I have decided I should really start to educate myself on this issue, what I have chaptered in my head as:
*Why in the hell are they fighting all the time, what’s up with that? *
To put it mildly, I haven’t a clue of who is what and whom to root for or if I should at all. To me, it has always been a tiny little column in the newspaper with a bold caption of “Another car bomb went off on the left bank of Jerusalem.”
I tried a couple of years ago to hash it out in my head, but my local library (before a computer network system was introduced) had zip on the subject and the internet was something I didn’t know existed.
Can anyone recommend websights or books, past publications that clarified the situation for them?
Last year I found myself similarly undereducated and was helped enormously by From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L. Friedman. As the title suggests, you receive a comprehensive understanding of the entire region, not just Israeli/Palestinian issues. Which you need to understand, really, to get a grasp on Israel and the Palestinians. It’s a good book, too; surprisingly funny and very readable.
A historic novel about the Jews returning to Palistine, albiet with a Jewish slant, is “The Haj” by Leon Uris. I enjoyed it, and it seemed historically accurate.
I found O Jerusalem very readable and quite good. I have loaned it out, or I could tell you the authors. It’s by the two fellows who wrote Is Paris Buring.
Two novels that I always found good were Michner’s The Source and Uris’ Exodus. The latter is very much from the Jewish point of view but it does capture the feeling. Michner attempts to be objective while still telling a very good story. I imagine it will seem extremely dated these days.
You could try The Fateful Triangle: The US, Israel and The Palestinians by Noam Chomsky and Edward Said. Chomsky is a Jew but he is not a Zionist.
There is also Palestine In Crisis by Graham Usher, which I have not read, but which was recommended to me when I asked someone else the same question recently.
