Palestine

If you have ever wondered "Why is there so much violence in the Middle East?", "Who are the Palestinians?", "What are the occupied territories?" or "What does Israel want?", then this is the book for you. With straightforward language, Phyllis Bennis, longtime analyst of the region, answers basic questions about Israel and Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians, the US and the Middle East, Zionism and anti-Semitism; about complex issues ranging from the Oslo peace process to the election of Hamas to the Goldstone Report and the Palestinians' UN initiatives. Together her answers provide a comprehensive understanding of the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This new edition includes sections on the continuing settlement crisis, the UN statehood bid and UNESCO, Palestine in the Arab Spring, BDS and the Palestinian nonviolent movements, the Israeli elections, and what's ahead. Sections include: The Crisis; The Other Players: The Role of the US, the UN, the Arab States, and Europe; Recent History: Rising Violence; Looking Backward (1900-1991); The Future.

A major proponent of Palestinian liberation offers a comprehensive analysis of the current conflict with Israel--and the potential for Palestinian victory.As the longstanding tensions between Israel and Palestine continue to erupt into violence, Ali Abunimah offers astute insights into the politics behind the headlines. In The Battle for Justice in Palestine, Abunimah looks at the shifting tides of Palestine and the Israelis in a neoliberal world--and makes a compelling and surprising case for why the Palestine solidarity movement just might win.Abunimah is a Palestinian-American journalist and major proponent of a one-state solution with equality for all. In The Battle for Justice in Palestine, he shares his hopeful vision of victory against Israeli apartheid and colonialism."This is the book to read to understand the present bizarre and ongoing complexity of the Palestine/Israel tragedy." --Alice Walker

A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history 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. 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. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process. Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.

During Israel's lengthy 2014 assault on Gaza, voices worldwide rose in stunned protest. Using numerous creative means, Palestinians and their allies bore witness to the Israeli attacks--and to the siege that has strangled Gaza ever since. Gaza Unsilenced foregrounds the words and images with which Gaza Palestinians recorded the pain, losses, and dislocations of the attacks, the continuing punishment of the siege, and their community's resilience and dignity. The book includes original contributions from the editors themselves along with essays, reportage, images, and poetry from Gaza and elsewhere. Contributors include: Ali Abunimah, Ramzi Baroud, Diana Buttu, Belal Dabour, Chris Hedges, Rashid Khalidi, and Eman Mohammed.

From the great cartoonist-reporter, a sweeping, original investigation of a forgotten crime in the most vexed of places Rafah, a town at the bottommost tip of the Gaza Strip, is a squalid place. Raw concrete buildings front trash-strewn alleys. The narrow streets are crowded with young children and unemployed men. On the border with Egypt, swaths of Rafah have been bulldozed to rubble. Rafah is today and has always been a notorious flashpoint in this bitterest of conflicts. Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident, in 1956, that left 111 Palestinians dead, shot by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah--cold-blooded massacre or dreadful mistake--reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war. In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco immerses himself in daily life of Rafah and the neighboring town of Khan Younis, uncovering Gaza past and present. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, alive with the voices of fugitives and schoolchildren, widows and sheikhs,Footnotes in Gaza captures the essence of a tragedy. As inPalestine andSafe Area Gorazde, Sacco's unique visual journalism has rendered a contested landscape in brilliant, meticulous detail.Footnotes in Gaza, his most ambitious work to date, transforms a critical conflict of our age into an intimate and immediate experience.

The book covers the history of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which took place over three bloody days in the Lebanese capital Beirut. It was committed against Palestinian refugees by Lebanese militias, aided and supervised by the Israeli Army, which had encircled the district. Now available for the first time in English, this classic book is the most comprehensive, authoritative account of what happened and who was responsible. The author, Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout, was a Professor at the Lebanese University at the time. Driven by the horror of what occurred, she interviewed survivors and set up an oral history project immediately after the massacre to preserve testimonies. This book is the result. Following a general introduction, the first part contains interviews mainly with victims' families. The second part analyses statistical data and attempts to determine the number of victims. The conclusion, 'Who Was Responsible?', sheds light on the various parties responsible. Over five-hundred pages long, illustrated with photographs and maps, unrivalled in detail and scope, this book is a courageous attempt to make sense of what happened and an important political document in its own right.

"A compelling account . . . and a reminder that a true peace can be built only on justice."-- Desmond M. Tutu.
Tending one's fields, visiting a relative, going to the hospital: for ordinary Palestinians, such activities require negotiating permits and passes, curfews and closures, "sterile roads" and "seam zones"--bureaucratic hurdles ultimately as deadly as outright military incursion. In Palestine Inside Out, Saree Makdisi draws on eye-opening statistics, academic histories, UN reports, and contemporary journalism to reveal how the "peace process" institutionalized Palestinians' loss of control over their inner and outer lives--and argues powerfully and convincingly for a one-state solution.

On the eve of the British Mandate in 1917, Jerusalem Arab society was rooted, diverse, and connected to other cities, towns, and the rural areas of Palestine. A cosmopolitan city, Jerusalem saw a continuous and dynamic infusion of immigrants and travelers, many of whom stayed and made the city theirs. Over the course of the three decades of the Mandate, Arab society in Jerusalem continued to develop a vibrant, networked, and increasingly sophisticated milieu. No one then could have imagined the radical rupture that would come in 1948, with the end of the Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel. This groundbreaking collection of essays brings together distinguished scholars and writers and follows the history of Jerusalem from the culturally diverse Mandate period through its transformation into a predominantly Jewish city. Essays detail often unexplored dimensions of the social and political fabric of a city that was rendered increasingly taut and fragile, even as areas of mutual interaction and shared institutions and neighborhoods between Arabs and Jews continued to develop. Contributors include: Lena Jayyusi, Issam Nassar, Samia A. Halaby, Elias Sahhab, Andrea Stanton, Makram Khoury-Machool, Sandy Sufian, Awad Halabi, Ellen L. Fleischmann, Widad Kawar, Rochelle Davis, Subhi Ghosheh, Mohammad Ghosheh, Tom Abowd, Nadia Abu El-Haj, Michael Dumper, Nahed Awwad, Ahmad J. Azem, Nasser Abourahme.

This original and deeply provocative book was the first to make Palestine the subject of a serious debate--one that remains as critical as ever. "A compelling call for identity and justice." --Anthony Lewis "Books such as Mr. Said's need to be written and read in the hope that understanding will provide a better chance of survival." --The New York Times Book Review With the rigorous scholarship he brought to his influential Orientalism and an exile's passion (he is Palestinian by birth), Edward W. Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied--as well as in the conscience of the West. He has updated this landmark work to portray the changed status of Palestine and its people in light of such developments as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the intifada, the Gulf War, and the ongoing MIddle East peace initiative. For anyone interested in this region and its future, The Question of Palestine remains the most useful and authoritative account available.

Ever since the appearance of his groundbreaking The Question of Palestine,
Edward Said has been America's most outspoken advocate for Palestinian
self-determination. As these collected essays amply prove, he is also our
most intelligent and bracingly heretical writer on affairs involving not
only Palestinians but also the Arab and Muslim worlds and their tortuous
relations with the West.

In The Politics of Dispossession Said traces his people's struggle for
statehood through twenty-five years of exile, from the PLO's bloody 1970
exile from Jordan through the debacle of the Gulf War and the ambiguous
1994 peace accord with Israel. As frank as he is about his personal
involvement in that struggle, Said is equally unsparing in his demolition
of Arab icons and American shibboleths. Stylish, impassioned, and informed
by a magisterial knowledge of history and literature, The Politics of
Dispossession is a masterly synthesis of scholarship and polemic that has
the power to redefine the debate over the Middle East.

Soon after the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993 by Israel and Palestinian Liberation Organization, Edward Said predicted that they could not lead to real peace.nbsp; In these essays, most written for Arab and European newspapers, Said uncovers the political mechanism that advertises reconciliation in the Middle East while keeping peace out of the picture. Said argues that the imbalance in power that forces Palestinians and Arab states to accept the concessions of the United States and Israel prohibits real negotiations and promotes the second-class treatment of Palestinians.nbsp; He documents what has really gone on in the occupied territories since the signing. He reports worsening conditions for the Palestinians critiques Yasir Arafat's self-interested and oppressive leadership, denounces Israel's refusal to recognize Palestine's past, and--in essays new to this edition--addresses the resulting unrest. In this unflinching cry for civic justice and self-determination, Said promotes not a political agenda but a transcendent alternative: the peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Jews enjoying equal rights and shared citizenship.

In 1896, a Jewish state was a pipe dream. Today the overwhelming majority of Jews identify as Zionists. How did this happen? Ilan Pappe unveils how over a century of aggressive lobbying changed the map of the Middle East. Pro-Israel lobbies convinced British and American policymakers to condone Israel's flagrant breaches of international law, grant Israel unprecedented military aid and deny Palestinians rights. Anyone who questioned unconditional support for Israel, even in the mildest terms, became the target of relentless smear campaigns. Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic shows us how an unassailable consensus was built - and how it might be dismantled.

Ilan Pappe's book traces the history of Palestine from the Ottomans in the nineteenth century, through the British Mandate, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent wars and conflicts which have dominated this troubled region. The second edition of Pappe's book has been updated to include the dramatic events of the 1990s and the early twenty-first century. These years, which began with a sense of optimism, as the Oslo peace accord was being negotiated, culminated in the second intifada and the increase of militancy on both sides. Pappe explains the reasons for the failure of Oslo and the two-state solution, and reflects upon life thereafter as the Palestinians and Israelis battle it out under the shadow of the wall of separation. As in the first edition, it is the men, women and children of Palestine who are at the centre of Pappe's narrative.

Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking work on the formation of the State of Israel. 'Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.' NEW STATESMAN 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. *** 'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.' JOHN PILGER 'Pappe has opened up an important new line of inquiry into the vast and fateful subject of the Palestinian refugees. His book is rewarding in other ways. It has at times an elegiac, even sentimental, character, recalling the lost, obliterated life of the Palestinian Arabs and imagining or regretting what Pappe believes could have been a better land of Palestine.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'A major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue. There's no hope of lasting Middle East peace while the ghosts of 1948 still walk.' INDEPENDENT

"Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . he may be the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet."--The New York Times Book Review "Ilan Pappé is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian."--John Pilger Described by a UN fact-finding mission as "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorize a civilian population," Israel's Operation Cast Lead thrust the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip into the center of the debate about the Israel/Palestine conflict. In Gaza in Crisis, Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé, two of the issue's most insightful and prominent critical voices, survey the fallout from Israel's conduct in Gaza and place it into the context of Israel's longstanding occupation of Palestine. Noam Chomsky is one of the world's foremost social critics, and one of its most prolific. He is author of Failed States and Hegemony or Survival, both New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and is institute professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Ilan Pappé is professor of history at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, where he is also co-director of the Exeter Center for Ethno-Political Studies, director of the Palestine Studies Centre, and a longtime political activist. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

Shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards 2017 A powerful, groundbreaking history of the Occupied Territories from one of Israel's most influential historians From the author of the bestselling study of the 1948 War of Independence comes an incisive look at the Occupied Territories, picking up the story where The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine left off. In this comprehensive exploration of one of the world's most prolonged and tragic conflicts, Pappe uses recently declassified archival material to analyse the motivations and strategies of the generals and politicians - and the decision-making process itself - that laid the foundation of the occupation. From a survey of the legal and bureaucratic infrastructures that were put in place to control the population of over one million Palestinians, to the security mechanisms that vigorously enforced that control, Pappe paints a picture of what is to all intents and purposes the world's largest 'open prison'.

The myths and reality behind the state of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--from "the most eloquent writer on Palestinian history" (New Statesman)
The outspoken and radical Israeli historian Ilan Pappe examines the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel. The "ten myths"--repeated endlessly in the media, enforced by the military, and accepted without question by the world's governments--reinforce the regional status quo and include: *Palestine was an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration. *The Jews were a people without a land. *There is no difference between Zionism and Judaism. *Zionism is not a colonial project of occupation. *The Palestinians left their Homeland voluntarily in 1948. *The June 1967 War was a war of 'No Choice'. *Israel is the only Democracy in the Middle East. *The Oslo Mythologies. *The Gaza Mythologies. *The Two-State Solution. For students, activists, and anyone interested in better understanding the news, Ten Myths About Israel is another groundbreaking study of the Israel-Palestine conflict from the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.