How Do I Start Learning About Palestine?

A Very Short Guide

the image is taken from the cover of Ilan Pappe’s book The Biggest Prison on Earth

A recurring question in the comments and livestreams for Palestine Bookshelf is, “What are 2-3 books you’d recommend I read to get started learning more about Palestine?” Funnily enough, the more I read, the more interesting this question becomes for me.

My first question usually is, “What is it that bothers/interests you most about this situation?” A specific answer there can help lead to at least one specific title that can assist with that desire. But in the absence of a specific interest, I stress the importance of knowing what happened historically. I also am mindful that many people are not necessarily prepared, for a number of reasons, for books that are more than 400 pages, so in my list below I’m going to offer a shorter title to correspond to each larger title.

Before 1948

One Palestine, Complete by Tom Segev

Palestinians and Jews did live side-by-side in a single state from the river to the sea with generally equal rights. During this time Zionists sought, and often received, special treatment, but not in a consistent manner. This book gives you an image of what things were like in the recent era before 1948 (and in a way, how things might have gone, had the Zionists and UN not had their way) and helps cast a clear vision that things were not always as they are now in Palestine.

The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat) by Theodore Herzl

Roughly one-fifth the size of the 600+ page book by Segev is the short pamphlet written by Austrian-born Theodore Herzl in which he argues that “the Jewish State is a necessity for the world.” I’ll leave it to you to assess his argument, both in his own words and in the present tense.

1948

The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited by Benny Morris

This is the definitive work, from the Israeli side, on the Nakba. It chronicles the expulsion of the Palestinians in a way that was not possible before the IDF archives were opened (they have since been closed). No matter what Benny Morris may say or believe these days, all the research and footnotes and facts are there for those who are willing to invest the time to read this book.

The War for Palestine edited by Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim

Less than half the size of Morris’ 600+ page work, this book offers a series of essays from a number of writers (including Morris) on what happened in 1948 as well as the involvement of the surrounding Arab nations. This book is too little known and appreciated for the information it offers.

Today

Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom by Norman Finkelstein

This is a technical read but a tough one as well. Finkelstein offers so much in the way of documentation that you wonder how he manages to keep track of all he is writing about. But this book, in chronicling some of the more recent atrocities (Cast Lead, Protective Edge), sets the stage for October 7th and all that would follow.

The Punishment of Gaza by Gideon Levy

Although Gideon just published The Killing of Gaza, which brings us “up to date” with the genocide of the last twelve months, the value of this little tome is that it offers a 2006-2009 snapshot that shows us that what is happening now is nothing new: IDF soldiers love killing civilians, particularly unarmed women and children. This text is also less than 150 pages, which is half the size of Gideon’s new book, and less than half the size of Finkelstein’s meticulous tome.

On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe

If you want to cover some of the same ground that Gideon Levy does in The Punishment of Gaza, but also end your short “study of three” books with a look at some of the larger issues (the fraud of the “two-state solution,” for example) you won’t do better than this essay-cum-interview book put together by Frank Barat, itself a sequel to an earlier work called Gaza in Crisis.

This isn’t to say that you can’t learn about Palestine through videos and documentaries (I do, after all, run a YouTube channel), but I still believe in putting in the hard work of doing the reading and research, and know (check out Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows for the research) that reading these texts will give you more ammunition and facts at hand than even the most well-done documentary can offer.

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