“The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe [Recommended]

“The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe [Recommended]

by | September 7, 2007 | Books

“Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.”—NEW STATESMAN. Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe’s groundbreaking work on the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called ‘ethnic cleansing’. Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.


“Arabs and Israel for Beginners” by Ron David and Susan David [Recommended]

“Arabs and Israel for Beginners” by Ron David and Susan David [Recommended]

by | August 21, 2007 | Books

Arabs & Israel For Beginners covers the Middle East from ancient times to the present, tells the truth in plain English, and is one of the few non-scholarly books that is relentlessly fair to both Jews and Arabs. If you want to continue to believe fairy tales about Arabs in Israel, don’t touch this book – it will surely be hazardous to your closed mind. If you want the truth about 12,000 years of Middle Eastern History, then Arabs & Israel For Beginners is the perfect place to start.


“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by  John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt [Recommended]

“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by  John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt [Recommended]

by | July 4, 2007 | Books

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Originally published in 2007, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. A work of major importance, it remains as relevant today as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006.


“Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience” by Alice Rothchild [Recommended]

“Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience” by Alice Rothchild [Recommended]

by | May 20, 2007 | Books

The tragedies of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians are never far from the pages of the mainstream press. Yet it is rare to hear about the reality of life on the ground, and it is rarer still when these voices belong to women. This book records the intimate journey of a Jewish-American physician travelling and working within Israel and the Occupied Territories. Alice Rothchild grew up in a family grounded by the traumas of the Holocaust and passionately devoted to Israel. This book recounts her experiences as she grapples with the reality of life in Israel, the complexity of Jewish Israeli attitudes, and the hardships of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Through her work with a medical and human rights project, Rothchild is able to offer a unique personal insight into the conflict. Based on interviews with a number of different women, she examines their diverse perspectives and the complexities of Jewish Israeli identity. Rothchild’s memorable account brings to life the voices of people mutually entwined in trauma, and explores individual examples of resilience and resistance. Ultimately, the book raises troubling questions regarding U.S. policy and the insistence of the mainstream Jewish community on giving unquestioning support to all Israeli policy.


“Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State” by Jonathan Cook [Recommended]

“Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State” by Jonathan Cook [Recommended]

by | April 20, 2006 | Books

This is an account of the Jewish state’s motives behind building the West Bank wall, arguing that at the heart of the issue is demography. Israel fears the moment when the region’s Palestinians become a majority. The book charts Israel’s increasingly desperate responses to its predicament including military repression of Palestinian dissent on both sides of the Green Line; accusations that Israel’s Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian Authority are secretly conspiring to subvert the Jewish state from within; a ban on marriages between Israel’s Palestinian population and Palestinians living under occupation to prevent a right of return ‘through the back door’; the redrawing of the Green Line to create an expanded, fortress state where only Jewish blood and Jewish religion count. (Publisher’s description)


“The Woman I Left Behind”, a novel by Kim Jenson [Book Review]

“The Woman I Left Behind”, a novel by Kim Jenson [Book Review]

by | April 2, 2006 | Books, Sam's Writings

The Woman I left Behind is much more than an untraditional love story. A Palestinian refugee and a young American woman become equally entangled in the each other’s past, present and future. Their story is interwoven with class struggle, national aspirations, careers, love, and the good and bad of each other’s culture. Both of them, searching for a meaningful relationship, find that courage is needed when they are confronted with the opportunity to learn about themselves through the other.


“The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish-Arab Divide” [Book Review]

“The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish-Arab Divide” [Book Review]

by | December 16, 2005 | Books

Although she arrived in Israel in 1999 as an ardent Zionist, over several years she became more and more interested in discovering the true situation of the Arabs inside Israel, who despite their sizable proportion of the population, seemed all but invisible to her.  This led to her decision to move to Tamra, a single Jew in a town of over 25,000 Arabs.  This was an unprecedented action in Israeli society. The deep friendships she developed reflect her view that despite the unofficial policy of separation that is actively promoted by the Israeli government, there is true hope of reconciliation and cooperation.