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Bethlehem Besieged: Stories of Hope in Times of Trouble By Mitri Raheb Publisher: Fortress Press (2004), 157 pages A riveting story, beginning with the siege of Bethlehem in 2002 and continuing into today's scene of occupation, the wall, and suicide bombers. Like The Diary of Anne Frank it also chronicles the personal struggles of Palestinians and their families to survive the violence and to act with integrity in extreme circumstances. It gives full voice to the soundbites of the nightly news. Mitri Raheb's powerful collection of compelling personal stories-stories of desperation and hope in the midst of lethal conflict brings the Palestinian/Israeli conflict up close and personal. Raheb's lifelong commitment to his people has kept him in the legendary birthplace of Christianity, even as the town has become a flashpoint in the world's most volatile and hate-filled conflict. His passionate personal testimony lifts up the stray gesture toward friendship, the brave attempts to rebuild life and livelihood in a destroyed land, and the unquenchable desire for justice and peace. Peace Under Fire Edited by Josie Sandercock, Radhika Sainath, Marissa McLaughlin, Hussein Khalili, Nicholas Blincoe, Huwaida Arraf, and Ghassan Andoni. Publisher: Verso Books (June 2004), 240 pages The last two years have been the most brutal in the entire thirty-six year history of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip; indeed the most violent since the creation of Israel itself. The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded as a peaceful resistance to that violence. Its highly visible actions, which have included breaking the sieges in Ramallah and Bethlehem, as well as saving countless lives, have shone a spotlight on Israel's occupation. Outlawed in Israel and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the ISM has threatened the governing coalition with fears that Israeli opinion might at last be turning against them. In showing what risks Palestinians take, ISM volunteers have also tragically been targeted. The deaths of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, as well as the shootings of Kate Edwards, Caoimhe Butterley and Brian Avery, have never been fully explained, covered up in the US and UK and brushed aside in Israel—an unfortunate consequence of Israel's "war on terror." Beyond Intifada : Narratives of Freedom Fighters in the Gaza Strip By Haim Gordon (Author), Rivca Gordon (Author), Taher Shriteh (Author) Publisher: Praeger Publishers (March 30, 2003), 176 pages This book presents the personal narratives of six Palestinians--four men and two women--whose stories are central to describing the greater Palestinian plight in the Gaza Strip, the Intifada, the beginning of the 1993 peace process, and beyond. Each Palestinian has related crucial events in his or her life story, and by reading their accounts, we come to see the struggle through their eyes and put a human face on events that Western media and consciousness have only partially explored. Drinking the Sea at Gaza : Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege By Amira Hass Publisher: Owl Books (June 1, 2000), 400 pages Drinking the Sea at Gaza maps the zones of ordinary Palestinian life. From her friends, Hass learns the secrets of slipping across sealed borders and stealing through night streets emptied by curfews. She shares Gaza's early euphoria over the peace process and its subsequent despair as hope gives way to unrelenting hardship. But even as Hass charts the griefs and humiliations of the Palestinians, she offers a remarkable portrait of a people not brutalized but eloquent, spiritually resilient, bleakly funny, and morally courageous. Finding Palestine: One American's Trek from the Midwest to the Middle East By Liza Elliott Publisher: Hope Publishing House (December 1, 2001), 248 pages One day, in 1978, Liza Elliott hopped onto a bus and sat next to a man from the Holy Land. He called himself a Palestinian and his homeland, Palestine. Neither names registered in her American frame of reference and his description of life there ran counter to anything she'd been taught. Skeptical but intriuged, Liza Elliott slid into parallel adventures of self discovery and political awakening which led her to finding Palestine. This account of her adventure is a road map from which to find Palestine, the necessary first step toward peace with justice in the Holy Land. Gaza: Legacy of Occupation: A Photographer's Journey By Dick Doughty, Mohammed El Aydi, Mohammed E. Aydi Publisher: Kumarian Press (June 1995), 202 pages Using first-hand narrative, reporting and black-and-white photography, this is a warmly personal account of daily life among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The focus is on Canada Camp, one of the poorest of the Middle East's 61 Palestinian refugee camps, and on the efforts of the authors to document daily life there in early 1993, the last and increasingly militant days of the Palestinian intifadah and the beginning of the Israeli policy of closure, a major feature of economic life in the Gaza Strip today. Photo interviews give camp residents a chance to comment on Doughty's photographs, which adds little-heard, grassroots voices to the book. An epilogue discusses the transition from direct Israeli occupation to limited self-rule under the 1993 Oslo Accords. Hebron Journal: Stories of Nonviolent Peacemaking By Arthur G. Gish Publisher: Herald Pr. (October 2001), 304 pages A vision of how small peacemaking groups can make a different in violent conflicts. Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians By Staughton Lynd (Editor), Sam Bahour (Editor), Alice Lynd (Editor) Publisher: Interlink Pub. Group (March 1998), 288 pages Stories of loss, exile, and remembering. Live from Palestine: International and Palestinian Direct Action Against the Occupation By Nancy Stohlman (Editor), Laurieann Aladin (Editor) Publisher: South End Press (April 15, 2003), 223 pages Featuring essays by EI co-founders Ali Abunimah and Arjan El Fassed, the core of this collection lies in the riveting eye-witness accounts of life under the Occupation. From the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to refugee camps under siege, these accounts give incontrovertible evidence of the terror generated by the Israeli army. Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada By Wendy Pearlman (Author), Laura Junka (Photographer) Publisher: Nation Books (May 2003), 257 pages When the occupied territories exploded following the collapse of the Camp David talks and Ariel Sharon's inflammatory visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Wendy Pearlman, a young Jewish woman from Nebraska, immersed herself amongst ordinary Palestinians and, a la Studs Terkel, recorded their lives. A remarkable oral narrative emerges from the school principals, professors, TV reporters, school kids, mothers, doctors, engineers, filmmakers, shop owners, victims of shellings and forced house removals that spoke to her. Containing over thirty searing oral testimonies, this is one of the first books to tell the Palestinian story from the point of view of Palestinians living in the occupied territories. Operation Defensive Shield: Witnesses to Israeli War Crimes By Muna Hamzeh (Editor), Todd May (Editor) Publisher: Pluto Press (May 5, 2003), 199 pages Documentation of the Israeli launched Operation Defensive Shield, the largest military offensive against Palestinian civilians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Narratives offer an intimate account of the daily reality for Palestinians who endured Ariel Sharon's military strategy. Palestine By Joe Sacco Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (January 2002), 288 pages Based on several months of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s (where he conducted over 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews), Palestine was the first major comics work of political and historical nonfiction by Sacco, who has often been called the first comic book journalist. Peace Fire: Fragments from the Israel-Palestine Story By Ethan Casey (Editor), Paul Hilder (Editor) Publisher: Free Assn. Books (November 2002), 365 pages A new diaries compilation, Peace Fire, features many of EI's Live From Palestine authors, including EI co-founders Ali Abunimah and Arjan El Fassed. Peace Fire aligns the chronology of recent story with thoughtful, analyses, some of which are passionate, others disinterested (and several of which have already been proved wrong). In the process it weaves together the intemperate opinions, anger, hatred and confusion of the crisis. It spreads out from personal experiences of tragedy, conflict and hope at the epicentre to touch on the alarming global ripple effects, with contributors ranging from those on the both sides directly affected to expert observers from around the world. Refugees in Our Own Land : Chronicles from a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem By Muna Hamzeh Publisher: Pluto Press (September 2001), 160 pages This remarkable book is a gripping eyewitness account of what it is like to live in Palestine as a refugee in your own homeland. Born in Jerusalem, Muna Hamzeh is a journalist who has been writing about Palestinian affairs since 1985. She first worked as a journalist in Washington DC, but moved back to Palestine in 1989 to cover the first Palestine Intifada -- the war of stones. She then settled in Dheisheh, near Bethlehem, one of 59 Palestinian refugee camps that are considered the oldest refugee camps in the world. Reporting from Ramallah : An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land By Amira Hass Publisher: MIT Press (July 20, 2003), 209 pages The daughter of concentration camp survivors, Hass has chosen to live in a Palestinian town to provide a firsthand description of what daily life is like for the population, in particular, how the Israeli army behaves and the effects of the army's presence. Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion By Ramzy Baroud (Editor) Publisher: Cune (October 2003), 288 pages Testemant to Israeli brutality and Palestinian resilience during the Israeli invasion of the refugee camp in spring 2002. Sleeping on a Wire : Conversations with Palestinians in Israel By David Grossman Publisher: Noonday Press (March 1, 1994), 288 pages Torn between conflicting identities -- Arabs in the eyes of Jews, and Israelis in the eyes of the Palestinians -- the Israeli Arabs live in a painful dilemma. Grossman's account of his personal journey into their world is the story of this painful, convoluted state of affairs, about ferment beneath the surface, and an intensifying bitterness that led to the current open conflict. This Side of Peace : A Personal Account By Hanan Ashrawi Publisher: Touchstone Books (June 5, 1996), 320 pages From the world-recognized leader of the Palestinians comes an inside view of Arafat and of the secret negotiations and last-minute decisions that led to the Oslo Peace Talks. "A revealing document of a partisan who has helped make Middle East history" -- Publishers Weekly. The Uzi and the Stone : Images of Gaza By Rhona Davies, Peter R. Johnson Publisher: Detselig Enterprises (December 1991), 256 pages The authors experiences during two years spent in the occupied territory of Gaza during the first Palestinian Intifada. When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege By Raja Shehadeh Publisher: Steerforth Press (September 2003), 151 pages In April 2002, the Israeli army reoccupied Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters. A tank blocked Raja Shehadeh's road; Israeli soldiers seized his brother’s home and used him as a human shield during a search, as his frightened wife and children watched. When the Birds Stopped Singing reveals the rage and terror of daily life in these dire circumstances, showing how time passes for people imprisoned in their own homes, how they cope with being forbidden to cross the neighborhood to help a sick relative or dying friend. A chronicle of lives that somehow endure under impossible circumstances, Shehadeh's diary is a compelling and important document of a problem that seems increasingly beyond solution. Witnessing for Peace: In Jerusalem and the World By Fred Strickert (Editor) and Munib A. Younan Publisher: Fortress Press (June 2003), 176 pages Most people decry the daily violence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and ask why there is no nonviolent movement. In this book, Lutheran bishop in Jerusalem Munib Younan presents an honest, moving, and deeply spiritual witness for nonviolence and dialogue as the only realistic way to reach a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. ©2000-2007 electronicIntifada.net unless otherwise noted. Content may represent personal view of author. This page was printed from the Electronic Intifada website at electronicIntifada.net. You may freely e-mail, print out, copy, and redistribute this page for informational purposes on a non-commercial basis. To republish content credited to the Electronic Intifada in online or print publications, please get in touch via electronicIntifada.net/contact |