Resources

Recommended websites and other resources for further information

Informative Books on  Palestine / Israel 

KAIROS for PALESTINE by Rifat Odeh Kassis who is described on the book cover as “co author of A Moment of Truth the KAIROS document & General Coordinator of the KAIROS PALESTINE group”. This book fleshes out the KAIROS document and answers some of the questions and criticisms of the KAIROS document. Published by Badaly/Alternatives, Palestine/India. Essential reading to complement KAIROS PALESTINE: a Moment of Truth: a Word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering which is included as Annex 3 at the back of the book. Annex 2 is Come and See: A Call from Palestinian Christians, A Journey for Peace with Justice and Annex 1: The Code of Conduct (for travellers to the Holy Land). Coordinated by the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG)

FAITH UNDER OCCUPATION; the Plight of Indigenous Christians in the Holy Land published 2012 by the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, (EAPPI) www.eappi.org, the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre (JIC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) www.oikumene.org . An excellent series of articles by Palestinians and by recent international accompaniers .

SUMUD: Soul of the Palestinian People: Reflections and Experiences by Toine van Teeffelen with Victoria Biggs & the SUMUD Story House in Bethlehem (2011) published by Arab Educational Institute – Bethlehem www.aeicenter.org
(AEI Open Windows, aei@p-ol.com)

CAUGHT IN BETWEEN: the Extraordinary Story of an Arab Palestinian Christian Israeli by RIAH ABU EL-ASSAL Bishop of Jerusalem, published 1999 in Gr. Britain

From Palestine to Israel: a Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation 1947- 1950 by Ariella Azoulay 2011 Pluto Press “from deep inside the archive of Israel’s historical records she (Azoulay) brings to light the photographic documents of that moment, eliciting from them their violent unspoken histories.” A companion volume for Ilan Pappe’s Ethnic Cleansing on Palestine.

I COME FROM THERE … AND REMEMBER by Mahmoud Darwish (2008) published by SABEEL Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem.
A very moving series of stories, narrated in Arabic and translated into English, in which people of different backgrounds and faiths tell their own stories of what happened to them in 1948. The stories appear in Arabic in the second half of the book along with some statistics from their communities. Includes many photos.
www.sabeel.org email: sabeel@sabeel.org

Our Way to Fight: Peace-Work Under Siege in Israel-Palestineby Michael Riordon (2011) “explores the stories of men and women who create glimmers of light & hope in the dark despair surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict. A close look at activists who dedicate their lives to the struggle for social justice, Michael Riordon’s portraits reveal what it means to be a courageous person, a seeker of truth. This is a vital intervention for all who care about peace and justice” Neve Gordon

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe (2006)
“In his groundbreaking book, renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from it’s very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible renewal of the indigenous population, a strategy that continues to the present day. Dr. Pappe’s vivid and timely account sheds new light on the origin’s and development of the Palestine-Israel conflict, and is indispensible for anyone interested in the Middle East…The Israeli War of Independence involved one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. Around a million people people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, and hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called ‘ethnic cleansing.’ ” “Ilan Pappe holds the Chair of History at the University of Exeter, and is the author of a number of influential books on the Middle East, including A History of Modern Palestine, The Modern Middle East, and The Israel/Palestine Question.” and The Forgotten Palestinianspublished in 2011.)

“In this controversial book, a prominent Israeli historian at Haifa University revisits the formative period of the State of Israel. Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord during the War of Independence, he offers archival evidence to demonstrate that a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. This book is a passionate plea to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 as the root cause of the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict.”

Broken Promises Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish & Palestinian Trauma & Resilience by Alice Rothchild (2007)
“Rothchild tells us about the lives and struggles of those brave Israelis who reject their government’s policies of occupation and wish to bring about a future where it can be truly said ‘We refuse to be enemies’”. She includes her own story of awakening and involvement. Alice Rothchild is an American Jewish doctor who goes to Israel/Palestine to work with Israeli & Palestinian doctors. She shares her growth from idealist Zionist teenager to painfully aware adult committed to speaking the truth. Another powerful entry point for this discussion.

Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Nights in a Land Under Siege by Amira Hass (1996) “Amira Hass lives in Ramalla in the West Bank, where she covers Palestinian affairs for Ha’aretz. In 1999 she received the international World Press Freedom award in recognition of her work in the Gaza Strip. Drinking the Sea at Gaza is her first book.” Reporting from Ramallah: an Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land by Amira Hass (2003). ”Recipient of the UNESCO Guillermo Camo World Press Freedom Prize for 2003, Amira Hass is the only Jewish Israeli correspondent on Palestinian affairs to among the people about whom she reprts. The child of Holocaust survivors, ass prefers the title ”expert in Israeli occupation,” and, as such, is relentless in her quest for both truth and justice.”

An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossesion, Redeeming Israel by Jeff Halper (2008) “An Israeli Professor of Anthropology and leading figure within the Israeli peace movement for over 30 years, over the last decade as the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD), Halper was nominated by the American Friends Service Committee for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, together with the Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni.” Interweaves the history of Israel with the development of Halper’s understanding and involvement.

Judaism Does Not Equal Israel by Marc Ellis (2009) “Marc Ellis is a leading authority on contemporary Judaism and widely recognized as one of the most influential thinkers of his generation”

Antisemitism Real and Imagined: Responses to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism edited by Michael Keefer
“This book assesses the history of real antisemitism in Canada, explores a deceptively imagined ‘new antisemitism’ that conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, analyses the available data and the distinction between real and imagined anti-Semitism, and brings to light the strong opposition within Judaism to a Zionist project that brutalized Israelis and victimized Palestinians. Resisting the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism’s attempt to shut down democratic debate, the contributors to this book offer models of humane and rigorous analysis, in solidarity with the oppressed – as international human rights law, and the prophetic tradition within Judaism, insist we all should be.”

Building Apartheid: Canada and Israel by Yves Engler (2010) “Reading Engler’s work leaves one with the inescapable conclusion that the essence of Canadian policy has always been support for the establishment and continued dominance of an expansionist Zionist State in the territories that now comprise Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. As a former Zionist youth leader, I thank Engler for setting the record straight and can only lament our country’s historical and ongoing contribution to the tragedy enveloping the long-suffering people’s of the Promised L

The Armageddon Factor: the Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada by Marci McDonald (2010) (Should have been read by every Canadian before the last election!)

The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand (2009) “A historical tour de force…. Offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the 1st century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and won he Aujourd’hui Award in France, Sand provides the intellectual foundation for a new vision of Israel’s future. Shlomo Sand teaches contemporary history at the University of Tel Aviv”

Family Quarrel: the United Church and the Jews by Reuben Slonim: (1977) is more than the title implies; it is also a history of the relationship of Christianity & Judaism. “His earlier book Both Sides Now records his experiences in the Middle East while he was an associate editor of the Toronto Telegram and rabbi of Congregation Habonim of Toronto.” To Kill a Rabbi is his memoir.

SAHTAIN: Discover the Palestinian Culture by Eating (1999) published by The Freres School in Bethlehem, P.O. Box 261, Bethlehem, Palestine via Israel.

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