The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt weighs in with 106 pages of endnotes. The controversial tome challenging the might of the pro-Israel lobby is nonetheless accused of “shoddy scholarship” — much as when the authors’ shorter paper on the subject in 2006 unexpectedly burst the bubble of a lobby unaccustomed to challenge and reprimand. However, EI contributor Michael F. Brown finds that the heavy-hitting academics did not suddenly lose their intellectual acumen in penning this well-reasoned criticism of the Israel lobby. Read more about Book review: "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" 

As the first English-language fictionalized account of the nakba (catastrophe), which befell the Palestinian nation as the state of Israel was declared on the land of historic Palestine, Ibrahim Fawal’s celebrated novel On the Hills of God is an important achievement. But despite its relevant timing, its impressive Pen Oakland award, and its tomelike 446 pages, Fawal’s book only barely manages to surmount its faults. The story takes place in 1947-48, in the fictional village of Ardallah, literally “the land of God,” an everyvillage of sorts. Read more about Book review: "On the Hills of God" 

Overcoming Zionism, Joel Kovel’s first book on the question of Israel, is a contribution to the growing body of literature advocating “a single democratic state in Israel/Palestine.” However, while Kovel’s subtitle is longer than his title, it is the devastating critique of Zionism that occupies eight of the book’s ten chapters. What is unique about Kovel’s project is its multi-perspectival nature: he demolishes Zionism from historical, political, cultural, environmental, ethical, and psychological perspectives, and still has space left for elegant invective and stimulating digression. Read more about Book Review: "Overcoming Zionism" 

Susan Abulhawa’s first novel, The Scar of David, is an intricately woven tapestry of historical fiction chronicling the Palestinian Abulheja family over four generations. The novel begins in Ein Hod, the village where patriarch Yehya Abulheja, a peasant olive farmer, and his family, wife Basima and sons Hasan and Darweesh, live. This land of olive trees has been nurtured by Yehya’s relatives and ancestors for over forty generations. We witness the simple and charming life of these peasants when son Hasan, on errands for his father to the Old City in Jerusalem, meets with his best friend Ari Perlstein; both boys share their lives, families and dreams with each other. Read more about Book Review: The Scar of David