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After a month of war in Gaza between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas fighters, there is no clear path to peace, no plan for the state of postwar Gaza and no hints of a ceasefire of any duration. Away from the Middle East, sympathies for Israeli victims and hostages of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas run as high as revulsion over the number of children killed in Gaza and support for the Palestinian cause. Any war has complex origins, and this history of the Israel-Palestine conflict is especially knotty. Booksnreview.com editors checked in with the experts, and compiled a list of essential reading to better understand the history, politics and people of Israel, Palestine and the volatile Mideast region.

History

A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin (2009)

A concise history of the formation of the modern Middle East. The victors of WWI engaged in a strain of imperialist diplomacy that laid borders across the former Ottoman Empire, and this account focuses on the years 1914-1922. The newest edition includes an insightful author's update connecting the present to the past.  

Jerusalem, Simon Sebag Montefiore (2011)

A 3,000-year history of the Holy City at the center of ancient and modern conflicts is presented as an urban biography. Sebag Montefiore blends history, policy and family experiences with engaging, highly readable prose.

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, Rashid Khalidi (2021)

From the colonialist roots of the creation of Palestine's borders to evocative recollections from his own family's papers, this impassioned work goes from a bird's eye view of history to the many ways its effects have touched the author and his family.

A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East, James Barr (2011)

This close look at secret wartime diplomacy that divided the Middle East after WWII examines the British and French roles in shaping the modern Arab world. The 1916 Sykes-Picot Treaty was conceived in secret, but its complicated, often violent legacy is all too obvious.

 Six Days of War, Michael B. Oren (2003)

Oren, a historian and former Israeli ambassador to the United States, conveys the urgency of the pitched 1967 fight that created the Occupied Territories. Oren has undertaken extensive and exhaustive research to write a truly gripping account of the six-day war, highlighting its long-term legacy.

Policy

The Punishment of Gaza, Gideon Levy (2010)

Veteran Israeli journalist Levy collected his most incisive work for Haaretz, an influential Israeli newspaper, charting the shift to a brute force policy that effectively transformed Gaza into the world's largest open-air prison. Levy decries Israeli punishment for the Palestinian population for electing Hamas and the dimming hopes for a two-state solution.

The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, Gershom Gorenberg (2007)

The first decade of Israel's settlement policy, beginning in 1967 after the Six-Day War, was a crucial foundation for conditions that still wrack Israel and the Occupied Territories with violent conflict. The-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "disengaged" with Gaza in 2005, and Gorenberg ties that decision back to the lack of a coherent policy around religious settlers carrying out a program of de facto annexation more than 50 years ago.

Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, From Balfour to Trump, Khaled Elgindy (2019)

While Israel would likely not have come into existence without the support of the United States in 1948, Washington's relationship with the Palestinians is more fraught and complex. Written by a veteran Palestinian negotiator who had a close-up view of Washington's peacemaking efforts from 2004 to 2009, this provides a thorough understanding of decades of U.S.-Palestinian relations and how they contributed to the crisis of Palestinian leadership we see today. 

Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Sara Roy (2006)

This carefully researched account of the impact of increasingly punitive Israeli policies to isolate Gaza is written by the child of Holocaust survivors. Roy brings a thoughtful tone to her account of oppression - and her own moral commitment to justice for both Israel and Palestine.

People

My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Ari Shavit (2013)

Shavit's book was widely acclaimed when it came out a decade ago, and it retains its power. The author gets personal, recounting a 19^th century visit by his great grandfather that shaped support for the Zionist movement, and looks closely at people involved in key historical developments through the decades before and after Israel's founding, while asking piercing questions about the country's past, present and future.

In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, Ghada Karmi (2009)

Karmi's memoir recounts her childhood in Palestine, and experience of the post-1948 diaspora. Her family settled in London, but like many immigrants, they lived lives suspended between their country of origin and the place they were forced to call home. This is a subtle account of displacement and the experience of life shaped by great historical events.

A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz (2002)

Oz, a towering figure of Israeli literature, explores his childhood in the war-torn Mandate of Palestine and emerging nation of Israel. The author's personal journey is intertwined with his country's, making his many critical insights into the treatment of the Palestinians poignant and piercing.

Palestine, Joe Sacco

This groundbreaking work of comics journalism recounts the author's visit to the West Bank and Gaza during the first intifada, or uprising, against Israel. His drawings animate faces and places as Palestinians share their experiences of Israeli occupation. Nearly a quarter century later, it retains its power.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, Nathan Thrall (2023)

Released days before the Oct. 7 attacks, Thrall extrapolates the complexities of the occupation by tracing a tragic traffic accident that killed six Palestinian kindergartners and their teacher when a bus taking them to a field trip collided with a truck. The boundaries and barriers of the occupation slowed first responders, both Palestinian and Israeli, and the travails of Abed Salama as he searched for his 5-year-old son, Milad. Salama found his son, finally, at a Jerusalem hospital, where the boy died. A small, fierce personal tragedy fits all too well into the context of the larger historical one.