As Israel and its advocates lurch toward greater extremism, many ask where the struggle is headed. This book offers a clear analysis of this crossroads moment and looks forward with urgency down the path to a more hopeful future.

    Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this ‘minor detail’ of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.

    Why do we care about Israel? II. Why don¹t the Palestinians have a state? III. What is a Jewish state? IV. Why is there no peace? Cramer illustrates how Israel is losing her soul by maintaining her occupation of the lands conquered in the Six Day War. Israel has become a victim of that occupation no less than the Palestinians, who must have a nation of their own. Both his observations and argument are drawn with startling clarity, informed by the fierce and fearless reporting that won him the Pulitzer Prize for Middle East coverage.

    Charismatic and handsome, Hilmi is a talented young artist from Palestine. Liat, an aspiring translation student, plans to return to Israel the following summer. Despite knowing that their love can be only temporary, that it can exist only away from their conflicted homeland, Liat lets herself be enraptured by Hilmi: by his lively imagination, by his beautiful hands and wise eyes, by his sweetness and devotion.Together they explore the city, sharing laughs and fantasies and pangs of homesickness. But the unfettered joy they awaken in each other cannot overcome the guilt Liat feels for hiding him from her family in Israel and her Jewish friends in New York. As her departure date looms and her love for Hilmi deepens, Liat must decide whether she is willing to risk alienating her family, her community, and her sense of self for the love of one man.Banned from classrooms by Israel’s Ministry of Education, Dorit Rabinyan’s remarkable novel contains multitudes. A bold portrayal of the strains—and delights—of a forbidden relationship, All the Rivers (published in Israel as Borderline) is a love story and a war story, a New York story and a Middle East story, an unflinching foray into the forces that bind us and divide us. “The land is the same land,” Hilmi reminds Liat. “In the end all the rivers flow into the same sea.”

    Living under occupation, the inhabitants of the village harbour a constant fear of losing their homes, jobs, belongings – and each other. On Ahmed’s twelfth birthday, that fear becomes a reality. With his father now imprisoned, his family’s home and possessions confiscated and his siblings quickly succumbing to hatred in the face of conflict, Ahmed embarks on a journey to liberate his loved ones from their hardship, using his prodigious intellect. In so doing, he begins to reclaim a love for others that had been lost over the course of a childhood rife with violence, and discovers new hope for the future.

    Cursed Victory is the first complete history of the war's troubled aftermath—a military occupation of the Palestinian territories that is now well into its fifth decade. Drawing on unprecedented access to high-level sources, top-secret memos and never-before-published letters, the book provides a gripping and unvarnished chronicle of how what Israel promised would be an 'enlightened occupation' quickly turned sour, and the anguished diplomatic attempts to bring it to an end. Bregman sheds fresh light on critical moments in the peace process, taking us behind the scenes as decisions about the fate of the territories were made, and more often, as crucial opportunities to resolve the conflict were missed.As the narrative moves from Jerusalem to New York, Oslo to Beirut, and from the late 1960s to the present day, Cursed Victory provides vivid portraits of the key players in this unfolding drama, including Moshe Dayan, King Hussein of Jordan, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat. Yet Bregman always reminds us how diplomatic and back-room negotiations affected the daily lives of millions of Arabs, and how the Palestinian resistance, especially during the first and second intifadas, and now in recent tragic developments, have shaped the political arena.As Bregman concludes, the occupation has become a dark stain on Israel's history. Cursed Victory is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the ongoing conflict in the region.

    The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status . . . and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence, and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader. In Son of Hamas, Mosab Yousef—now called “Joseph”—reveals new information about the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization and unveils the truth about his own role, his agonizing separation from family and homeland, the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to “love your enemies” is the only way to peace in the Middle East.

    The Middle East is the powerful  setting for this sweeping tale of a land where revenge  is sacred and hatred noble. Where an Arab ruler  tries to save his people from destruction but  cannot save them from themselves. When violence  spreads like a plague across the lands of  Palestine--this is the time of The  Haj.

    In this accessible and stimulating Very Short Introduction, Martin Bunton illuminates the history of the problem, reducing it to its very essence. Adopting a fresh and original approach, Bunton explores the Palestinian-Israeli dispute in twenty-year segments, to highlight the historical complexity of the conflict throughout successive decades. Each chapter starts with an examination of the relationships among people and events that marked particular years as historical stepping stones in the evolution of the conflict, including the 1897 Basle Congress, the 1917 Balfour Declaration and British occupation of Palestine, and the 1947 UN Partition Plan and the war for Palestine.Providing a clear and fair exploration of the main issues, Bunton explores not only the historical basis of the conflict, but also looks at how and why partition has been so difficult and how efforts to restore peace continue today.About the Series:Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

    Gordon Thomas's 1999 publication of Gideon's Spies, resulting from closed-door interviews with Mossad agents, informants, and spymasters as well as from classified documents and top-secret sources, revealed previously untold truths about the Israeli intelligence agency. And now, in this edition, Thomas updates his classic text and shows the Mossad as it truly is: brilliant, ruthless, and flawed, but ultimately awesome.Three all-new chapters cover topics including:- How the Mossad planned to assassinate Saddam Hussein- Saddam's food-testing ritual, and the surprising "source" within his government- China's U.S.-based front-companies, and its relationship with bin Laden- Mossad's untold role in the events before and after 9/11- Mossad and revelations about Princess Diana's death- The disappearance of the millions transferred from the Vatican Bank to the Polish Solidarity movement- How extremists recruit suicide bombers, including women- Mossad's untold role in the Iraq war and the hunts for Saddam and bin Laden- Saddam's plans for trial

    In our communicative world, few modern catastrophes are concealed from the public eye. And yet, Ilan Pappe unveils, one such crime has been erased from the global public memory: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. But why is it denied, and by whom? The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine offers an investigation of this mystery.

    Some see Israel's creation as a dramatic act of justice for the Jewish people. Others insist that it was a crime against Palestine's Arabs. Author David Brog untangles the facts from the myths to reveal the truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict. In Reclaiming Israel's History you'll learn how the Jewish people have maintained a continual presence in the Land of Israel for over 3,000 years—despite centuries of Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim persecution; how the Romans invented the word "Palestine" as a way to sever the connection between the Jewish people and their land (and how subsequent conquerors doubled down on this strategy); how modern Jewish immigration to Palestine did not displace Arabs but instead sparked an Arab population boom; and the largely untold story of how the leader of Palestine's Arabs collaborated with the Nazis to murder Jews in Europe before they could reach their ancestral homeland. You'll also learn why most of Palestine's Arabs never identified themselves as "Palestinians" until after the 1967 War; the extraordinary lengths to which Israel's military goes to protect Palestinian civilians (and the high price Israel's soldiers pay for this morality), and how the Palestinians have on separate occasions rejected Israel's offers of a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. Brog frankly admits to Israel's "sins both large and small," but notes that in any fair-minded analysis these have been far out- weighed by Israel's commitment to Western values, including freedom, democracy, and human rights. Honest, provocative, and timely, especially given rising anti-Semitism and the aggressive delegitimization of Israel, David Brog's Reclaiming Israel's History is the book for every reader who wants to understand what is really happening in the Middle East.

    Amin Jaafari, an Arab-Israeli citizen, is a surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. Dedicated to his work, respected and admired by his colleagues and community, he represents integration at its most successful. He has learned to live with the violence and chaos that plague his city, and on the night of a deadly bombing in a local restaurant, he works tirelessly to help the shocked and shattered patients brought to the emergency room. But this night of turmoil and death takes a horrifyingly personal turn. His wife's body is found among the dead, with massive injuries, the police coldly announce, typical of those found on the bodies of fundamentalist suicide bombers. As evidence mounts that his wife, Sihem, was responsible for the catastrophic bombing, Dr. Jaafari is torn between cherished memories of their years together and the inescapable realization that the beautiful, intelligent, thoroughly modern woman he loved had a life far removed from the comfortable, assimilated existence they shared. From the graphic, beautifully rendered description of the bombing that opens the novel to the searing conclusion, The Attack portrays the reality of terrorism and its incalculable spiritual costs. Intense and humane, devoid of political bias, hatred, and polemics, it probes deep inside the Muslim world and gives readers a profound understanding of what seems impossible to understand.

    In 2017, best-selling Israeli author Micah Goodman published a balanced and insightful analysis of the situation that quickly became one of Israel’s most debated books of the year. Now available in English translation with a new preface by the author, Catch-67 deftly sheds light on the ideas that have shaped Israelis’ thinking on both sides of the debate, and among secular and religious Jews about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Contrary to opinions that dominate the discussion, he shows that the paradox of Israeli political discourse is that both sides are right in what they affirm—and wrong in what they deny. Although he concludes that the conflict cannot be solved, Goodman is far from a pessimist and explores how instead it can be reduced in scope and danger through limited, practical steps. Through philosophical critique and political analysis, Goodman builds a creative, compelling case for pragmatism in a dispute where a comprehensive solution seems impossible.

    The book argues that Muslims, nurished by their own points of reference, can approach the modern epoch by adopting a specific social, political, and economic model that is linked to ethical values, a sense of finalities and spirituality. Rather than a modernism that tends to impose Westernization, it is a modernity that admits to the pluralism of civilizations, religions, and cultures.Table of Contents:ForewordIntroductionHistory of a ConceptThe Lessons of HistoryPart 1: At the shores of Transcendence: between God and ManPart 2: The Horizons of Islam: Between Man and the CommunityPart 3: Values and Finalities: The Cultural Dimension of the Civilizational Face to FaceConclusionAppendixIndexTariq Ramadan is a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and a visiting professor in Identity and Citizenship at Erasmus University. He was named by TIME Magazine as one of the one hundred innovators of the twenty-first century.