INFORMATION ABOUT PALESTINE
Web-sites and Books
Web-sites
Al-Monitor. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html#. New-ish news service launched in 2012, linking journalists and specialists from across the Middle East, and making connections with Europe and USA. Impressive, attractive web-site, which includes some prominent adverts. Offers both English and Arabic services. Publishes many well-illustrated and well-written articles every day, with perhaps two or three concentrating on Palestine, and a similar amount on Israel.
Electronic Intifada. http://electronicintifada.net/. USA-based magazine-style web-site. Produces two or three articles each week; some quite long; often richly illustrated. Concentrates on events within Palestine.
Gush Shalom. http://zope.gush-shalom.org/index_en.html. Pro-peace, critical Israeli voices. Includes Uri Avnery’s weekly column, which is an excellent commentary on Israeli politics.
Ha’aretz. http://www.haaretz.com/critical, liberal opinion from a leading Israeli daily. Professionally edited. Irritating pop-ups. Much of it only available to subscribers: however, registered users can access a large section of it for free. There is also a free daily email.
International Middle East Media Center; http://www.imemc.org/index.php. Produced by professional independent Palestinian journalists. Concentrates on producing four or five news articles each day. Sober, clear, non-polemical writing, but all relatively short pieces.
Jews for Justice for Palestine (jfjfp). http://jfjfp.com/ web-site with one, two or three articles a day. Detailed, clear and well-written. Often concentrates on criticizing the Zionist right.
Maan News Agency; http://www.maannews.net/eng/Default.aspx. an independent Palestinian agency, partly funded by Danish donors. Publishes in English over a dozen news stories a day on their website. Well-written, detailed, clear and largely non-polemical; most articles illustrated with one or more colour photos. Has an ‘analysis’ section which every week includes one or two slightly longer comment pieces.
Middle East Research and Information Project. http://www.merip.org/. Established in 1971, based in Washington. Academic: based around ‘scholar activists’. Concentrates on producing a four-monthly journal which includes well-researched articles; the original focus on the project was on Palestine, but the articles now range over the whole Arab world. Full access requires a subscription, but one or two articles in each issue are open access, and there are many ‘op-ed’ pieces.
Sixteen Minutes to Palestine; http://smpalestine.com/. Concentrates on commentary, often concerning pro-Palestinian activists around the world. Includes some striking photographs. Based in the USA.
972 Magazine – http://972mag.com/c/news/. independent, dissenting voice from Israel. Concentrates on slightly longer comment and analysis pieces. Some excellent bloggers and carries some pieces from other sources. Carries some excellent photographs.
Books
Ghada Karmi, In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story (2002)
Autobiographical work by a Palestinian woman born in Palestine in the last years of the British Mandate. It covers life in those last years, then the experience of exile in Syria, followed by a wonderful section on an exile in north London in the 1950s. The last sections include some consideration of Palestinian politics. It’s a long work (nearly 500 pages), but it extremely well-written, observant and even funny in places.
William Sutcliffe, The Wall (2013).
Officially categorized as fiction for young adults. A story which imagines a boy from one of the settlements on the West Bank discovering a tunnel leading from his settlement to a nearby Palestinian town. The two or three pages describing his first sight of a Palestinian town are extraordinary: this is genuinely inspired writing. Following that, the story follows the boy’s alienation from the settlers and his increasing identification with the Palestinians: many of its scenes unfold in an olive grove owned by a Palestinian farmer.
Louisa Waugh, Meet Me in Gaza: Uncommon Stories of Life inside the Strip (2013)
There have been many examples of travel-writing by outsiders concerning Israel/Palestine. This is one of the better ones: Waugh was based in Gaza from 2007—10, working for an NGO. She gets out during the conflict of Christmas 2008—09. She’s willing to admit her ignorance about Palestinian society, and willing to learn from Palestinians. Overall, she presents an observant and lively picture of Gazan society.
Valerie Zenatti, When I Was a Soldier (2005)
Short autobiographical work by young French-Jewish woman who completed national service in Israel. No dramatic stories of trench warfare or aerial dog-fights, but a fascinating insight into ‘ordinary’ Israel. Zenatti could be described as a very mild dissident: she didn’t stay in Israel.
Dr Yohanna Katanacho
The Land of Christ: A Palestinian Cry
Leila El Haddad and Maggie Schmidt
The Gaza Kitchen
Alice Walker
The Cushion In The Road
Albert Hourani
A History of the Arab Peoples
Ben White
Israeli Apartheid
Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy
Robert Fisk
The Great War for Civilisation
Jeremy Bowen
Six Days
Gaza: When The Sky Rained White Fire
Musheir El Farra
Miko Peled
The General's Son
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda In Education
Pamela Olson
Fast Times in Palestine
Norman Finkelstein
The Holocaust Industry
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti Semitism and the Abuse of History
What Gandhi Says
Noam Chomsky with Ilan Pappe
Gaza in Crisis
Noam Chomsky
Media Control
Ilan Pappe
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Avi Shlaim
Israel and Palestine
The Iron Wall: Israel and The Arab World
Ramzy Baroud
My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story
Stuart Littlewood
Radio Free Palestine
Sam Knight
The Milford Ultimatum
with a Welsh connection
Peter Beinart
The Crisis of Zionism
Shlomo Sand
The Invention of the Jewish People
Rabbi David Goldberg
This Is Not The Way: Jews, Judaism and The State of Israel
Brant Rosen
Wrestling In The Daylight: A Rabbi's Path to Palestinian Solidarity
Keith Whitelam
Rhythms of Time: Reconnecting Palestine's Past
The Land of Christ: A Palestinian Cry
Leila El Haddad and Maggie Schmidt
The Gaza Kitchen
Alice Walker
The Cushion In The Road
Albert Hourani
A History of the Arab Peoples
Ben White
Israeli Apartheid
Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy
Robert Fisk
The Great War for Civilisation
Jeremy Bowen
Six Days
Gaza: When The Sky Rained White Fire
Musheir El Farra
Miko Peled
The General's Son
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda In Education
Pamela Olson
Fast Times in Palestine
Norman Finkelstein
The Holocaust Industry
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti Semitism and the Abuse of History
What Gandhi Says
Noam Chomsky with Ilan Pappe
Gaza in Crisis
Noam Chomsky
Media Control
Ilan Pappe
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Avi Shlaim
Israel and Palestine
The Iron Wall: Israel and The Arab World
Ramzy Baroud
My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story
Stuart Littlewood
Radio Free Palestine
Sam Knight
The Milford Ultimatum
with a Welsh connection
Peter Beinart
The Crisis of Zionism
Shlomo Sand
The Invention of the Jewish People
Rabbi David Goldberg
This Is Not The Way: Jews, Judaism and The State of Israel
Brant Rosen
Wrestling In The Daylight: A Rabbi's Path to Palestinian Solidarity
Keith Whitelam
Rhythms of Time: Reconnecting Palestine's Past
