Adult Non-Fiction

This list of resources, compiled by Matt Pettit and the staff of the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, provides a range of perspectives on the issues raised by the POV documentary Mayor.

Musa Hadid is the Christian mayor of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority. As he tries to keep his city running while paving sidewalks, planning holidays and building a new fountain, his job is made increasingly difficult by the Israeli occupation of his home. Mayor asks with humor and quiet outrage: how do you run a city if you don’t have a country?

ADULT NON-FICTION

Chomsky, Noam & Pappé, Ilan. Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the US-Israeli War Against the Palestinians. Chicago IL: Haymarket Books, 2003.
Israel's Operation Cast Lead thrust the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip into the center of the
debate about the Israel/Palestine conflict. In this updated and expanded edition, Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé survey the fallout from Israel's conduct in Gaza, including their latest incursions, and place it in historical context.

Barghouti, Murid. I Saw Ramallah. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
Barred from his homeland after 1967’s Six-Day War, poet Mourid Barghouti spent thirty years in exile—shuttling among the world’s cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from his family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen, or a guest. As he returns home for the first time since the Israeli occupation [he] is unable to recognize the city of his youth. Sifting through memories… he discovers what it means to be deprived not only of a homeland but of “the habitual place and status of a person.” Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.

Bregman, Ahron. Cursed Victory: Israel and the Occupied Territories: A History. New York: Pegasus Books, 2015.
In a move that would forever alter the map of the Middle East, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula in 1967's brief but pivotal Six Day War. 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 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.

Davis, Angela. Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2015.
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.

Feldman, Keith P. A Shadow over Palestine: The Imperial Life of Race in America. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
This book brings a transnational perspective to the cultural forces that have shaped sharply differing ideas of Israel’s standing with the United States—right up to the violent divisions of today. Focusing on the period from 1960 to 1985, author Keith P. Feldman reveals the centrality of Israel and Palestine in postwar U.S. imperial culture.

Halper, Jeff. Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State.Pluto Press, 2021.
This book explores how the concept of settler colonialism provides a clearer understanding of the Zionist movement's project to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, displacing the Palestinian Arab population and marginalizing its cultural presence. Jeff Halper argues that the only way out of a colonial situation is decolonization: the dismantling of Zionist structures of domination and control and their replacement by a single democratic state, in which Palestinians and Israeli Jews forge a new civil society and a shared political community.

Hill, Marc Lamont & Plitnick, Mitchell. Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. New York, NY: 2021.
In this major work of daring criticism and analysis, scholar and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill and Israel-Palestine expert Mitchell Plitnick spotlight how holding fast to one-sided and unwaveringly pro-Israel policies reflects the truth-bending grip of authoritarianism on both Israel and the United States. Except for Palestine deftly argues that progressives and liberals who oppose regressive policies on immigration, racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and other issues must extend these core principles to the oppression of Palestinians. In doing so, the authors take seriously the political concerns and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians, demonstrating the extent to which U.S. policy has made peace harder to attain. They also unravel the conflation of advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.

Khatib, Sulaiman and Eilberg-Schwartz, Penina. In This Place Together: A Palestinian's Journey to Collective Liberation. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2021.
In language that is poetic and unflinchingly honest, Eilberg-Schwartz and Khatib chronicle what led him to dedicate his life to joint nonviolence. In his journey, he encountered the deep injustice of torture, witnessed the power of hunger strikes, and studied Jewish history. Ultimately, he came to realize mutual recognition, alongside a transformation of the systems that governed their lives, was necessary for both Palestinians and Israelis to move forward

Klein Halevi, Yossi. Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor. New York: HarperCollins, 2018.
Attempting to break the agonizing impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli commentator and award-winning author of Like Dreamers directly addresses his Palestinian neighbors in this taut and provocative book, empathizing with Palestinian suffering and longing for reconciliation as he explores how the conflict looks through Israeli eyes. And now, in a brand-new Epilogue, Palestinian readers have been given a chance to respond through their own powerful letters. Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor is one Israeli’s powerful attempt to reach beyond the wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians and into the hearts of "the enemy."

Oren Michael B. Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003.
Historian Michael B. Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed—in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation.

Regan, Bernard. The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine. Brooklyn, NY: Verso Books, 2018.
The true history of the imperial deal that transformed the Middle East and sealed the fate of Palestine. On 2 November 1917, the British government, represented by Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour, declared it was in favour of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This short note would become one of the most controversial documents of modern history. Offering new insights into the imperial rivalries between Britain, Germany and the Ottomans, Regan exposes British policy in the region as part of a larger geopolitical game. He charts the debates within the British government, the Zionist movement, and the Palestinian groups struggling for selfdetermination. The after-effects of these events are still felt today.

Robinson, Daniel, et al. Israel & the Palestinian Territories. Dublin: Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd, 2018.
Israel & the Palestinian Territories is a Lonely Planet guidebook to the area, useful for the non-traveler as it immerses readers in the history, people, music, landscapes, wildlife, cuisine and politics of the region from a non-political tourist perspective. The volume is replete with color maps and vivid photography for readers to get a sense of the region beyond media depictions of unceasing conflict and strife.

Shehadeh Rajeh. Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation. London: Profile Books, 2020.
Orwell Prize-winning author of Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, Raja Shehadeh travels to Ramallah and records the changing face of the city. Walking along the streets he grew up in, he tells the stories of the people, the relationships, the houses, and the businesses that were and now are cornerstones of the city and his community. Green spaces - gardens and hills crowned with olive trees - have been replaced by tower blocks and concrete lots; the occupation and the settlements have further entrenched themselves in every aspect of movement-from the roads that can and cannot be used to the bureaucratic barriers that prevent people leaving the West Bank. The culture of the city has also shifted with Islam taking a more prominent role in people's everyday and political lives and the geography of the city.