The most recommended books on Israel and Palestine

For the first eighteen years of Israel’s existence most Arabs in the country were ruled by a military administration. It was formally abolished only a year before the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 and the establishment of Israeli military rule in those territories. The story of that early military government is not well known, except by specialists. But with the publication of Shira Robinson’s book, based on declassified archival material, we now know the details of how Arab citizens of Israel were subordinated, exploited, and manipulated, under false rationales of security concerns, in order to bolster the political position of the dominant Labor Party, to advance Zionist goals of land acquisition and subsidization of Jewish settlement, and, as the title of the book suggests, to help present Israel as a “liberal” state while concealing its settler colonialist dynamics.

This lavishly illustrated book focuses on the crusades’ material objects: sculptures, paintings, manuscripts, architecture, coinage, and even jewelry. As historical evidence, artifacts are as important as documents, and these carefully chosen items provide privileged insights into the largely-shared crusader worldview and sense of mission. They further illuminate the complex relationships that developed between crusaders and the many foreign cultures with which they came into contact.  

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.

I bought Jeremy Bowen’s book by chance as I searched for books about the Middle East. I wanted something different from the traditional (and sometimes a bit difficult to read) academic nonfiction book. This book appealed to me because it was written in a journalistic style and because it was as much a book about recent history as one about Bowen’s own travels and encounters in the Middle East. Well, I was not disappointed.

I really enjoyed reading Bowen’s recollections of his time in the Middle East and critical reflections on great powers’ involvement there. That is a book I felt gave a good sense of how the West has mismanaged its policies in the region during the past fifty years. 

Crump was a Christian theologian (Calvin University) for many years whose passion for justice took him to Israel/Palestine on numerous occasions.

He not only studied the issues surrounding this conflict, but he immersed himself, living in a refugee camp during some of Israel’s most severe periods of occupation.

But behind America’s support for Israel is often a less-understood set of doctrines called Christian Zionism. This book is the premier explanation of this movement and is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the American church sends millions of dollars to Israel every year.

If it is rare to read a Palestinian voice in this conflict, it is rarer still to hear a Jewish voice that is willing to speak honestly and critically about what is going on.

Braverman is an internationally known and respected Jewish author and activist whose first book, The Fatal Embrace, won him a wide readership. Here he narrows his work to Jerusalem itself and discloses secrets about the city and its politics that few Americans ever hear.

As Leen Ritmeyer has done for the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Yigael Yadin has done for the fortress of Masada in the Judean wilderness. Through the findings of his excavations of Masada from October 1963 to May 1964, he transports you back in time to when the defenders of Masada, the last holdout of the Jewish rebellion, held off the Roman military for a time in AD 73. When the Romans finally breached the fortress, all they found were dead bodies. The Jewish defenders chose to end their own lives and those of their families to escape being killed, tortured, or sold into slavery. Yadin also presents the history of the fortress back to its founding by the Hasmonean, Alexander Jannaeus. 

There are many sweeping histories of Jerusalem, but this book tells the intimate stories of people and places that often get short shrift.

Teller takes us into the Arab as well as Jewish worlds of the Old City, and he serves as a gentle guide in the passionate and fraught politics of a city that, as he writes, “wears its history like a teenager wears a school uniform – joyless.”

One of Israel’s finest non-fiction writers tells the story of Israel’s failed war in Lebanon – the only war Israel lost – through his own experience as a soldier. A powerful meditation on the feelings of vulnerability and loss that are built into the Israeli experience – along with the deep commitment to protecting Israel from threats that unite Israelis across the political spectrum. This is the best book I know of in  English that conveys the complex experience of being an Israeli soldier. 

The Israel–Palestine Conflict introduces the historical basis of the dispute and explores both the tangible issues and intangible factors that have prolonged the conflict and blocked a peaceful resolution.

Author Neil Caplan helps readers understand the complexities and contradictions of the conflict and why the histories of Palestine and Israel are so fiercely contested. The 2nd edition offers fresh insights about the impact of current global and regional trends marked by instability and violence that reduce the prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.

The 2nd addition also addresses recent debates over two-state versus one-state solutions, growing polarization in public discourse outside of the Middle East, the role of public intellectuals, and the growing trend of merging scholarship with advocacy.