Resources – Books
There are many fine and recently published books that deal with various aspects of the Israeli occupation and with contemporary life in Palestine. Below I will simply list a half-dozen I have found particularly helpful and instructive. Most of these books have extensive bibliographies and lists of other resources, and you can’t go wrong with any of them.
Anna Baltzer: Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007.
Kathleen and Bill Christison: Palestine in Pieces: Graphic Perspectives on the Israeli Occupation. New York: Pluto Press, 2009.
Jonathan Cook: Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair. New York: Zed Books, 2008.
Stuart Littlewood: Radio Free Palestine. Cambridgeshire, England: Eastwood House, 2007.
Saree Makdisi: Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
Raja Shehadeh: Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape. New York: Scribner, 2007.
Davis Shulman: Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Online journals
You will not be surprised to learn that there is an enormous amount of journalistic material now available on the Internet and in the print media that provides extensive and up-to-date coverage of all aspects of Palestinian life. And of course, not just online journals, but blogs galore and other forms of commentary and analysis. Here, I will only list a few that I have found very worthwhile, but an additional list of such resources will be found below at the particular website I will mention.
| RamallahOnline: | www.ramallahonline.com |
| The Palestine Chronicle: | www.palestinechronicle.com |
| Palestinian Think Tank: | www.palestinethinktank.com |
| Palestine Today! | www.theheadlines.org |
| The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: (also a print magazine, available by subscription) |
www.wrmea.com |
| Electronic Intifada: | www.electronicintifada.net |
| Anna in the Middle East: | www.annainthemiddleeast. |
Documentaries
When Anna and I were first becoming interested in Palestine, we found it extremely helpful to view as many documentaries as possible and during those first few months, we watched more than a dozen of them, and have seen at least a dozen more since then. I won’t take the space here to list the specific documentaries we found particularly instructive, but just refer you to a single source, the Palestinian Online Store, www.palestinianonlinestore.com/filmswhich has an extensive collection of these documentaries (and other resources) that you can peruse for yourself and then order those you might like to see.
Other Useful Resources
For an additional list of books, websites, films, and other resources, see Birthright Unplugged atwww.birthrightunplugged.org/resources.
On the origin of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, see the online publication of Jews for Justice in the Middle East athttp://cactus48.com/truth.html.
Some useful Israeli sites are:
http://www.alternativenews.org
http://www.kibush.co.il
http://www.btselem.org/
http://www.israelsoccupation.info/
Groups and Organizations
There are many groups and organizations throughout the United States that are concerned with Palestinian affairs, including the occupation. Many of these groups and organizations of course are activist-oriented, but they also provide a wonderful opportunity to meet and interact with Palestinian people as well as others who are deeply knowledgeable about life in Palestine. If you would like to continue your explorations and understanding of the Palestinian experience in a more personal and interactive way, such groups and organizations offer some of the best opportunities.
Again, there are too many groups and organizations to list here, but to get started, I recommend you get in touch with the large umbrella group, The US Campaign to End the Occupation (www.endtheoccupation.org) which provides an extensive listing of such groups in the U.S. If for any reason, you can’t find an appropriate group near you, Anna Baltzer has advised me that you can write her at anna.baltzer@gmail.com and she will do her best to help you find one.
Going to Palestine
If you find that you have become really engrossed with the life and circumstances of present-day Palestinians, the very best thing you can do is to go to the West Bank yourself (currently, it is virtually impossible for Americans to get into Gaza, which is still under a tight blockade, as we have seen) and see conditions there for yourself. I know that for Anna and me, and I think most people would agree, no amount of reading, watching documentaries and following news reports can substitute for the actual experience of spending time in Palestine itself and having the chance not only to observe conditions there but, just as important, to meet and talk with Palestinians themselves. Speaking just for Anna and myself, our time there, limited as it was, proved to be invaluable. I can’t urge it enough for anyone who has come to have a real interest in Palestine and its people.
Fortunately, there are many delegations that travel regularly to Palestine, and you can easily find a list of them on the End the Occupation website mentioned earlier. From my personal experience, I can certainly recommend the group that Anna and I traveled with, Interfaith Peace-Builders (http://www.ifpb.org/delegations/upcoming.html). They orchestrated a first-rate tour for us, with expert leaders, that was excellent in every way.
For students and academics in particular, we can also recommend The Faculty for Israeli Palestinian Peace, which organizes twice yearly visits and conferences so that its delegates can see the situation on the ground and meet Palestinians and Israelis. More information is available at: http://www.ffipp.org
