Free Palestine Reading List for November 29 – December 5

Categories: Poetry | Fiction | Literary Nonfiction | Literary Anthologies | History of Palestine | Palestinian Lives | Palestinian Arts & Culture | Palestine & Global Politics | Organizing, Resistance, and Solidarity for a Free Palestine

Although Read Palestine Week is over, you can still check out these books from publishers around the world below. Thank you very much for your interest and participation!

POETRY

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, by Mosab Abu Toha. (City Lights Books, 2022). ISBN:  978-0872868601. (English)

In this poetry debut, Mosab Abu Toha writes about his life under siege in Gaza, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is inspired by a profound humanity.

These poems emerge directly from the experience of growing up and living in constant lockdown, and often under direct attack. Like Gaza itself, they are filled with rubble and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones policing a people unwelcome in their own land, and they are also suffused with the smell of tea, roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. Children are born, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins as Palestinians go on about their lives, creating beauty and finding new ways to survive.

Accompanied by an in-depth interview (conducted by Ammiel Alcalay) in which Abu Toha discusses life in Gaza, his family origins, and how he came to poetry.

Get Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear here.

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(Sefsafa Publishing House, 2019)   أُقلب كل حَجَرِ في الغابة، كارل شمبري, وليد خليل نبهان

عندما انتهى كل شيء

كل المباني كانت ركاما الجثث ذهبت مع الريح

.كالرماد

الهياكل بعثت كل التصدعات الصماء

إلى مثواها في السماء

يرتدون إلى الموت

وفي الأعلى

تشرق الشمس من جديد

دون أي عمود سحاب يلوث الجو

ولا توهجات خادعة

أو بالونات عسكرية دامية

حينها هل ستعثرون علي ؟

.سأكون في الانتظار

Get أُقلب كل حَجَرِ في الغابة here.

FICTION

Wild Thorns, by Sahar Khalifeh, translated by Trevor LeGassick and Elizabeth Fernea. (Saqi Books, 2023). IBSN: 978-0-86356-986-9. (English)

A young Palestinian named Usama returns to his homeland after several years working in the Gulf. Now an operative in the resistance movement, his mission is to blow up buses transporting Palestinian workers into Israel.

But Palestine and its people are not as Usama remembered them. He is shocked to discover that many of his fellow countrymen have adjusted to life under military control. Despite mounting unease, Usama sets out to accomplish his objective … with disastrous consequences.

First published in Palestine in 1976, Wild Thorns was the first Arab novel to offer a glimpse of everyday life under Israeli occupation. With uncompromising honesty, Khalifeh pleads elegantly for survival in the face of oppression.

Get Wild Thorns here.

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Out of Time: The Collected Stories of Samira Azzam, by Samira Azzam, translated by Ranya Abdelrahman. (ArabLit Books, 2022). IBSN: 979-8362585235. (English)

Samira Azzam (1927–1967) was one of the leading Palestinian writers of the twentieth century. Yet after her death, her work fell into a half-shadow, in which she was acknowledged as great, but not quite canonized. In a 2018 article on the Palestinian short story, the critic Faisal Darraj says it plainly: “Azzam has not yet received the accolades she deserves.” This translated collection — full of her vivid snapshots of life in Palestine and Lebanon in the first half of the twentieth century — is a start at giving Samira Azzam a few of the accolades she deserves.

Get Out of Time here.

LITERARY NONFICTION

The Drone Eats With Me, by Atef Abu Saif (Comma Press, 2015). IBSN: 9781905583713 (English)

“On 7 July 2014, in an apparent response to the murder of three teenagers, Israel launched a major offensive against the Gaza Strip, lasting 51 days, killing 2145 Palestinians (578 of them children), injuring over 11,000, and demolishing 17,200 homes. The global outcry at this collective punishment of an already persecuted people was followed by widespread astonishment at the pro-Israeli bias of Western media coverage. The usual news machine rolled up, and the same distressing images and entrenched political rhetoric were broadcast, yet almost nothing was reported of the on-going lives of ordinary Gazans – the real victims of the war.

One of the few voices to make it out was that of Atef Abu Saif, a writer and teacher from Jabalia Refugee Camp, whose eye-witness accounts (published in The Guardian, The New York Times, and elsewhere) offered a rare window into the conflict for Western readers. Here, Atef’s complete diaries of the war allow us to witness the full extent of last summer’s atrocities from the most humble of perspectives: that of a young father, fearing for his family’s safety, trying to stay sane in an insanely one-sided war.”

Get The Drone Eats With Me here.

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We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir, by Raja Shehadeh (Other Press, 2023) IBSN: 9781635423655. (English)

Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award, this is subtle psychological portrait of the author’s relationship with his father during the twentieth-century battle for Palestinian human rights.

Get We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I free this week through Amazon or through Barnes & Noble.

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Les échos de la mémoire. Une enfance palestinienne à Jérusalem, by Issa J. Boullata, translated by Chantal Ringuet (Mémoire d’encrier, 2015) IBSN: 978-2-89712-315-4 (French)

Œuvre à caractère autobiographique, Les échos de la mémoire. Une enfance palestinienne à Jérusalem évoque, avec l’occupation britannique en toile de fond, de multiples souvenirs, campe d’intimes portraits de famille et nous ramène sur des lieux d’enchantement et de rébellion. Cet ouvrage, véritable lettre d’amour à Jérusalem, pose un regard singulier sur la ville. C’était avant le déracinement des Palestiniens de 1948, où se côtoyaient harmonieusement toutes les confessions. C’était avant la tempête politique.

Ces récits dressent le portrait du garçon que j’étais dans les années 1930-1940, et racontent des événements dont j’ai été le témoin, et l’histoire des gens ayant croisé mon chemin. Tous ils décrivent cette ville que j’ai aimée d’un amour infini. 

The distinguished Arabic scholar, author, and translator Issa J. Boullata grew up in a Palestinian family in the Jerusalem of the 1930s and 1940s, when Palestine was under the British Mandate. His memoir, The Bells of Memory, is delightful in its reflections on an idyllic youth and detailed in its recollections of family members, classmates and teachers, remembered scents and foods, the pleasures of reading, and his early experience of the working world. This is a love letter to a Jerusalem that was changed immeasurably by Al-Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe of 1948 that dispossessed the Palestinians of their homeland and dislocated many as refugees when Israel was established.

Get Les échos de la mémoire. Une enfance palestinienne à Jérusalem here.

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A Party For Thaera: Palestinian Women Write Life In Prison, ed. Haifa Zangana, translated by Salam Darwazah Mir (Women Unlimited, 2021) ISBN: 978-93-85606-38-0 (English)

In a first, nine politically-diverse women, former Palestinian political prisoners, sat around a table in a small room in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, to share their stories of incarceration. These non-writers learnt to express the reality of their time in prison, of the separation from their children, of the endless struggles against Israeli occupation, to produce heartfelt narratives that go beyond simply recalling the details of their sentence or revisiting their trauma. Instead, this unique volume transforms their experiences into an expression of the self, giving readers an “exceptional” insight into an almost unknown women’s world, of life and love behind bars and beyond.

Get A Party for Thaera here.

LITERARY ANTHOLOGY

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Mike Merryman-Lotze (Haymarket Books, 2022) ISBN: 9781642597257. (English)

Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment.

Get Light in Gaza here.

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To Live, Die, and Be Born in Gaza, edited by David Segarra, traducció al castellà: Roger Sarrià Traducció a l’anglès: Adela Ortiz Traducció a l’àrab: Tamer Hamdan i Rabah Boughenna. (Sembra Llibres, 2014). ISBN: 978-84-942350-5-4. (Catalan, English, Spanish, and Arabic)

This is a book with one hundred photographs and stories of life, history, culture, and resistance in Gaza and all Palestine. The original is in Catalan. But Arabic, English and Spanish translation are also available.

Get Viure morir i nàixer a Gaza in Catalan here (with photos).

Get To Live, Die, and Be Born in Gaza in English here.

Get Viure morir i nàixer a Gaza in Spanish here.

Get Viure morir i nàixer a Gaza in Arabic here.

NONFICTION

History of Palestine

Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer, by Phyllis Bennis. (Interlink Books, 2018) IBSN: 978-1-56656-685-8. (English)

With straightforward language, Phyllis Bennis, longtime analyst of the region, answers basic questions about Israel and Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians, the US and the Middle East, Zionism and anti-Semitism; about complex issues ranging from the Oslo peace process to the election of Hamas. Together her answers provide a comprehensive understanding of the longstanding Palestinian–Israeli conflict.

Sections include: Background; Israel–Palestine in the 21st Century; The Other Players: The Role of the US, the UN, the Arab States, and Europe; The History of the Conflict; The Future.

Get Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer here.

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Hamas – From Resistance to Regime, by Paola Caridi, translated by Andrea Teti. (Seven Stories Press, 2023) IBSN: 9781644211892. (English)

In Hamas, journalist and historian Paola Caridi covers the history of Gaza, from its golden age as a port city, to the Nakba, to the present day. A clear-eyed account of Hamas’ birth and slow militarization, Hamas offers an unbiased look at the complex feelings that Palestinians have toward getting behind a government that also supports violent resistance. In doing so, Caridi tells the story of an anti-imperialist movement caught between the desire to resist its oppressor and the need to provide support for a refugee people.

Hamas paints a picture, with empathy, intelligence, dexterity, and heart, of a people trapped in the most historic of political battles, revealing all of the complexities of this key player in the global struggle against imperialism.

Get Hamas – From Resistance to Regime here.

Palestinian Lives

Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine, edited by Diana Allan, Afterword by Rosemary Sayigh (Pluto Press, 2021) ISBN: 9780745342931. (English)

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021***

During the 1948 war more than 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were violently expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. The legacy of the Nakba – which translates to ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’ – lays bare the violence of the ongoing Palestinian plight.

Voices of the Nakba collects the stories of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, documenting a watershed moment in the history of the modern Middle East through the voices of the people who lived through it.

The interviews, with commentary from leading scholars of Palestine and the Middle East, offer a vivid journey into the history, politics and culture of Palestine, defining Palestinian popular memory on its own terms in all its plurality and complexity.

Get Voices of the Nakba: A Living History of Palestine here

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Mental Health and Human Rights in Palestine, by Wasseem El Sarraj. (Daraja Press, 2022) IBSN: 9781990263378. (English)

This is a biography of the life of Dr Eyad El Sarraj, Gaza’s pioneering psychiatrist and founder of the Gaza Community Mental Healthcare Programme, written by his son, Wasseem El Sarraj. It is also a history of Palestine with a focus on Gaza. Eyad’s life was intimately intertwined with Palestine’s struggles so his choices and reactions reflected many of the major historical moments of the last 70 years. The book is an effort to provide a perspective on how the forces around him impacted his life, and how he took control of what he could achieve in an intractable situation. The book is interspersed with Wasseem’s own reflections as a mixed-race Palestinian, and as someone who has lived under occupation in Gaza.

Get Mental Health and Human Rights in Palestine here.

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Driving in Palestine التحرّك في فلسطين, by Rehab Nazzal (Fernwood Publishing, 2023) ISBN: 9781773635934. (English)

Driving in Palestine is a research-creation project by acclaimed artist Rehab Nazzal, who explores the visible indices of the politics of mobility that she encountered firsthand while traversing the occupied West Bank between 2010 and 2020. This photography book consists of 160 black and white photographs, hand-drawn maps and critical essays in Arabic and English by Palestinian and Canadian scholars and artists.

The photographs were all captured from moving vehicles on the roads of the West Bank. They focus on Israel’s architecture of movement restrictions and surveillance structures that proliferate in the West Bank, including the Apartheid Wall, segregation walls surrounding illegal colonies, gates, fences, watchtowers, roadblocks and military checkpoints among other obstacles to freedom of movement.

The book Driving in Palestine is available on the Fernwood Publishing website.

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Palestine Speaks:Narratives of Life Under Occupation, edited by Mateo Hoke and Cate Malek (Verso, 2015) IBSN: 9781784780517. (English)

For more than six decades, Israel and Palestine have been the center of one of the world’s most widely reported yet least understood human rights crises. In Palestine Speaks men and women from the West Bank and Gaza describe in their own words how their lives have been shaped by the conflict. This includes eyewitness accounts of the most recent attacks on Gaza in 2014. The collection includes Ebtihaj, whose son, born during the first intifada, was killed by Israeli soldiers during a night raid almost twenty years later. Nader, a professional marathon runner from the Gaza Strip who is determined to pursue his dream of competing in international races despite countless challenges, including severe travel restrictions and a lack of resources to help him train.

Get Palestine Speaks here.

Ebook available only in the UK. Outside the UK, the print book is currently 40% off from Haymarket Books.

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A Land With A People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism, coedited by  Esther Farmer, Rosalind Petchesky and Sarah Sills. (Monthly Review Press, 2021) ISBN: 978-1-58367-931-9. (English)

A Land With a People is a book of stories, photographs and poetry which elevates rarely heard Palestinian and Jewish voices and visions. Eloquently framed with a foreword by the dynamic Palestinian legal scholar and activist, Noura Erakat, this book began as a storytelling project of Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City and subsequently transformed into a theater project performed throughout the New York City area.

To receive the pdf., please write to press@monthlyreview.org.

Palestinian Arts & Culture

Take Care of Your Self: The Art and Cultures of Care and Liberation, by Sundus Abdul Hadi. (Common Notions, 2020), ISBN: 9781942173403 (eBook)

Featuring words and artwork by Emory Douglass, Leila Abdelrazaq, Ahmad Naser-Eldein, Monique Bedard, Roï Saade, Jessica Powless, Susu Attar, Jihan Kikhia,  Sadaf Rassoul Cameron, Narmeen Hashim, Niti Marcelle Mueth, Shanna Strauss and Kevin Calixte, Nora Patrich, Samira Idroos, Tara Jaffar, Julay “Sacred Spirit Ink” and Allos Abis, Joseph Cuillier, Suhad Khatib, and Dana El Masr.

In Take Care of Your Self, Sundus Abdul Hadi turns a critical and inventive eye to the notion of care and how it relates to social justice. In contrast to the billion-dollar industry of self-care, Abdul Hadi identifies care as a necessary practice—rooted in self, community, and the world—in the collective process of decolonization, empowerment, and liberation. 

“Take Care of Your Self turns upside down and inside out the meanings of self-care, illuminating for us decolonial futures through our collective healing. Sundus Abdul Hadi invites us into the most intimate valleys of her own healing journey—taking us gently by the hand to show us the visionary work of artists while rooting us in the fertile soils nurtured by Black, Indigenous, anticolonial, and feminist thinkers—and pointing to the revolutionary potential of transnationalism. Take Care of Your Self left me elated, floating a bit with the buoyancy that hope offers.”—Noura Erakat, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

Get Take Care of Your Self here.

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Everyday Forms of Resistance, by Jumana Emil Abboud, Noor Abed, Ahmad Alaqra, Mirna Bamieh, Dominika Blachnicka-Ciacek, Wim Catrysse, DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Research), Maja Demska, Forensic Architecture, Karolina Grzywnowicz, Jumana Manna, Joanna Rajkowska, Mohammad Saleh, Marta Wódz, Jaśmina Wójcik (CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, 2019) ISBN: 978-83-65240-85-9. (Polish & English)

Everyday Forms of Resistance is a project scheduled for several years which investigates in its broadest sense the role of art within society and the daily use of forms of resistance, in Palestine, as well as worldwide. How do we, as civilians, deal on a daily basis with the challenges of these times? What are the everyday gestures that allow us to resist, but also how does art come into play?

Get Everyday Forms of Resistance here

Palestine and Global Politics

The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media, by Greg Shupak (OR Books, 2018) ISBN: 978-1-682191-29-3. (English)

The Wrong Story lays bare the flaws in the way large media organizations present the Palestine–Israel issue. It points out major fallacies in the fundamental conceptions that underpin their coverage, namely that Palestinians and Israelis are both victims to comparable extents and are equally responsible for the failure to find a solution; that the problem is “extremists,” often religiously-motivated ones, who need to be sidelined in favour of “moderates”; and that Israel’s uses of force are typically justifiable acts of self-defense.

Weaving together the existing literature with new insights, Shupak offers an up-to-date and tightly focused guide that exposes the distorted way these issues are presented and why each is misguided.

Get The Wrong Story here.

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Third World Approaches to International Law: Writings on Palestine, 2019-2023, by Noura Erakat, Victor Kattan, Steven Salaita, Ata R. Hindi, Shahd Hammouri et al (TWAIL Review, 2023) ISBN: 978-1138040724. (English)

A compilation of writings on Palestine from anti-colonial legal and intellectual perspectives. The collective includes essays, academic articles, interviews, personal reflections and solidarity statements, written mostly by Palestinian authors and published by the Third World Approaches to International Law Review journal and website. 

Get Third World Approaches to International Law here.

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Menguak Hubungan Dagang Indonesia-Israel, by Angga Aulia Akbar (Marjin Kiri, 2013) ISBN: 978-979-1260-18-3. (Indonesian)

Since its early days after independence, Indonesia always had a strong support for the freedom of Palestine and therefore refused to open any diplomatic relation with Israel. President Soekarno clearly placed Israel amongst the “oldefos” (old established forces).

But unbeknown to many people, and contrast with Indonesia’s own political stance toward Israel, the commercial relations between the two countries have been established without formal diplomatic channels, started from the purchasing of Israeli jet planes and helicopters during Soeharto’s era. After 1998 Reform, Indonesian-Israeli Chamber of Commerce was even opened in Tel Aviv. 

This book attempts to expose these contradictory policies regarding Indonesian support for Palestine.

Get Menguak Hubungan Dagang Indonesia-Israel here.

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Israel, A Beachhead in the Middle East, From European Colony to US Power Projection Platform, by Stephen Gowans (Baraka Books, 2019) IBSN: 9781771861830. (English)

Stephen Gowans challenges the specious argument that Israel controls US foreign policy, tracing the development of the self-declared Jewish state, from its conception in the ideas of Theodore Herzl, to its birth as a European colony, through its efforts to suppress regional liberation movements, to its emergence as an extension of the Pentagon, integrated into the US empire as a pro-imperialist Sparta of the Middle East.

Get Israel, A Beachhead in the Middle East here.

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The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, by Anthony Lowenstein. (Verso Books, 2023) ISBN: 9781839762109. (English)

Israel’s military industrial complex uses the occupied, Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world to despots and democracies. For more than 50 years, occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an “enemy” population, the Palestinians. It’s here that they have perfected the architecture of control. 

Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism, uncovers this largely hidden world in a global investigation with secret documents, revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting. This book shows in-depth, for the first time, how Palestine has become the perfect laboratory for the Israeli military-techno complex: surveillance, home demolitions, indefinite incarceration and brutality to the hi-tech tools that drive the ‘Start-up Nation’. From the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos’ and Jamal Khashoggi’s phones, the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas and drones used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean who are left to drown. Israel has become a global leader in spying technology and defence hardware that fuels the globe’s most brutal conflicts. As ethno-nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate model.

Get The Palestine Laboratory here.

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Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, edited by Christopher Hitchens and Edward W. Said, with contributions by Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Abu-Lughod, G.W. Bowersock, Noam Chomsky, Norman G. Finkelstein, Muhammad Hallaj, Rashid Khalidi, Peretz Kidron and Elia Zureik (Verso, 2020) ISBN:  9781789600773. (English)

Beginning with a thorough exposé of the fraudulent assertions of Joan Peters concerning the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine prior to 1948, the book then turns to similar instances in Middle East research where the truth about the Palestinians has been systematically suppressed: from the bogus—though still widely believed—explanations of why so many Palestinians fled their homes in 1948, to today’s distorted propaganda about PLO terrorism. The volume also includes sharp critiques of the wide consensus in the USA which supports Israel and its territorial ambitions while maintaining total silence about the competing reality of the Palestinians.

Get Blaming the Victims here.

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Ten Myths About Israel, by Ilan Pappe (Verso, 2017) ISBN: 9781786630209. (English)

The “ten myths” that Pappe explores—repeated endlessly in the media, enforced by the military, accepted without question by the world’s governments—reinforce the regional status quo. He explores the claim that Palestine was an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration, as well as the formation of Zionism and its role in the early decades of nation building. He asks whether the Palestinians voluntarily left their homeland in 1948, and whether June 1967 was a war of “no choice.” Turning to the myths surrounding the failures of the Camp David Accords and the official reasons for the attacks on Gaza, Pappe explains why the two-state solution is no longer viable.

Get Ten Myths About Israel here.

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Organizing, Resistance, and Solidarity for a Free Palestine

Advocating for Palestine in Canada, by Emily Regan Wills, Jeremy Wildeman, Michael Bueckert and Nadia Abu-Zahra. (Fernwood Publishing, 2022) ISBN: 9781773634760. (English)

This collection brings together activists, journalists and academics to explore the challenges of engaging in Palestinian advocacy in Canada. This account of Palestine solidarity activism in Canada grapples with these questions through a wide-ranging exploration of the movement’s different actors, approaches and fields of engagement, along with its connections to different national and transnational struggles against racism, imperialism and colonialism.

Get Advocating for Palestine in Canada here.

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Una tierra con gente. Voces de Palestina de Sofia Caamaño i Sònia Bajona. (Editorial Descontrol, 2020). ISBN: 978-84-17190-95-8. (Castellano)

 “Una tierra sin gente para una gente sin una tierra” es una de las frases más citadas en la literatura sionista. Con ella, Israel justificó muchas de las acciones que llevó a cabo a lo largo del último siglo sobre los seres humanos que este eslogan invisibiliza. Palestina no era un desierto, sino que estaba habitada por millones de personas que fueron asesinadas, desplazadas forzosamente y obligadas a vivir en condiciones infrahumanas durante décadas. Estas páginas recogen las historias de algunas de ellas. Los doce relatos que conforman este libro son una ventana al interior de los campos de personas refugiadas, las ciudades palestinas, las cárceles, los movimientos de resistencia y el mundo interno de quienes viven en primera persona la ocupación israelí. 

Get Una tierra con gente. Voces de Palestina here.

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Zapiski o okupaciji: Nablus, Kalkilija, Hebron, by Eric Hazan, translated by Katarina Rotar. (Založba, 2017). ISBN: 978-961-257-082-8. (Slovenian)

Eric Hazan je preživel mesec dni v Palestini. Obiskal je tri mesta: Nablus, Kalkilijo in Hebron. Pri tem so nastali “Zapiski o okupaciji”: knjiga, ki je napisana neposredno in iskreno, v obliki lapidarnih zapisov (pogovori na ulicah in trgih, intervjuji z družinami palestinskih zapornikov in s politiki, prizori s ceste, obisk izoliranih vasi, dnevniški zapiski in razmišljanja …), ki si prizadevajo prikazati vsakdanje življenje tamkajšnjih prebivalcev in ugotoviti, kaj je raison d’être velikanskega izraelskega vojaškega in birokratskega stroja, ki ga svet označuje z abstraktno in hkrati varljivo besedo »okupacija«.

Eric Hazan spent a month in Palestine. He visited three towns: Nablus, Qalqilya and Hebron. The result of his travel are the “Notes on the Occupation”: a book written from the firsthand and in an honest manner, in the form of lapidary notes (conversations in the streets and squares, interviews with Palestinian prisoners’ families and politicians, scenes from the roads, visits to isolated villages, diary notes and reflections…), which seek to show the daily life of the local population and to understand the raison d’être of the giant Israeli military and bureaucratic machine, which the world labels by the abstract and deceptive word “occupation”.

Get Zapiski o okupaciji: Nablus, Kalkilija, Hebron here.

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Gaza Stay Human, by Vittorio Arrigoni. (Kube Publishing, 2010). IBSN: UK9781847740199. English.

An authoritative and deeply moving eyewitness account of the terrible twenty-two-day Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. These daily dispatches were written in precarious conditions, between bombing raids and intermittent Internet access. Vittorio Arrigoni ends his dispatches with the plea “stay human,” which became the motto of the peace protests in his native Italy. This includes entries reflecting on life in Gaza after the offensive and also features an introduction by famous Israeli historian Ilan Pappé.

Get Gaza Stay Human here.

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(Sefsafa Publishing House, 2021) اساطير الصهيونية، المؤلف: جون روز، المترجم: د. قاسم عبده قاسم

ينقض جون روز في كتابه أساطير الصهيونية الدعامات والأسس التاريخية والسياسية التي بني عليها المشروع الصهيوني من خلال تفنيد أساطيره وكشف خرافاته، فهو يقدم للقارئ نقدًا تحليليا لجذور الصهيونية، ويكشف عوارها وكذبها وتحريفها، وتشويهها للحقائق
وبحسب المؤلف فقد ساعد أعظم صناع الأساطير الصهيونية، دافيد بن جوريون، دون قصد على تشكيل أول وآخر فصول الكتاب فقد تباهى بن جوريون مرة بأن الأسطورة يمكن أن تصبح حقيقة إذا أمن الناس بها بما يكفي من القوة، وقد استخدم بحذق ومهارة، خفة اليد الثقافية، لكي يتلاعب باحتراف بقصص التوراة، بحيث تناسب المزاعم السياسية للصهيونية على الأرض الفلسطينية
وعبر قراءة تاريخية شديدة العمق، يعمل روز معول الهدم في التاريخ الأسطوري الذي اصطنعته الصهيونية، ليضع مشروعها عاريًا أمام القارئ، ليتركه مدعومًا فقط بالعنف العاري

Get اساطير الصهيونية here.

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Palestine, by Noam Chomsky et Ilan Pappe. (Éditions Écosociété, 2016). ISBN: 9782897192457. (French)

Les trois offensives militaires d’envergure menées par Israël contre Gaza entre 2008 et 2014 ont fait des milliers de morts du côté palestinien et donné lieu à de nouvelles expropriations de terres en Cisjordanie. Noam Chomsky et Ilan Pappé, deux ardents défenseurs de la cause palestinienne, mènent une longue conversation sur la Palestine et sur l’importance de renouveler le vocabulaire politique. Pour eux, le problème palestinien est un cas évident de colonialisme et de dépossession. Ils abordent à la fois le sionisme en tant que phénomène historique, la pertinence d’analyser la situation en Palestine comme un apartheid, l’efficacité de la campagne Boycott, désinvestissement et sanctions (BDS) et la viabilité de la solution à un ou à deux États.

Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. Palestine is the sequel to their acclaimed book Gaza in Crisis.

Get Palestine here.

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¿Atrapados entre el terror y la guerra? Ejército, movimiento pacifista y antimilitarismo en Israel, by Abdul-Rahman Alawi, Rudi Friedrich, Endy Hagen, Reuven Kaminer, Uta Klein, Pere Maruny, Khalil Toama, and translated by Thilo Hartmann. (Virus Editorial, 2005) IBSN: 9788496044562. (Spanish)

Casi dos décadas tras su publicación ‘¿Atrapados entre el terror y la guerra?’ ofrece un contexto histórico importante ante el recrudecimiento de la violencia ejercida por el Estado de Israel. Este libro recoge múltiples y diversas voces israelíes y palestinas que expresan la experiencia (y los fracasos) en los intentos de hallar una solución pacífica al conflicto. Se analiza el militarismo y expansionismo colonial israelí, la historia de opresión del pueblo palestino, las polémicas internas en la izquierda sionista, el movimiento de objeción al servicio militar y el refuerzo de los roles de género vinculados a las dinámicas belicistas. Se reproduce también el testimonio de antiguos soldados israelíes arrepentidos y objetores de conciencia que enfrentaron prisión.

Nearly two decades after its publication, ‘¿Atrapados entre el terror y la guerra?’ provides a relevant historical context to the escalating violence perpetrated by the State of Israel. This book brings together multiple and diverse Israeli and Palestinian voices expressing the experience (and failures) in attempts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. It analyzes Israeli militarism and colonial expansionism, the history of oppression of the Palestinian people, the internal polemics in the Zionist left, the movement of objection to military service, and the reinforcement of gender roles linked to warmongering dynamics. The testimony of repentant former Israeli soldiers and conscientious objectors who faced imprisonment is also reproduced.

Get ¿Atrapados entre el terror y la guerra? Ejército, movimiento pacifista y antimilitarismo en Israel here.

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Τα παιδιά της Παλαιστίνης κάτω από την ισραηλινή κατοχή (Palestinian Children Under Israeli Occupation), by Ahmed el-Helah and Mariam A. Itani, translated by Vittoria Marangoni and Giorgos Maganas (The Colleagues’ Publications, 2013) ISBN: 978-960-9797-14-6. (Greek)

Το βιβλίο αυτό επιδιώκει να δώσει μια πλήρη εικόνα των όσων υποφέρει ο παιδικός παλαιστινιακός πληθυσμός υπό ισραηλινή κατοχή. Εμπεριέχει στοιχεία και μελέτες που αφορούν την υγεία, την εκπαίδευση και την κοινωνικο-οικονομική κατάσταση των παιδιών της Παλαιστίνης.

This book attempts to give a full picture of what the Palestinian child population is suffering under Israeli occupation. It contains data and studies concerning the health, education and socio-economic situation of Palestinian children.

Get Τα παιδιά της Παλαιστίνης κάτω από την ισραηλινή κατοχή here.

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Αναρχικοί Ενάντια στο τείχος (Anarchists Against the Wall), ed. Uri Gordon – Ohal Grietzer, translated by Giorgos Karantzas (The Colleagues’ Publications, 2015) ISBN: 978-960-9797-41-2. (Greek)

Αναρχικοί Ενάντια στο Τείχος: μία από τις πιο γενναίες και αφοσιωμένες ομάδες που δουλεύουν ενάντια στην κατοχή. Πηγαίνουν εκεί που άλλοι Ισραηλινοί φοβούνται να πάνε, βάζουν τους εαυτούς τους τακτικά σε σωματικό και συναισθηματικό κίνδυνο, και οικοδομούν ένα εντελώς νέο επίπεδο συμμαχιών με τους Παλαιστίνιους που αγωνίζονται για δικαιοσύνη.

Anarchists Against the Wall: one of the bravest and most committed groups working against the occupation. They go where other Israelis are afraid to go, regularly put themselves in physical and emotional danger, and build a whole new level of alliances with Palestinians fighting for justice.

Get Αναρχικοί Ενάντια στο τείχος here.

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Weaponized Architecture: The Impossibility of Innocence, by Léopold Lambert (dpr-barcelona, 2012) IBSN: 978-84-615-3702-0. (English)

The book is an examination of the inherent instrumentalization of architecture as a political weapon; research informs the development of a project which, rather than defusing these characteristics, attempts to integrate them within the scene of a political struggle. The proposed project dramatizes, through its architecture, a Palestinian disobedience to the colonial legislation imposed on its legal territory. In fact, the State of Israel masters the elaboration of territorial and architectural colonial apparatuses that act directly on Palestinian daily lives. In this regard, it is crucial to observe that 63% of the West Bank is under total control of the Israeli Defense Forces in regards to security, movement, planning and construction. 

Get Weaponized Architecture here.

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Organizing for Palestine! A #ReadPalestineWeek Sampler. (Between the Lines, 2012-2020). (English)

Organizing for Palestine! provides inspiration from four books for solidarity action with the Palestinian people, including stories of student activism, art activism, and direct action, the history of the Toronto chapter of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and of BDS organizing in Montreal. From Turtle Island to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!

Get Organizing for Palestine! here.

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We Will Not Be Silenced, edited by William I. Robinson and Maryam S. Griffin with contributions by Saree Makdisi, Nadia Abu El-Haj, Steven Salaita, Joseph Massad, and more. (AK Press, 2017) IBSN: 9781849352765 (English)

Thirteen powerful, firsthand testimonials from scholars about campaigns to silence and repress those who speak out against Israeli apartheid and US complicity.

Get We Will Not Be Silenced here

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Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, by Omar Barghouti (Haymarket Books, 2011) ISBN: 9781608461158 (English)

Now, as awareness of the apartheid nature of the State of Israel continues to grow, Omar Barghouti, founding member of the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, presents a renewed call to action. Aimed at forcing the State of Israel to uphold international law and universal human rights for the Palestinian people, here is a manifesto for change.

Get Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions here.

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Boycott, Désinvestissement, Sanctions, by Omar Barghouti (La fabrique éditions, 2010) ISBN: 978-2-3587-2007-6 (French)

The boycott is the weapon of the poor against the powerful, of the oppressed against domination. The BDS movement (boycott, divestment, sanctions) originated with Palestinian grassroots organisations fighting against the military occupation of Palestine and apartheid in Israel. As Barghouti explains, it is a non-violent, moral and anti-racist movement. It targets all products from Israel: limiting it to products from the settlements would render it ineffective, as the origin of these products is so easy to disguise. It is also aimed at the academic world, because with very few exceptions, Israeli universities are complicit in the occupation and apartheid.

Get Boycott, Désinvestissement, Sanctions here.

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Pássaro do Trovão – Antologia internacional de poesia em solidariedade à causa palestina, ed. Organização Coletiva (Letras Proletárias, 2023)

Get Pássaro do Trovão here.

More reading lists: For fans of Speculative Fiction | From LitHub | From AUC Press | From GoodReads | From BookRiot | From ArabLit | From the Palestine Book Awards | From Librarians and Archivists with Palestine | From Books for Palestine

Always open access:

The University of California Press’s “New Directions in Palestinian Studies” series, which includes Novel Palestine: Nation through the Works of Ibrahim Nasrallah by Nora Parr; Nakba and Survival: The Story of Palestinians Who Remained in Haifa and the Galilee, 1948-1956 by Adel Manna; Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine by Issam Nassar, Stephen Sheehi, and Salim Tamari; Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition by Leila H. Farsakh and more.

Magazines:

Science for the People has made their back issues, including “Science Under Occupation,” free to download this week.

Mizna has made their Palestine issue available for free.

La Platica del Norte wanted to make this issue free.

ArabLit Quarterly has made their FOOTBALL issue free. It includes work by Palestinian writers Ameer Hamad and Adania Shibli, Palestinian football chants, & more.