100 books like Anonymous Soldiers

By Bruce Hoffman,

Here are 100 books that Anonymous Soldiers fans have personally recommended if you like Anonymous Soldiers. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001

Oren Kessler Author Of Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict

From my list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist, think-tanker, and analyst based in Tel Aviv and formerly in Washington and London. I have a BA in History from the University of Toronto and an MA in Diplomacy and Conflict Studies from Reichman University in Israel, and I was previously deputy director for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. My first book, Palestine 1936, was named one of the Top Ten Books of 2023 by the Wall Street Journal. Throughout my whole life, I’ve written about the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and so on and so forth. I love to travel and to read. And to write.

Oren's book list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict

Oren Kessler Why did Oren love this book?

A complete history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, starting with the first wave of Zionist emigration. Benny Morris is one of the leading historians of Israel. Many consider him the historian of Israel.

He has often irritated critics, first on the right and later on the left, with work that failed to flatter their particular political sympathies. But he has always insisted that he goes where the material takes him, and I, for one, believe him. Today he remains uncategorizable and unpredictable.

This book is based on secondary sources - its remit is too wide to be based on primary ones - but it is, in my view, the best one-stop shop for a general history of the conflict. 

By Benny Morris,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Righteous Victims as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Righteous Victims, by the noted historian Benny Morris, is a comprehensive and
objective history of the long battle between Arabs and Jews for possession of a land they both call home. It appears at a most timely juncture, as the bloody and protracted struggle seems at last to be headed for resolution.

With great clarity of vision, Professor Morris finds the roots of this conflict in the deep religious, ethnic, and political differences between the Zionist immigrants and the native Arab population of Palestine. He describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers, which was eventually fiercely resisted by the Arabs…


Book cover of One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate

Oren Kessler Author Of Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict

From my list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist, think-tanker, and analyst based in Tel Aviv and formerly in Washington and London. I have a BA in History from the University of Toronto and an MA in Diplomacy and Conflict Studies from Reichman University in Israel, and I was previously deputy director for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. My first book, Palestine 1936, was named one of the Top Ten Books of 2023 by the Wall Street Journal. Throughout my whole life, I’ve written about the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and so on and so forth. I love to travel and to read. And to write.

Oren's book list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict

Oren Kessler Why did Oren love this book?

This is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction. Even for those of us who have read endless books on the Israeli-Arab conflict (hello), this one has so many gems, so many stunning anecdotes, that it is virtually its own genre.

It is beautifully written and incredibly difficult to put down. Yet despite being written like a novel, the primary-source research underlying it is meticulous and impressive. A massive achievement.

By Tom Segev, Haim Watzman (translator), Shara Kay (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked One Palestine, Complete as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One Palestine, Complete explores the tumultuous period before the creation of the state of Israel. This was the time of the British Mandate, when Britain's promise to both Jews and Arabs that they would inherit the land, set in motion the conflict that haunts the region to this day.

Drawing on untapped archival materials, Tom Segev reconstructs an era (1917 to 1948) of limitless possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces an array unforgettable characters, tracks the steady advance of Jews and Arabs toward confrontation, and puts forth a radical new argument: that the British, far from being pro-Arab, consistently favored…


Book cover of Promise And Fulfilment: Palestine 1917-1949

Oren Kessler Author Of Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict

From my list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist, think-tanker, and analyst based in Tel Aviv and formerly in Washington and London. I have a BA in History from the University of Toronto and an MA in Diplomacy and Conflict Studies from Reichman University in Israel, and I was previously deputy director for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. My first book, Palestine 1936, was named one of the Top Ten Books of 2023 by the Wall Street Journal. Throughout my whole life, I’ve written about the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and so on and so forth. I love to travel and to read. And to write.

Oren's book list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict

Oren Kessler Why did Oren love this book?

Koestler is famous for Darkness at Noon, his 1940 novel of Stalinist totalitarianism. But in 1949, he wrote this remarkably perceptive history of the British Mandate, from its inception to the birth of the State of Israel.

This is not a traditional history backed by myriad footnotes. But it is, to borrow a phrase usually reserved for journalism, the “first draft of history,” as it was written in real-time just as the Jewish state rose to life. Koestler was closely tied to Zionism from the ‘20s on, having spent several years in Palestine as a manual laborer and then a journalist. Later he was even deputy of the right-wing Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky in Berlin, labored intensively on behalf of Israel’s establishment, and reported from the country in its first weeks of existence.

This is a hugely illuminating book from a gifted and insightful observer.

By Arthur Koestler,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Promise And Fulfilment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book consists of three parts, "Background", "Close-up" and "Perspective". The first part is a survey of the developments which led to the foundation of the State of Israel. It lays no claim to historical completeness and is written from a specific angle which stresses the part played by irrational forces and emotive bias in history. I am not sure whether this emphasis has not occasionally resulted in over-emphasis-as is almost inevitable when one tries to redress a balance by spot-lighting aspects which are currently neglected. But it was certainly not my intention, by underlining the psychological factor, to deny…


Book cover of Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, 1886-1948

Oren Kessler Author Of Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict

From my list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist, think-tanker, and analyst based in Tel Aviv and formerly in Washington and London. I have a BA in History from the University of Toronto and an MA in Diplomacy and Conflict Studies from Reichman University in Israel, and I was previously deputy director for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. My first book, Palestine 1936, was named one of the Top Ten Books of 2023 by the Wall Street Journal. Throughout my whole life, I’ve written about the Middle East, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and so on and so forth. I love to travel and to read. And to write.

Oren's book list on learning the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict

Oren Kessler Why did Oren love this book?

We cannot understand the Middle East conflict without understanding how Israel arose, and we cannot understand Israel without understanding its founding father, David Ben-Gurion.

Shabtai Teveth was a longtime Israeli journalist whom Ben-Gurion chose as his biographer. And, although Teveth is broadly sympathetic to Ben-Gurion, he is never shy about revealing his many flaws as well. Teveth was a journalist rather than a trained historian, but his research was second to none (trust me, I’ve spent many hours with Teveth’s own archive of the leader). And being a journalist, he knows how to tell a story.

This is the best single volume for understanding Ben-Gurion and the road to Israel’s creation.

By Shabtai Teveth,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ben-Gurion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

English, Hebrew (translation)


Book cover of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World

Yakov M. Rabkin Author Of What is Modern Israel?

From my list on honest books about Israel and Zionism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in the Soviet Union, where being Jewish had no intellectual or religious substance. My discovery of Judaism and Jewish history happened after my emigration, when I was already an adult. This helps me to relate to audiences and readers who are not Jewish. For example, a Japanese translation of my book on Jewish opposition to Zionism earned a place on a bestseller list in Japan, where hardly any Jews live. In the course of my university career, I have explained events in Israel in electronic and printed media on the five continents where I also have taught as a visiting professor.

Yakov's book list on honest books about Israel and Zionism

Yakov M. Rabkin Why did Yakov love this book?

When I first started reading this book, I could not put it aside. I read it again recently, in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attack, and found it as relevant as when it was first published.

Scholarly and accessible at the same time, it showed me why Israel’s overwhelming military power has failed to bring peace to the Holy Land. While much of the literature on this controversial subject looks like militant propaganda, I like the tone of Shlaim’s book: serene, compassionate, and not at all polemical. 

By Avi Shlaim,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Iron Wall as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World is the outstanding book on Israeli foreign policy, now thoroughly updated with a new preface and chapters on Israel's most recent leaders

In the 1920s, hard-line Zionists developed the doctrine of the 'Iron Wall': negotiations with the Arabs must always be from a position of military strength, and only when sufficiently strong Israel would be able to make peace with her Arab neighbours.

This doctrine, argues Avi Shlaim, became central to Israeli policy; dissenters were marginalized and many opportunities to reconcile with Palestinian Arabs were lost. Drawing on a great…


Book cover of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents

Michael Reimer Author Of The First Zionist Congress: An Annotated Translation of the Proceedings

From my list on history of modern Israel Arab-Israeli conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I completed my Ph.D. in history at Georgetown University in 1989 and have taught courses on the modern Middle East at the American University in Cairo since 1990. Since the early 2000s, I’ve been teaching a popular course on the history of Zionism. In developing the curriculum for my students, I searched for an English translation of the proceedings of the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel in 1897, a crucial moment in Jewish/Zionist history. When I discovered no such translation existed, I decided to do one myself. It was fascinating work, and the translation was published in 2019.

Michael's book list on history of modern Israel Arab-Israeli conflict

Michael Reimer Why did Michael love this book?

I own the Fifth Edition of this book, which was inscribed for me by the author, Charles Smith. This book is different from the four noted above because it is a detailed chronicle and critical analysis of the Arab/Palestinian conflict with Israel by a single author, the documents supplementing rather than constituting the text.

Among the books I know of that purport to be balanced and comprehensive studies of this subject, I think this one has the best claim to those descriptors. The book is in its tenth edition, so the author has obviously successfully presented the subject's history in a way that has gained a substantial and appreciative audience. One of its merits from an instructional standpoint is the inclusion of numerous maps, chronologies, photographs, and a glossary.

I like the fact that it has been continually updated. The transition of the PLO “from pariah to partner” in the…

By Charles D Smith, Trustee,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?



Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict provides a comprehensive, balanced, and accessible introduction to the multi-faceted history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Smith’s widely respected analysis examines how underlying issues, group motives, religious and cross-cultural clashes, diplomacy and imperialism, and encroaching modernity shaped this volatile region. The book’s narrative and supporting documents, maps, photographs, and chronologies consider high and low politics with perspectives from all sides of the struggle, while the final chapters include the latest developments.


Book cover of The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict

Michael Reimer Author Of The First Zionist Congress: An Annotated Translation of the Proceedings

From my list on history of modern Israel Arab-Israeli conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I completed my Ph.D. in history at Georgetown University in 1989 and have taught courses on the modern Middle East at the American University in Cairo since 1990. Since the early 2000s, I’ve been teaching a popular course on the history of Zionism. In developing the curriculum for my students, I searched for an English translation of the proceedings of the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel in 1897, a crucial moment in Jewish/Zionist history. When I discovered no such translation existed, I decided to do one myself. It was fascinating work, and the translation was published in 2019.

Michael's book list on history of modern Israel Arab-Israeli conflict

Michael Reimer Why did Michael love this book?

This anthology is heavily weighted toward the political and diplomatic dimensions of the Arab-Israeli conflict. I find the point-counterpoint of debates between representatives of Arab and Israeli governments stimulating: whatever one’s natural inclination, one has to take into account how political realities appear to someone from a totally different perspective.

I have found it valuable as a resource because it focuses on the conflict between Israel and the Arabs/Palestinians after 1948. The book is a mine of political speeches, summit declarations, newspaper editorials, organizational manifestoes, interstate treaties, and assorted other texts related to wars, negotiations, and peacemaking between Israel and the Arabs.

By Walter Laqueur (editor), Dan Schueftan (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Israel-Arab Reader as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now in its eighth edition, a essential resource on the more than century-old conflict in the Middle East

In print for nearly half a century, and now in its eighth edition, The Israel-Arab Reader is an authoritative guide to over a century of conflict in the Middle East. It covers the full spectrum of a violent and checkered history—the origins of Zionism and Arab nationalism, the struggles surrounding Israel’s independence in 1948, the Six-Day War and other wars and hostilities over the decades, and the long diplomatic process and many peace initiatives.
 
Arranged chronologically and without bias by two veteran…


Book cover of The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine

Duncan Falconer Author Of First into Action

From my list on providing a unique insight into military history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I must be something of a specialist on the impact of conventional and guerrilla warfare on the civilian population. Truth is, leaving school, I never intended to have anything to do with war beyond the books I enjoyed reading. On leaving the military in my 30s I employed the only skills I had and managed organisations and mostly news teams operating in conflict zones all over the world. I matured into a crisis manager, responding and consulting to crisis situations such as kidnap & ransoms, and evacuations from conflict zones. Most of the characters in my books are real, good and bad, taken from the vast theatre of my own experiences. 

Duncan's book list on providing a unique insight into military history

Duncan Falconer Why did Duncan love this book?

My first encounter with Israeli soldiers was in Ramallah during the second intifada. I was alone on the road late one night after curfew when a dozen Israeli soldiers, sons of Russian immigrants, dragged me from my vehicle and put a pistol to my head in a mock execution for their entertainment. My impression of Israeli soldiers was never great after that. Years later I met Miko Peled after reading his book about his time in the Israeli defence force and his relationship with his father, a highly decorated Israeli general who turned from hawk to dove in search of peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians. Miko took up the same struggle after his father's death. We have so far, without success, tried to make a movie of that family struggle.

By Miko Peled,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The General's Son as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A powerful account, by Israeli peace activist Miko Peled, of his transformation from a young man who'd grown up in the heart of Israel's elite and served proudly in its military into a fearless advocate of nonviolent struggle and equal rights for all Palestinians and Israelis. His journey is mirrored in many ways the transformation his father, a much-decorated Israeli general, had undergone three decades earlier. Alice Walker contributed a foreword to the first edition in which she wrote, "There are few books on the Israel/Palestine issue that seem as hopeful to me as this one."  In the new Epilogue…


Book cover of My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

Julie Salamon Author Of An Innocent Bystander: The Killing of Leon Klinghoffer

From my list on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have spent my working life as a journalist, author and storyteller, aiming to uncover complexity that sheds new light on stories we think we know. I got my training at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times—and from the wonderful editors of my twelve books. An Innocent Bystander, my book that deals with the Middle East, began as the story of a hijacking and a murder of an American citizen. But as my research widened, I came to see this story couldn’t be told without understanding many perspectives, including the Israeli and the Palestinian, nor could the political be disentangled from the personal.

Julie's book list on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

Julie Salamon Why did Julie love this book?

My Promised Land is beautifully written, a story deeply informed by the author’s family history and the body of knowledge he built as an influential Israeli journalist.

Shavit loves the place of his birth but doesn’t retreat from hard questions. He tells a powerful, poignant story of a state-created out of tragedy and the brutal reality of what Jewish statehood has wrought for yet another disinherited group.

There are no easy answers, and Shavit offers none. But he presents the complexities and frustrations with intellectual rigor and literary grace.

By Ari Shavit,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked My Promised Land as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE ECONOMIST

Winner of the Natan Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today
 
Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land. Facing unprecedented internal…


Book cover of Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life

Georgette F. Bennett Ph.D. Author Of Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By: How One Woman Confronted the Greatest Humanitarian Crisis of Our Time

From my list on the shifting dynamics in the Middle East.

Why am I passionate about this?

Conflict resolution and intergroup relations are my passions. Perhaps because I’m a child of the Holocaust. My parents and I arrived in the U.S. as stateless refugees. The Holocaust primed me to explore why religion inspires so much hate. My career as a criminologist got me interested in the link between religion and violence. My refugee roots led me to an International Rescue Committee report on the Syrian crisis. That report hit me hard and felt very personal because it echoed my own family’s suffering in the Holocaust. I saw an opportunity to build bridges between enemies—Israel and Syria, Jews and Muslims—while also saving lives.  

Georgette's book list on the shifting dynamics in the Middle East

Georgette F. Bennett Ph.D. Why did Georgette love this book?

I was blown away by this narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Palestinian perspective. Sari Nusseibeh is the scion of one of the oldest and most distinguished Palestinian families. So important are they that the Nusseibehs hold the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and are charged with opening the Church each day. Despite the fact that Sari and his family lost so much when Israel declared statehood in 1948, I was moved by the absence of malice in what I found to be a balanced account of “the Nakbah.” After reading the book, I was eager to meet Sari, who was at the time president of Al Quds University. My husband and I did get to spend a day with him on campus, where we learned even more about the Palestinian side of the conflict.

By Sari Nusseibeh, Anthony David,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Once Upon a Country as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

These extraordinary memoirs give us a rare view into what the Arab-Israeli conflict has meant for one Palestinian family over the generations. Nusseibeh also interweaves his own story with that of the Palestinians as a people, always speaking his mind, and apportioning blame where he feels it due. Hated by extremists on both sides, his is a rare voice.

"This autobiography? carries the passion that might embolden ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to bypass the politicians and establish the peace that all but the armoured men desperately want." The Independent

"Nusseibeh's formidable achievement? leaves a drop of despair, because of how…


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