Israel Middle East

Most visitors to Israel face an important task: crossing the highlights off their list. After guiding countless tours through the highlights, Shakked realized that they can never replace the excitement of discovering a hidden gem. In her book Secret Israel, Shakked reveals the Israel that she knows and loves, the one most people never get to see. Hidden sites off the beaten path are presented to the listener from a personal angle of a 10th-generation native Israeli Jewess with a spicy personality, guaranteeing a fun listen.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish captured hearts and headlines around the world in the aftermath of horrific tragedy: on January 16, 2009, Israeli shells hit his home in the Gaza strip, killing three of his daughters and a niece. By turns inspiring and heartbreaking, hopeful and horrifying, this is Abuelaish’s account of a Gazan life in all its struggle and pain. A Palestinian infertility specialist who lived in Gaza but worked in Israeli hospitals, he spent most of his life crossing the lines that divide the region.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know® offers an even-handed and judicious guide to the world's most intractable dispute. Writing in an engaging, jargon-free Q&A format, Dov Waxman provides clear and concise answers to common questions, from the most basic to the most contentious. Covering the conflict from its nineteenth-century origins to the latest developments of the twenty-first century, this book explains the key events, examines the core issues, and presents the competing claims and narratives of both sides.

With the rigorous scholarship he brought to his influential Orientalism and an exile's passion (he is Palestinian by birth), Edward W. Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied--as well as in the conscience of the West.

In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly 20 years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.

In this definitive biography, Israel's leading journalist-historian, Tom Segev, uses large amounts of previously unreleased archival material to give an original, nuanced account, transcending the myths and legends that have accreted around Ben-Gurion. Segev's probing biography ranges from the villages of Poland to Manhattan libraries, London hotels, and the hills of Palestine, and shows us Ben-Gurion's relentless activity across six decades.

From its establishment to the present day, Israel has enjoyed a special position in the American roster of international friends. In Fateful Triangle, Noam Chomsky explores the character and historical development of this special relationship.

A Genocide Foretold confronts the stark realities of life under siege in Gaza and the heroic effort ordinary Palestinians are waging to resist and survive. Weaving together personal stories, historical context, and unflinching journalism, Chris Hedges provides an intimate portrait of systemic oppression, occupation, and violence.

Israel is a country with deep religious roots. It is considered the homeland of the Jewish people. In this book, young listeners will be introduced to Israel’s devout people, historic landmarks, and foods that create an interesting and unique cultural heritage.

Sparking a flurry of heated debate, Hannah Arendt's authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared in The New Yorker in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt's postscript. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative - an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the 20th century.

Arguably one of the most provocative, puzzling, and misunderstood organizations of medieval times, the legendary Knights Templar have always been shrouded in a veil of mystery, while inspiring popular culture from Indiana Jones to Dan Brown. In The Templars, author Michael Haag offers a definitive history of these loyal Christian soldiers of the Crusades - sworn to defend the Holy Land and Jerusalem, but ultimately damned and destroyed by the Pope and his church.

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian.

This rich and magisterial work traces Palestine's millennia-old heritage, uncovering cultures and societies of astounding depth and complexity that stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history.

The Trump administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” vision for the Middle East was unveiled on January 28, 2020. What followed over the next eleven months was one of the most fascinating and consequential periods of US foreign policy in a generation, leading to five normalization agreements between Israel and Muslim states. The Abraham Accords achieved what had seemed impossible for decades and set the Middle East on a trajectory toward a broad regional peace.

The Prime Ministers is the first and only insider account of Israeli politics from the founding of the Jewish State to the near-present day. It reveals stunning details of life-and-death decision-making, top-secret military operations and high level peace negotiations. The Prime Ministers brings listeners into the orbits of world figures, including Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.

The conflict between Palestine and Israel is one of the most highly publicized and bitter struggles in history. In this accessible and stimulating Very Short Introduction, Martin Bunton clearly explains the history of the problem, reducing it to its very essence - a modern territorial contest between two nations and one geographical territory.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.

A riveting memoir of the first Israeli-born Jewish American to be sent as a Peace Corps volunteer to a closed Arab society. A good memoir is a survivor's tale - the story of a person who has faced obstacles and made it through well enough to tell it. Dalya Cohen-Mor, a Sabra-born American woman, volunteered to serve in the Peace Corps, went through a lengthy and highly competitive application process, was accepted, and was sent to serve in the predominantly Palestinian country of Jordan.

As claims of antisemitism continue to distort our politics at home and abroad, it has become almost impossible to talk about constructively, even in private. Instead, we find ourselves in a storm of misinformation, political mudslinging, and bad-faith accusations. There is, however, a way to deliberate more honestly. Looking beyond our polarizing headlines and interrogating the reasons racism takes hold, Off-White offers urgent analysis of one of the most divisive issues of our time.

The Wake Up Call examines the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack when Hamas and Gaza terrorists breached Israel's borders, brutally murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others. This attack marked the worst security breach in Israel’s history. “10.7” ignited a global surge of antisemitism, spreading across university campuses and city streets worldwide.