As I write these words, the war in Gaza continues unabated. Hamas is no longer able to mount any meaningful offense or defense, so Israel continues to bomb sites in Gaza at will.
What is the root? Is it simply that Abraham’s sons Isaac and Ishmael would forever be at each other’s throats? Hardly.
These ten books will provide the history anyone needs for a well-rounded understanding of the root causes and the bad fruit borne.
The Trinity of Must Reads
Blood Brothers, Elias Chacour
This is the book that changed my understanding of the Middle East. Recommended to me by one of the most pro-Israel people I’ve ever met, my knowledge was upended, corrected, and supplemented when I was confronted with this faithful narrative by one who lived through the 1947-1948 displacements. Chacour is an Orthodox priest who has ministered in the Palestinian territories for decades. This book is a remedy for the knowledge-void experienced by many American evangelicals. (Amazon affiliate link to buy.)
The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, Rashid Khalidi
Maybe the most thorough Palestinian history yet written was penned by Palestinian-American scholar Rashid Khalidi, author of several other books on the subject. Broken into six sections, identified by what Khalidi calls “declarations of war” against the Palestinian people, this work is also personal: Khalidi’s ancestors were Palestinian residents before Zionism. His grandfather, Yusuf al-Khalidi was mayor of Jerusalem in the late 1800s. (Amazon affiliate link to buy.)
My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Ari Shavit
This book rounds out my trinity of must-reads to understand the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Written by long-time Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, My Promised Land, provides incredible insight into Israel’s founding, the early Zionist movement, and many other internal challenges, changes, and victories shaping modern Israel. Khalid’s Palestinian family was there before the beginning. Shavit’s Jewish family helped form the beginning. Don’t read one without the other. (Amazon affiliate link to buy.)
The Rest
Touching the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood, Ibtasim Barakat
Barakat’s memoir of growing up in Palestine, her experiences with the IDF, being forced from her home, and living as a refugee are heartrending and beautiful.
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Saree Makdisi
Makdisi shines a light on what it means for Palestinians to live under Israeli occupation. His intentional focus on the experiences that ordinary Palestinians—not terrorists—have living day-to-day under the constant presence of the Israeli Defense Force and the restrictive laws they enforce is insightful, especially to those who know nothing of it.
The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, Gorshom Gorenberg
The author of multiple books, Isreali author Gorshom Gorenberg, delves into the relationship between fundamentalist Israelis, fundamentalist and evangelical Americans, what they are looking for at the “end of the age” and the related results.
The Unmaking of Israel, Gorshom Gorenberg
The second on my list by Gorenberg examines how the original vision of a nation that would serve as a homeland for global Jewry unraveled as the nation grew older.
A Stranger in the Land: Jewish Identity Beyond Nationalism, Daniel Cil Brecher
Brecher, a former IDF education corps member, moved to Israel from post-war Germany, but left when he found what he expected of Israel non-existent and what existed intolerable. Stranger is Brecher’s search for his own Jewish identity in 1980s Israel.
How Israel was Won: A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Baylis Thomas
Thomas’s book is interesting in that he’s a psychologist. How Israel was Won is the product of a professional writing group’s research. Besides himself, the group included three history professors, a sociologist, and an English professor. The book’s history begins before the First Zionist Congress and ends with the Oslo Accords.
Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People, David M. Crump
Simply put, Israel could not exist as a nation without the full-throated support of American Evangelicals. In Like Birds in a Cage, Crump, himself a former Christian Zionist, examines what happens to Palestinians when a powerful group of Christians offers its ongoing, unqualified, and almost always uncritical support of political Israel.
Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Conflict over Israel and Palestine, Colin Chapman
The most theologically oriented book on the list, Chapman combines history with biblical teaching in his exploration of the land promised to Abraham. Thorough and convincing, this volume will benefit any Bible student.
One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, Tom Segev
One’s understanding of modern Israel will be incomplete without knowledge of British Mandatory Palestine. When the Ottoman Empire was divided after World War One, control of Palestine was given to the British. The relationship between the Jews and Arabs living in Palestine—before the UN partition—is illuminated in this history.
fides quaerens intellectum
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