Readings on Palestine

Every week, on alternate Fridays and Sundays, The Left Berlin hosts a reading group on different topics related to Palestine. This is a collection of the topics and readings that we’ve covered so far, which we are continually updating.

For more information on the next reading group, check the updates on our Instagram and the events page on our website. To help organize or moderate, join our Telegram channel.

 

What is Zionism?

Suggested Reading

• We Are Conquerors Adam Shatz, London Review of Books- (review of David Ben Gurion’s biography, background on Zionism and the founding of Israel)
• Ilan Pappé, The Idea of Israel, Chapter 1 “The ‘Objective’ History of the Land and People” p 14- 21
• Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, chapter 2 ‘The Drive for an exclusively Jewish State’, p 10-29

Supplementary Viewing

• The Origins of the Israel/Palestine Conflict

Supplementary Listening

• Liberal Zionism: A Veneer for Settler Colonialism with M. Muhannad Ayyash

 

Palestinian Resistance

Suggested Reading

• Hamas_Contained_-_Tareq_Baconi (Chapter 1: The rise of Islamic Palestinian Nationalism)
• The_Making_of_a_Human_Bomb_An_Ethnograph, Chapter 6 (The Strategies and Politics of Martyrdom in Palestine) and Chapter 7 (Conclusion)

Supplementary Reading

• “Comes a Time We Are All Enthusiasm”: Understanding Palestinian Suicide Bombers in Times of Exighophobia (Ghassan Hage)
• Israeli Control and Palestinian Resistance (Fouad Moughrabi)
• Hamas Contained (see link above) (Chapter 2: Military Resistance Comes Undone, Chapter 3: The Politics of Resistance, and Conclusion: Containment and Pacification)

Supplementary Listening

• The Dig Podcast – Hamas with Tareq Baconi

 

German Memory Culture

Suggested Reading

• Bad Memory by Jewish Currents editors
• The German State and the Creation of Un/Desired Communities by Nahed Samour and Hannah Tzuberi
• Palestine, Feminism, and the Pitfalls of Liberalism—in Germany and Beyond by Noor Blaas and Anna-Esther Younes

Supplementary Reading

• Minor Citizens? Holocaust Memory and the Un/Making of Citizenship in Germany by Sultan Doughan
• It’s not about boycotting, but about transparency: What are people with a Nazi background? Two artists explain it on Instagram and give an example that polarizes: a queerfeminist bookshop”: an interview with Moshtari Hilal and Sinthujan Varatharajah (Very worth reading with free DeepL translation app for non-German speakers!)
• The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians by Sa′ed Atshan and Katharina Galor, Chapter One: “Trauma, Holocaust, Nakba”
• The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians – review by Anna-Esther Younes
• Freedom for the one who thinks differently: an open letter from a group of Jewish artists, writers, and scholars in Germany
• Once Again, Germany Defines Who Is a Jew by George Prochnik, Eyal Weizman & Emily Dische-Becker Part I and Part II
• Fighting Anti-Semitism in Contemporary Germany by Anna-Esther Younes

Supplementary Viewing

• Selection of videos (especially “Radical Solidarity” and “Menschen mit Nazihintergrund”) from This is Germany (Instagram account with videos also available on YouTube, about one third of them in English)
• Jewish History Matters podcast: We Are All Implicated in Violence and Oppression, Both Historical and Present-Day: A Conversation with Michael Rothberg

 

The One State and Two State Solutions

Recommended Reading

• Ghada Karmi The One-State Solution: An Alternative Vision for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
• Tanya Reinhart Israel-Palestine – How to end the war of 1948 (PDF attached). Appendix: The Oslo Apartheid
• Zach Beauchamp In defense of the two-state solution

Short articles

• Galia Golan The History of the Two-State Solution
• PLO official: Alternative to two-state solution is ‘painful bloodshed
• One Democratic State Campaign One Democratic State in Historic Palestine: Fears, Hopes, Concerns and Questions
• Areej Sabbagh-Khoury “But if I don’t steal it, someone else is gonna steal it” – Israeli Settler-Colonial Accumulation by Dispossession
• Lana Tatour Why calling Israel an apartheid state is not enough
• Ellen Isaacs Could a One-State Solution Eliminate Racism Without Getting Rid of Capitalism? 

Recommended Watching

• Ghada Karmi One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel
• Ilan Pappe / Pawel Barsa A Case for One State Solution in Israel/Palestine

Recommended listening

• +972 Podcast  The Other Two-State Solution: Confederation

Supplementary Reading

• Peter Beinart Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine
• Khaled Meshaal Hamas accepts Palestinian state with 1967 borders
• Ali Abinumah The Battle for Justice in Palestine. Chapter 3 Israeli Jews and the One State Solution
• Haidar Eid The urgent need to revitalize the Palestinian Left
• Phil Butland Why the Two State Solution for Palestine is Impossible

And if you really want to follow the discussion, we recommend this book

• Edward W. Said The End of the Peace Process. Oslo and After

 

The Arab States and the Arab Street

Suggested Reading:

• Zachary Lockman: The Palestinians, the Arab States and Israel
• Jonathan Guyer: How the Arab world sees the Israel-Palestine conflict
• Giorgio Cafiero: How Arab states could respond to an Israeli invasion of Gaza

Supplementary Viewing:

 

Who are the Agents who can bring about change?

Suggested Reading:

• Omar Barghouti – For Palestine, it’s BDS or Bust
• Toufic Haddad and Ilan Pappe – Interview: Israel’s crisis and the Palestinian resistance
• Jeff Halper Decolonoizing Israel, Liberation Palestine, Chapter 9: Towards Post-coloniality

Supplementary Reading:

• From the River to the Sea – Essays for a Free Palestine
  • Chapter 22: “Bread, freedom and an Arab Palestine“, Nihal El Aasar
  • Chapter 26: “Three new realities for American Power after 7 October“, Noah Kulwein
  • Chapter 23: “Ink, gas and water: Jordan’s peace with Israel“, Samar Saeed
• Tamer Qarmout: A roadmap for the future of Palestine

 

Why do the US and Europe fund Israel?

Suggested reading:

• Jonathan Cook How Israel helped to revive Europe’s ugly ethnic nationalisms
• Lisa Strömbom The two-state impasse in Israel/Palestine—The EU caught between egalitarian norms and expansionist realpolitik
• Lance Selfa: Israel: The U.S. watchdog
• Hannah Arendt: Born in conflict, Israel will degenerate into Sparta, and American Jews will need to back away

 

Post-colonialism, colonialism and settler colonialism

Suggested reading

• Jeff Halper Decolonoizing Israel, Liberating Palestine Part 1: ZIONISM AS SETTLER COLONIAL PROJECT
• Rashid Khalidi Israel: ‘A Failed Settler-Colonial Project’
• Ahmad Amara, Yara Hawari  Using Indigeneity in the Struggle for Palestinian Liberation

• Khalil Nakhleh Oslo: Replacing Liberation with Economic Neo-Colonialism

 

Countering common narratives

NOTE: these are pro-Israel texts which we want to answer

Recommended Reading

The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary

• Chapter 3, How to talk about Palestinian self government and prosperity, pp. 22-32
• Chapter 4, Isolating Iran-backed Hamas as an obstacle to peace, pp. 33 – 38
• Chapter 6, Gaza: Israel’s right to self defense and defensible borders, pp. 45-58
• Appendix 1, The toughest questions, pp. 103-106

Examples of Brand Israel

• Maryan Toledano, The defiant femininity of Israel’s female soldiers,
• Elizabeth B. Solomont, San Francisco festival to showcase Israel’s gay culture,

Matti Friedman, An insider’s guide to the most important story on earth,

Creative Community for Peace, The truth about the BDS movement

Hillel Neuer, The Jew Among nations – Israel and the UN, 2022 – YouTube or podcast

Yossi Klein Halevi, What Israelis fear the world does not understand

Howard Jacobson, The founding of Israel wasn’t a colonial act,

Hamas Raped Me Too website [content note: images of bound and gagged woman in blood soaked trousers in distress in video on home page]

Deborah Lipstadt and Michèle Taylor, Israeli women and girls have suffered horrific sexual violence from Hamas. where is the outrage?

Reading in German (please use DeepL or another online translation service if needed)

• Nahostkonflikt in der Schule – Düzen Tekkal will Spaltung durch Dialog überwinden

• JSUD-Präsidentin Hanna Veiler: Junge Jüdinnen und Juden hinterfragen ihre Zukunft in Deutschland und Europa

• Michaela Dudley, Die Lüge vom Genozid in Gaza

Additional resources

• Israel’s project global language dictionary

  • Chapter 14, Talking about Arab-Israelis, p. 83

  • Chapter 17, Talking to the American left, pp. 90-98

• Nick Hopkins, The Israeli Defence Forces: first for women

• Berger et al, A country as a brand: Israel’s evolving branding strategy

• Elizabeth B. Solomont, In Haiti: ‘this is the spirit of the IDF’

• Anne Herzberg and Olga Meshoe Washington, Debunking the Apartheid Lie, YouTube or podcast

• Neubauer distanziert sich von globalem Netzwerk von Fridays for Future

• PM Netanyahu comments on the decision of the International Court of Justice

• Howard Jacobson The founding of Israel wasn’t a colonial act – a refugee isn’t a colonist

• Scroll through headlines on the Israel21c website homepage which works with the Israeli Foreign Ministry to focus attention on ‘the 21st century Israel that exists beyond the conflict’ so that by ‘promoting positive images of Israel and Israelis, people will come to view Israelis as more like themselves and understand the relevance of Israel to their own lives’

For a (perhaps unnecessarily) deeper dive

• Dan Diker, BDS unmasked – radical roots, extremist ends,

• Dan Diker ed. Israelophobia and the West

 

How other Colonies were liberated

Recommended Reading

• Michael Collins, Decolonization
• Jan C Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel Decolonization as Moment and Process
• South African History Online  The fight against colonialism and imperialism in Africa

Further Viewing

• Die verstörende Überheblichkeit der Ignoranz (Documentary in German)

Further Reading

• Aimé Césaire Discourse on Colonialism
• Achille Mbembe On the Postcolony

 

Violence of the Oppressed

Suggested Reading:

• Jonah ben Avraham Support Palestinians when they fight Not just when they die
• Isabel Ringrose  Free Palestine: Why we say by any means necessary
• Barnaby Raine Total Solidarity With Palestine is the Only Anti-Racist Position: Palestinians have a moral right to self-defence
• Frantz Fanon  Concerning Violence

Supplementary Reading: –

• Malcolm X: The ballot of the bullet (text or audio)
• Amilcar Cabral  The Weapon of Theory
• Paulo Friere Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapter 1

Text Summaries:

• Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth
• Paulo Friere Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapter 1

Supplementary Viewing:

• Malcolm X at the Oxford Union

 

The Israeli “Left”

Suggested Reading

• Ilan Pappe What is Left of the Israeli Left?

• Matan Kaminer and Joel Beinin Splintered but not broken: A history of Israel’s independent left

• Diana Buttu Israel’s So-Called Left Has Aided the Far Right’s Rise

• Judith Sudilovsky What is the future of the Israeli Left after the Hamas massacre?

• Al-Jazeera Staff ‘Now isn’t the time’: Israel’s left conflicted on future after Hamas attack

Supplementars Listening

• Jewish Currents The Loneliness of the Israeli Left

Supplementary Reading

• Phil Butland How should we respond to the new Israeli protest movement?

• Zachary Lockman The Left in Israel: Zionism vs. Socialism

• Ilan Pappe The Righteous Fury of the Israeli Left

• Amira Hass The Israeli Left Never Learns

 

Palestinians in the Diaspora

Suggested reading:

• Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet: Palestinian refugees: An Overview
• Salman Abu-Sitta: The implementation of the right of return
• Noura Erakat, Ahmed Moor, Noor Hindi, Mohammed El-Kurd and Laila Al-Arian What does it mean to be Palestinian now?
• Ali Younes: Palestinian diaspora divided over right to return

Supplementary Reading on the Palestinian diaspora in Germany:

• Diaspora Mapping Working Group: Palestinian Diaspora: Germany
• Gouri Sharma: ‘Complete censorship’: Germany’s Palestinian diaspora fights crackdown
• Nora Jasmin Ragab and Katharina Koch The Palestinian Diaspora in Germany
• Nora Jasmin Ragab and Katharina Koch Mapping and Study: The Palestinian Diaspora in Germany

Recommended viewing:

Recommended listening

• Winning the PR battle with Jenan Matari

Supplementary Reading

• Salman Abu-Sitta:  The feasibility of the right of return
• Salman Abu-Sitta:  The right of return the only future for Palestine
• Anaheed Al-Hardan: The Right of Return Movement in Syria: Building a Culture of Return, Mobilizing Memories for the Return.
• Sama Alshaibi, Memory work in the Palestinian Diaspora
• Taher Labadi The Palestinian Diaspora and the State-Building Process
• Naseer Aruri, Seif Da`na, Karma Nabulsi and Sherene Seikaly Roundtable on Palestinian Diaspora and Representation
• Hebh Jamal  In Berlin, a fight for Palestinian identity — and a place to call home

Books (longer read, not for the Reading Group):

• Mourid Barghouti: I saw Ramallah
• Edward Said: Out of place

 

Reading Kanafani

Suggested Reading

• Returning to Haifa (1969) – in English and Arabic
• Letter from Gaza (1956)

Suggested Viewing

Pinkwashing and purplewashing

Suggested Reading

• Sa’Ed Atshan QUEER PALESTINE AND THE EMPIRE OF CRITIQUE | CHAPTER 2 Global Solidarity and Politics of Pinkwashing
• alQaws Beyond Propaganda: Pinkwashing as Colonial Violence
• DecolonisePalestine Purplewashing
• Yara Hawari, Patriarchy in Palestine

Supplementary Reading

• Sarah Schulman  A Documentary Guide to Pinkwashing
• Nadia Elia (co-author)  Palestine as a Queer Struggle
• Ronit Lentin Race and gender, Jewish supremacy, and refusal in the Israeli racial colony
• Sarah O’Neal Gaza’s Queer Palestinians Fight to Be Remembered
• Wikipedia LGBT history in Israel

Supplementary Viewing

• SFU History Pinkwashing: The Queer Critique of Israel’s Pro-Lesbian and Gay Politics in Historical Perspective (from minute 15)

Supplementary Listening

• Podcast: Palestine Liberation is a Queer Issue (featuring guests from Palestinian organisation AlQaws)

 

Militarism and How Israel Exports its Occupation

Recommended Reading

• Baruch Kimmerling – Patterns of Militarism in Israel (European Journal of Sociology )
• International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network – Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression

Supplementary Reading

• Alys Samson Estapé – Exporting oppression: Israel’s profitable arms industry
• Sophia Goodfriend – How the Occupation Fuels Tel Aviv’s Booming AI Sector

Supplementary Listenting

• Palestine As Showroom – Interview with Antony Loewenstein

 

Manufacturing global Islamophobia

Suggested Reading

• Edward Said, Orientalism Reconsidered
• Mohammed El-Kurd Western Journalists Have Palestinian Blood on Their Hands
• Kimberly Rooney 高小荣 and Saba Keramati  Why are newsrooms manufacturing consent for Palestinian genocide?
• Kalpana Wilson, Giti Chandra and Lata Narayanaswamy   Contested development imaginaries: Hindutva and the co-optation of ‘decolonisation’
• Interview with Deepa Kumar   We Can’t Understand Islamophobia Without Recognizing Its Roots in Imperialism

Supplementary Reading

• Khaled A Beydoun The world of inconsistencies between Ukraine, the Middle East and beyond
• Isis Naucratis  Orientalising Palestine: A Digital Archive
• Adam Johnson  Coverage of Gaza was in the New York Times and Other Major Newspapers heavily favored Israel, Analysis shows
• Murtaza Hussain  Study: U.S. Newspapers are more than twice as likely to cite Israeli sources in Headlines than Palestinian Ones
• Hatem Bazian  Islamophobia, “Clash of Civilizations”, and Forging a Post-Cold War Order!   Section 2
• Eviane Leidig  The Far Right is Growing

Supplementary Viewing

• Four Minute Books  Manufacturing Consent Summary (Animated) — Why We Can’t Trust the Media & How They Became Corrupted
• Chomsky’s Philosophy   Noam Chomsky – Manufacturing Consent
• Democracy Now  “Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire”: Deepa Kumar on How Racism Fueled U.S. Wars Post-9/11
• Al Jazeera  Islamophobia Inc | Al Jazeera Investigations
• Edward Said On Orientalism

 

Feminist Perspectives on the Occupation of Palestine

Suggested Reading

• Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian  Palestinian Feminist Critique and the Physics of Power: Feminists Between Thought and Practice
• Fidaa Zaanin  Feminist Protests in Palestine
• Dina Hecht and Nira Yuval-Davis  Ideology without revolution: Jewish women in Israel

Suggested Listening

• Palestinian Women’s Struggles against Colonization and Patriarchy

Supplementary Reading

• Ronit Lentin  Race and gender, Jewish supremacy, and refusal in the Israeli racial colony
• Rahila Gupta  Women in the Shadow of Hamas

Supplementary Listening

• Palestinian Women’s Activism – with author Dr. Islah Jad

Supplementary Viewing

• Birth control shots forced on Ethiopian women

 

The ICJ ruling and the limitations of international law

Suggested  Viewing:

• Highlights of South Africa’s genocide case vs Israel at ICJ
• Highlights of Israel’s arguments at ICJ
• ICJ Order in the case of South Africa vs Israel
• Experts weigh in on ICJ Genocide case

Suggested Reading:

• Noura Erakat, John Reynolds: South Africa’s Genocide Case Is a Devastating Indictment of Israel’s War on Gaza
• Al-Jazeera  A quick guide to South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel

For reference: full ICJ documents:

• South Africa application and request for provisional measures against genocide
• ICJ Order

 

Socialist perspectives on Palestinian liberation

Suggested Reading

• Anne Alexander Palestine: between permanent war and permanent revolution
• John Rose Zionism or Socialism?
• Ali Abunimah Reclaiming Self-Determination
• Phil Marshall Palestinian Nationalism and the Arab Revolution

Supplementary Reading

• Leila S Kadi Basic Political Documents of the Armed Palestinian Resistance Movement – Historical Background
• Haneen Zoabi Palestine Needs a New Unified Strategy of Liberation
• Hossam el-Hamalawy The rise and fall (and rise and fall) of the Egyptian Left – Part 3 Palestine
• Naomi Klein The Unshakeable Ethnic Double

Supplementary Viewing

• Leila Khaled Interview: Palestine is an International Liberation Struggle
• Ghadi Kardi The Future of Palestine

 

Literary Text – Saeed – The PessOptimist

Suggested Reading

• Book in English
• Book in Arabic
• About the Author

 

Iran and Israel

Suggested Reading

• Rules of the Game: Iran vs. Israel Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi
• With Every New Atrocity in Gaza, Iran Gains More Influence Juan Cole
• As They Laid Down Their Cables Laleh Khalili
• “I’ll Burn You Alive” Daniel Block

Supplementary Reading

• Rise and Kill First. The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations Ronen Bergman

 

Who are the Antideutsche?

Recommended Reading

• “For Israel and Communism?” Making sense of Germany’s Antideutsche – Leandros Fischer
• Anti-Semitism and National Socialism: Notes on the German Reaction to “Holocaust” Moishe Postone
• Anti–Postone: Introduction  Mike Macnair
• The early Antideutsch and the working class  Max Hörügel
• The failure of the Antideutsch: A response to Max Hörügel  Michael Fischer

Supplementary Reading

• Germany’s Anti-Palestinian Stance Is Rooted in Anti-Communism  Leandros Fischer
• A history of German anti-imperialism after 1945  Selim Nadi, Leandros Fischer

 

Palestine and Climate Change

• Interwoven struggles: The green paradox meets the Palestine paradox –Marwan Bishara
• The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth– Andreas Malm
• No, Israel Is Not Making the Desert Bloom – Manal Shqair
• What the Fossil Fuel Industry Learned from Anti-BDS Laws – Alex Kane

• How Israel Weaponizes Tree Planting to Displace Palestinians– Arvind Dilawar
• After the Flood: A response to Andreas Malm–  Matan Kaminer
• What is there to do? An Eastern European Perspective on Palestinian Ecocide– Marija Nemčenko
• How Palestine’s climate apartheid is being depoliticised– Muna Dajani

 

Effect of the Collapse of the USSR on Palestine

Suggested Reading

• Galia Golan The Soviet Union and the Palestine Liberation Organisation – An Uneasy Alliance, pages 5-14
• Shaina Oppenheimer  Weapons and Ideology: Files Reveal How China Armed and Trained the Palestinians
• Rudyard Kazan  The Israeli – Soviet / Russian Relations

Supplementary Reading

• Joseph Grim  Feinberg  The Fall and Ambivalent Rise of East European Anti-Colonialism

 

Antisemitism: Definitions and pitfalls

Suggested Reading

• Brian Krug   Defining Antisemitism and the Debate over Palestine-Israel
• Rob Ferguson  Antisemitism and the far right today
• Interview with Anna Esther Younes
• Anya Topolski  Good Jew, bad Jew … good Muslim, bad Muslim: “managing” Europe’s others

Supplementary Reading

• Abram Leon   The premises for a scientific study of Jewish history
• Abram Leon  The decay of capitalism and the tragedy of the Jews in the 20th century
• Rob Ferguson  Antisemitism, Palestine and the left: after the election… what next?
• Rob Ferguson  The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and free expression
• Antisemitism, Anti-Racism, and the Holocaust in Germany: A Discussion Between Susan Neiman and Anna-Esther Younes
• Alana Lentin  Anti-antisemitism: a proxy war on racism
• Palestinian rights and the IHRA definition of antisemitism
• Sybille Fuchs  German cultural institutions oppose government’s anti–BDS resolution aimed at quashing criticism of Israel
• Anya Topoloski  The Race-Religion Constellation: A European Contribution to the Critical Philosophy of Race
• Anya Topolski  The dangerous discourse of the ‘Judaeo-Christian’ myth: masking the race–religion constellation in Europe
• Edward Said  Dignity, Solidarity and the Penal Colony

Read critically

• Karin Stögner  Antisemitism and Intersectional Feminism: Strange Alliances
• Corinne Blackmer  The Queering of Antisemitism
• R. Amy Elman  BDS & the Queer Appopriation of Pinkwashing

Supplementary Viewing

 

Mental Health as a Colonial tool

Recommended reading:

• Lena Meari: Reconsidering Trauma: Towards a Palestinian Community Psychology
• Samantha Lilly  How Trauma Theory is Oppressive in Occupied Palestine
• Layth Hanbali  Israeli violence is central to Palestine’s mental health crisis

Supplementary reading:

• Colonial Violence and Mental Disorders: an extract from Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth
• Jackie Menjivar  What does it mean to decolonize mental health?
• Holly Geraghty  The Gaza breakdancing crew helping children escape the trauma of war
• Zenobia Morrill  Critical Psychiatrists Argue for Decolonizing Medical Curricula in Psychiatry

Supplementary viewing:

• A Call for Healing: Gabor Maté on Palestine / Israel

 

Economics of the Israel-Palestine conflict

Recommended Reading

• Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler  Peace Dividends and Capital Accumulation in Israel
• Oded Nir  Israel’s Two Marxisms
• Patrick Wolfe  Purchase by Other Means: The Palestine Nakba and Zionism’s Conquest of Economics
• Yusif A. Sayigh  The Palestinian Economy under Occupation: Dependency and Pauperization

Supplementary Reading

• Mtanes Shehadeh and Raja Khalidi  Impeded Development: The Political Economy of the Palestinian Arabs inside Israel
• Jeremy Wildeman  Neoliberalism as Aid for the Settler Colonization of the Occupied Palestinian Territories After Oslo
• Shir Hever  Beyond Exploitation
• Ahmed Tannira  The Political Economy of the Gaza Strip Under Hamas
• Raja Khalidi  What Is the “Palestinian Economy”?

 

Palestinian poetry

Suggested Reading

• Tamim al-Barghouti: Nothing Radical
• Mahmoud Darwish:  He is quiet and so am I
• Mahmoud Darwish:  Those who pass between fleeting words
• Mahmoud Darwish:  Silence for Gaza
• Samih al-Qasim: Two Poems
• Fadwa Touqan: The Deluge and the Tree

Supplementary Reading

• Kate Shannon Jenkins  “Sometimes People Write Poetry with Their Feet”: A Conversation with Tamim Al-Barghouti
• Hassan Rahmeh  Fadwa Tuqan was the fearless voice of Palestine in times of strife
• Liam Brown  Samih al-Qasim and the language of revolution
• Indlieb Farazi Saber  ‘The war will end’: Remembering Mahmoud Darwish, Palestine’s poetic voice

Supplementary Viewing

• A lecture on contemporary Palestinian poetry
• Aesthetics of Return: Palestinian Poetry w/ Fady Joudah

 

Pan-Arabism

Suggested Reading

• Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou  The Rise and Fall of Pan-Arabism
• Lamis Andoni  The Nakba: Catalyst for pan-Arabism
• Abdullah Nassif  From triumph to defeat to defiance: A brief history of the Pan-Arab ballad
• Ussama Makdisi  Why Palestine is at the heart of what it means to be Arab

Supplementary Reading

• Ed. Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh and Patricia Daley  Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations
• Hussein Aboubakr and Ghaith Al-Omari  How the Jewish State Became So Important to the Self-Conception of the Arabs (read critically)

 

Mainstream and Critical Definitions of “Terrorism”

Suggested Reading:

• Ziyanda Stuurman  Terrorism as Controversy: The Shifting Definition of Terrorism in State Politics
• David C. Rapoport  Terrorism as a Global Wave Phenomenon: An Overview
• Walter Laqueur  What is Terrorism?

Supplementary Reading:

• Laura Albast  U.S. anti-terrorism legislation is anti-Palestinian ‘at the core,’ new report finds
• Daya Kishan Thussu  How media manipulates truth about Terrorism
• Caroline Mala Corbin  Terrorists Are Always Muslim but Never White: At the Intersection of Critical Race Theory and Propaganda
• Adam Roberts   The Laws of War in the War on Terror

 

How the Western media lie about Palestine

Recommended Reading

• Jonathan Cook Why the news media’s job is to groom us
• Edith Olmsted  Why Are CNN, ABC, and NBC Reporters Embedding With the Israeli Military?
• Elena Dudum  Palestine and the Power of Language
• Ben Burgis  The New York Times Has an Ugly Anti-Palestinian Bias
• Mike Berry and Greg Philo  Why does it happen? (from More Bad News from Israel)
• interview with Hebh Jamal  “Living in this country, there is no nuance when it comes to the idea of Palestinian Liberation”

Supplementary Reading

• Vidya Krishnan  Western coverage of Gaza: A textbook case of coloniser’s journalism
• Shav MacKay  Between a Rock and a Staatsräson: What’s Up With German Media?
• Dessi Gomez  LA Times Bars Staffers Who Signed Open Letter Criticizing Israel From Covering Gaza 
• Adam Johnson, Othman Ali  Coverage of Gaza war in the New York Times and other major newspapers heavily favored Israel, analysis shows
• Chris McGreal  CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’
• Günseli Yalcinkaya  The girlbossification of global warfare

Books to read on the general subject of media

• Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky  Manufacturing Consent
• John Molyneux  Will the Revolution be televised?

 

Israel and South Africa – Similarities and Differences

Recommended Reading

• Nina Fischer – Palestinian non-violent resistance and the apartheid analogy: Framing Israeli Policy in the 1960s and 1970s
• Leila Farksah  Apartheid, Israel and Palestinian Statehood 
• Ronnie Kasrils   Birds of a Feather: Israel and Apartheid South Africa – Colonialism of a Special Type
• Ilham Rawoot  South Africa’s perplexing relationship with Israel
• Shireen Hassim  Academic Freedom and Academic Boycotts
• Sasha Polakow-Suransky  The Atomic Bond: The Israeli-South Africa Nuclear Connection 

Supplementary Listening

• Ilan Pappe & Ronnie Kasrils Israeli Apartheid: Lessons from Jewish and South African Struggles

Supplementary Reading

• Mohamed Buhaji / Aamir Hasan – THE BEGINNING OF THE END A Comparison Between the Apartheid (South Africa Vs. Israeli Occupation)
• Chris McGreal, Worlds Apart, Part 1 and Part 2
• IHRC / Adameer  Apartheid in the Occupied West Bank: A Legal Analysis of Israel’s Actions
• B’Tselem  A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid
• Ran Greenstein  Israel, the Apartheid Analogy and the Labour Question
• Mahmood Mamdami  The South African Moment 
• Na’eem Jeenah  From South Africa to Israel, the Three Pillars of Apartheid
• Ben White  Israel’s similarity to South Africa’s apartheid is more than skin-deep
• Sharath  Israeli and South African Apartheid: A Comparison
• Adam Broomberg  “It is inaccurate to compare Israel with South Africa. What’s going on in Israel is much worse”
• Desmond Tutu  Apartheid in the Holy Land
• Jeff Halper – Nishul (Displacement) – Israel’s form of Apartheid   
• Michael Svard – The crime of Apartheid under international law – definition and elements of the crime

 

Syria, Assad and Israel

Recommended Reading

• Salah Hassan Palestinians in Syria and the Syrian Uprising
• Giorgio Cafiero  Why Syria is so Silent about Hamas

Supplementary Reading

• Sam Badger, Giorgio Cafiero  Assad and the Palestinians
• Syrian Law Journal  Syria – Brief History
• Carnegie Endowment  Owning a piece of Palestine: Syria’s Assad Regime and the Palestine Question

 

Will Zionism Collapse?

Reommended Reading

• Ilan Pappé  The Collapse of Zionism
• Muhammed Hussein  Amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, are we witnessing the fall of Zionism?
• Avraham Burg  The End of Zionism
• Amy Goodman  The Collapse of the Zionist Project: An Interview with Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé

Recommended Viewing

• Ilan Pappé  “Zionism will collapse and Sykis-Picot will collapse”

Supplementary Reading

• Tom Hickey and Philip Marfleet  The “South Africa moment”: Palestine, Israel and the boycott
• Nomi Bar-Yaacov  The end of Netanyahu is on the horizon: this is a pivotal moment for the Middle East
• Gideon Levy  Israelis Know That True Democracy Will Spell the End of Zionism

 

What is the Israel lobby?

Recommended Reading

• Davide Mastracci, Tara Alami and Liam Meisner  Is The Lobby The Main Reason For Western Support Of Israel? (summarizes the two many theories)
• Ed McNally  The Israel Lobby matters  (argues that the lobby is the main reason for US support of Israel)
• Joseph Massad  Why blaming the Israel lobby for western Middle East policies is misguided  (argues that the lobby is not the most important reason for US support)

Supplementary Reading

• Ilan Pappé Lobbying for Zionism Chapters 9 and 10  (what is the Israel lobby?)
• John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt  The Israel Lobby  (a more detailed argument prioritising the lobby’s importance)
• Samir Amin The US Imperialism and the Middle East  (a more detailed argument saying that there are more important reasons than the lobby)
• John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt  The Israel Lobby and US Foriegn Policy  (the article which started the whole debate)

 

How to Speak to Germans about Palestine

Building strategies

• Jewish Voice for Peace: A guide to difficult conversations about Israel and Palestine
• Angela Haupt: How to actually change someone’s mind
• Hugo Mercier: How can you change someone’s mind? (short video)

Helpful arguments to use

• Noura Erakat: Five Israeli talking points on Gaza – debunked
• Hebh Jamal: State repression: inside Germany’s far-reaching anti-Palestinian crackdown
• Muhannad Ayyash: Break the fear barrier and speak up for Palestine

Further videos

• Emilia Roig: Is anti-Zionism antisemitic? About the weaponization of antisemitism in current debates. Lecture at the FU Berlin
• Mehdi Hasan & Benny Morris: History, genocide, and Israel’s war on Gaza

Understanding the German Context (all in German)

• Alice Hasters: Für Weiße fühlt sich Gleichberechtigung nach Unterdrückung an
• Meret Weber and Alisa Schellenberg “Diese Spaltung werde ich Deutschland nicht verzeihen” – Interview with Alena Jabarine and Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus
• Anaïs Agudo-Berbel, Luca Klander und Paddy Lehleiter:„Das hat mit dem Schutz von jüdischen Leben wenig zu tun“. Interview with Emilia Roig
• Pädagogisches Begleitmaterial Israel Palästina