I Shall Not Hate

Title: I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity
Author: Izzeldin Abuelaish
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781408813676

From the publisher: The extraordinary story of a Palestinian doctor who, despite witnessing the death of three of his daughters in the Israeli incursion into Gaza in January 2009, continued his medical and humanitarian work aimed at bringing the people of the region together in peace.

Heart-breaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is a Palestinian doctor’s inspiring account of his extraordinary life, growing up in poverty but determined to treat his patients in Gaza and Israel regardless of their ethnic origin.

A London University- and Harvard-trained Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Abuelaish is an infertility specialist who lives in Gaza but works in Israel. On the strip of land he calls home (where 1.5 million Gazan refugees are crammed into a few square miles) the Gaza doctor has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life – as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. And, most recently, as the father whose three daughters were killed by Israeli shells on 16 January 2009, during Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip.

It was his response to this tragedy that made news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, Izzeldin Abuelaish called for the people in the region to start listening to each other.

From The Guardian interview: Two years ago, Israeli shells fell on Dr Abuelaish's family home in Gaza, killing three of his young daughters and their cousin. The horror was caught live on Israeli TV when the doctor phoned his broadcaster friend. Amazingly, the loss did not embitter Izzeldin Abuelaish. Instead he decided his girls' deaths must not be in vain – and slowly he has turned his family tragedy into a force for peace. Read on...

The Lemon Tree

Title: The Lemon Tree
Author: Sandy Tolan
Publisher: Transworld
ISBN: 9780552155144

From the publisher: In the summer of 1967, not long after the Six Day War, three young Palestinian men ventured into the town of Ramla in Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes, from which they and their families had been driven out nearly twenty years earlier. One cousin had the door slammed in his face, one found that his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir, was met at the door by a young woman named Dalia, who invited him in…

This poignant encounter is the starting point for the story of two families – one Arab, one Jewish – which spans the fraught modern history of the region. In the lemon tree his father planted in the backyard of his childhood home, Bashir sees a symbol of occupation; Dalia, who arrived in 1948 as an infant with her family, as a fugitive from Bulgaria, sees hope for a people devastated by the Holocaust. Both are inevitably swept up in the fates of their people and the stories of their lives form a microcosm of more than half a century of Israeli-Palestinian history.

What began as a simple meeting between two young people grew into a dialogue lasting four decades. The Lemon Tree offers a much needed human perspective on this seemingly intractable conflict and reminds us not only of all that is at stake, but also of all that is possible.

Orientalism

Title: Orientalism
Author: Edward Said
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780141187426

From the publisher: In this highly acclaimed work, Edward Said surveys the history and nature of Western attitudes towards the East, considering Orientalism as a powerful European ideological creation – a way for writers, philosophers and colonial administrators to deal with the ‘otherness’ of Eastern culture, customs and beliefs. He traces this view through the writings of Homer, Nerval and Flaubert, Disraeli and Kipling, whose imaginative depictions have greatly contributed to the West’s romantic and exotic picture of the Orient. In his new preface, Said examines the effect of continuing Western imperialism after recent events in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq.

A Divided Paradise & No Man's Land

Title: A Divided Paradise: An Irishman in the Holy Land
Author: David Lynch
Publisher: New Island
ISBN: 9781848400139

From the publisher: A Divided Paradise: An Irishman in the Holy Land is a vivid account of ordinary life in one of the world’s most contested and volatile regions. Award-winning journalist David Lynch brings to life stories from both the Palestinian and Israeli streets.

From coming under fire in the occupied West Bank, to visiting the ‘First Irish Pub in Palestine’, to talking Armageddon with young dispirited Israelis in Tel Aviv, personal experiences are interwoven with broad historical analysis.

A provocative introduction to the political and personal tragedy suffered by the Palestinian people and the continuing wider Middle Eastern conflict.


Title: No Man's Land - Dispatches from the Middle East
Author: Richard Crowley
Publisher: Liberties Press
ISBN: 978-1-905483-2-66

From the publisher: RTE correspondent's examination on the Israeli - Palestine question and the prospect for its resolution - and the impact on the greater Middle East if it is not resolved.

The creation of a Jewish state in the Holy Lands after World War II and the consequent disappointment and displacement of the Palestine people has had long-term and violent consequences for all parties in the region - it could be argued to be the cause of much of the terrorist activity directed against the countries of the West in the past several years.

No Man's Land draws on Richard Crowley's extensive experience as RTE correspondent in the region since 2003, and his interviews with a broad cross section of people representing the huge diversity of opinions and involvement in this most complex conflict. From Irish Jews who have emigrated to Israel - and even moved into the contentious settlements, to Palestinians who lived in Ireland as well as more high profile protagonists from both sides; the book poses the vexed question, to the residents themselves, of how to solve this long standing dispute for land and the Holy City of Jerusalem - and seeks to imagine the consequences if the issue continues to remain unresolved.