Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle: A Reading List

If you’ve been keeping up with the Israeli-Palestine conflict, you know things have gotten much worse recently. From looking at social media profiles of people who reside in Israel and occupied Palestinian territories, their request has been to spread awareness as well. For those who aren’t as knowledgeable about the conflict or for anyone who wants to learn more, we’ve created the following recommended reading list.

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THE LAND QUESTION IN PALESTINE, 1917-1939

BY KENNETH W. STEIN

The control of land remains the crucial issue in the Arab-Israel conflict. Kenneth Stein investigates in detail and without polemics how and why Jews acquired land from Arabs in Palestine during the British Mandate, and he reaches conclusions that are challenging and suprising.

Based primarily on archival research, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 offers an unusually balanced analysis of the social and political history of land sales in Palestine during this critical period. It provides exceptional and essential insight into one of the most troubling conflicts in today’s world.

BLACK POWER ON THE MOVE: MIGRATION, INTERNATIONALISM, AND THE BRITISH AND ISRAELI BLACK PANTHERS

BY ANNE-MARIE ANGELO

In London, Afro-Caribbean, West African, and South Asian people established the British Black Panther Movement in 1968. In Jerusalem, migrants from countries such as Morocco, Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt founded the Israeli Black Panther Party in 1971. In the face of national narratives that insisted that racism was solely an American problem, these groups adapted the Black Panther framework to suit their local struggles, deploying it to characterize everyday experiences of police harassment, unemployment, and poor housing as symptoms of larger structural problems and to envision community programs that might lead to a new social order. Highlighting some common strategies these parties shared, Angelo reveals how, as Black Panthers, people of color from many parts of the world strengthened their communities and provoked resistance to racism’s local and imperial formations.

LAW AND IDENTITY IN MANDATE PALESTINE

BY ASSAF LIKHOVSKI

One of the major questions facing the world today is the role of law in shaping identity and in balancing tradition with modernity. In an arid corner of the Mediterranean region in the first decades of the twentieth century, Mandate Palestine was confronting these very issues. Assaf Likhovski examines the legal history of Palestine, showing how law and identity interacted in a complex colonial society in which British rulers and Jewish and Arab subjects lived together.

POST-HOLOCAUST POLITICS: BRITIAN, THE UNITED STATES, AND JEWISH REFUGEES, 1945-1948

BY ARIEH J. KOCHAVI

Between 1945 and 1948, more than a quarter of a million Jews fled countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and began filling hastily erected displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria. As one of the victorious Allies, Britain had to help find a solution for the vast majority of these refugees who refused repatriation. Drawing on extensive research in British, American, and Israeli archives, Arieh Kochavi presents a comprehensive analysis of British policy toward Jewish displaced persons and reveals the crucial role the United States played in undermining that policy.

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: U.S. POLICY TOWARD THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT, 1945-1961

BY PETER L. HAHN

American postwar efforts to ameliorate Arab-Israeli relations entangled the United States in the Arab-Israeli conflict in complex ways. Peter L. Hahn explores the diplomatic and cultural factors that influenced the policies of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower as they faced the escalation of one of the modern world’s most intractable disputes.