War Without End

Sorry for the hiatus. I just finished a book entitled The Body and The Blood. It is a great book with a terrible title. It is a non-fiction book written by Charles Sennott, a Boston Globe reporter who lived in Jesusalem for 4 years during the late 1990s/early 2000s. In his book, he documents the fragile state of the Arab Christian communities in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt at the turn of the third millennium. He uses the conceit of travelling to the places where Jesus was said to have lived or visited during his life (and resurrection). This book was given to me by a friend at my church and I highly recommend it to anyone that would like to get a sense of how the three Abrahamic religions coexist in this fractious region. I was totally riveted reading the stories of Palestinian life under occupation and the tensions between the Arabs of Christian and Islamic faiths.

The Arab/Israel conflict is not what I would call light reading. There is probably a library full of books on the history and politics of the region. Much of it is written from the Israeli perspective. Even the works that are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause are often written by Israelis or by Americans. Very few mainstream books available in the west are written by Arabs, but there are some. In order to get a deep and nuanced understanding of the conflict one must read multiple books with different perspectives. Here are some of the better books that I have read:

Out of Place by Edward Said - This is a memoir of growing up in the Middle East by the now deceased Columbia University professor. Said is the most eloquent of Arab writers.

From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman - This is probably the best overall book I have read regarding the region. Friedman was the New York Times correspondent in Lebanon in the early 1980s during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He then became the Jerusalem correspondent just in time for the Intafada in the late 1980s.

Jerusalem in the 20th Century by Martin Gilbert - This is a decidedly pro-Israel book. Gilbert's account of the civil strife in Jerusalem leading up to the 1948 is gripping.

Six Days of War by Michael Oren - This book provides great detail regarding the 1967 war where Israel routed three large Arab armies. Israeli and Western writers have never been able to access the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian archives to present their side of the political and military story in any real depth. Until then, we can only wonder.

Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter - President Carter was unfairly labeled an anti-Semite for writing this book. He is extremely critical of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians. This book also contains his recollections of the Camp David meetings when he helped negotiate the peace between Egypt and Israel.

What Went Wrong by Bernard Lewis - This short book discusses why the Islamic world, once a beacon of progress, was eclipsed by the West in the last three centuries.

There are so many more books. I hope you all read one of these selections. We can then meet at a local hookah bar and discuss.