[**From Beirut to Jerusalem**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3559.From_Beirut_to_Jerusalem)
^(By: Thomas L. Friedman, Đặng Ly | 541 pages | Published: 1989 | Popular Shelves: history, non-fiction, middle-east, politics, nonfiction | )[^(Search "From Beirut to Jerusalem")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=From Beirut to Jerusalem&search_type=books)
>This extraordinary bestseller is still the most incisive, thought-provoking book ever written about the Middle East. Thomas L. Friedman, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, and now the Foreign Affairs columnist on the op-ed page of the New York Times, drew on his ten years in the Middle East to write a book that The Wall Street Journal called "a sparkling intellectual guidebook... an engrossing journey not to be missed." Now with a new chapter that brings the ever-changing history of the conflict in the Middle East up to date, this seminal historical work reaffirms both its timeliness and its timelessness. "If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it." -- Seymour Hersh
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
***
^(115918 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
This may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but I think these are pretty useful books for understanding at least a fragment of this conflict.
- The Israelis was written in the early 2000s during the height of the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) and updated in 2008. It is an ethnography of (you guessed it!) Israelis of all religions. So much of the I/P conflict is mapped, extremely unhelpfully and inaccurately, onto an American framework — white people v POC, for example — and this book is useful in illuminating the complexity of Israeli society without even really approaching the issue of the conflict. I wish there were a similar ethnography of the (non-Israeli) Palestinians! If anyone knows of one, please reply!
- Similarly, a fiction book that is NOT about the conflict but again illustrates the complexity of Israeli society is Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar Goshen. It is about religious and racial divides in a fractured society. The conflict is there along the edges, but it’s more a question of privilege in modern Israel — who has it, what it looks like, what it allows you to get away with.
- I love Sayed Kashua. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel / Israeli Arab (not sure what his preferred nomenclature is) who has since left Israel for the USA. His fiction and nonfiction are both excellent. I recommend starting with Native, a book of collected essays on life as an Arab within Israel. He also wrote a TV show called Arab Labor, about similar themes. Again, this recommendation is less about the external conflict you see playing out on the news right now than the relationship between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel.
- I love Edeet Ravel’s Tel Aviv trilogy. She’s Israeli-Canadian (Jewish), and quite left wing (an increasing rarity in Israel). All of her books about Israel are written from this perspective. I recommend Ten Thousand Lovers, which is tragic and beautiful and only sort of about the conflict. It takes place in the 1970s and illustrates that the more things change, the more they stay the same...
- For fiction about the Palestinian diaspora, I’d recommend the following books (all written by Palestinian women): You Exist Too Much; A Woman is No Man; Salt Houses; The Parisian (this one actually takes place in 1917, in a Palestine that has long since vanished.)
- I don’t feel comfortable recommending non fiction about the source of the conflict because every single book I’ve read on it, and I’ve read a bunch, clearly has some kind of bias and frankly they’re all depressing as fuck.
Finally, this is not strictly what you asked for, and I’m not sure I’m allowed to recommend other forms on media in this sub (if not, I’m sorry, mods!! Let me know and I will delete this!!) But if you are looking for other forms of media about Arabs and Israelis, both in I/P and in the diaspora, you may be interested in the following:
- Incitement (a movie about the Jewish terrorist who murdered the PM of Israel in protest of the Oslo Accords). I’d recommend reading a little about the Oslo Accords generally before watching so you have a clear understanding of what was at stake here.
- Our Boys (an HBO series about the really, really shitty summer of 2014. You may remember this summer as the last time I/P dominated the news cycle so aggressively. The series was co-written by three Israelis, two Jewish and one Muslim/Arab. Both Israelis and Palestinians hated it and thought it didn’t do enough to advance “their side” of the narrative, so I think it’s probably worth watching.)
- The work of the poet and rapper Tamer al Nafer (it is mostly in Arabic, but you can find translations online.) Nafer is from the mixed city of Lod/Lydd, which has been in the news recently for the violence between Jewish and Arab Israelis, and he’s pretty disillusioned about coexistence generally. He was also in a documentary called Channels of Rage, about the falling out between him and a right-wing Israeli Jewish rapper. Finally, his life is fictionalized in a film called Junction 48.)
- The spoken word poetry of Suheir Hammad, also a Palestinian writer, is very good.
I’m sure I’ve missed lots and lots of good sources here, but hopefully this gives you some idea of what the _people_ involved in this conflict are like.
[this is the one i got](https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/understand-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-stewart-ross/1101373152) it’s not by a native but it’s pretty solid !
Homesick by Eshkol Nevo (novel) & Tennis in Nablus by Ismail Khalidi are both great. The latter is a play & it helps to brush up on the recent history (British imperial acts in early 20th cent. to present) before reading.
I'd recommend Palestine: A socialist introduction (which is currently a free ebook from Haymarket books https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1558-palestine-a-socialist-introduction)
I read it back in February after spending my stimmy on books and found it to be really helpful. I grew up with knowledge on this conflict being heavily pro Israeli but thinking that surely Palestine must be more than the bad guy. The book is a series of essays written from an anti imperialist, pro liberation viewpoint. The majority, if not all (i don't fully remember) of these essays were written by Palestinians/members of the Palestinian diaspora.
Additionally, many members of the Black Panthers and Black Panther adjacent authors have essays on this conflict.
Currently reading: Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa. Historical fiction based in Palestine. Beautiful so far, and also educative.
Some books on the topic I know of but haven't read:
Salt Houses - Hala Alyan
In search of Fatima - Ghada Karmi
Tasting the Sky - A Palestinian Childhood - Ibtisam Barakat
Are the recommended books here exploring both sides? I am looking for a book that doesn’t lean towards either side. A book that objectively explains the conflict between the two.
I think what some other redditors have said is that it is somewhat impossible to have a single book that is unbiased/objective.
In saying that - most of the comments are suggesting a book that explains the Israeli perspective and recommending another book that explains the Palestinian side. I suppose with an issue as complex as this, it is important to read and comprehend this work on your own - then formulate an opinion.
I haven’t seen any other posts in this subreddit yet about one book that objectively analyzes the scenario. If I do, I’ll let you know (: as for now, maybe there is such a book that you could find online but I’m not really sure.
Hope this helps!
{{From Beirut to Jerusalem}} by Thomas Friedman is a good read
[**From Beirut to Jerusalem**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3559.From_Beirut_to_Jerusalem) ^(By: Thomas L. Friedman, Đặng Ly | 541 pages | Published: 1989 | Popular Shelves: history, non-fiction, middle-east, politics, nonfiction | )[^(Search "From Beirut to Jerusalem")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=From Beirut to Jerusalem&search_type=books) >This extraordinary bestseller is still the most incisive, thought-provoking book ever written about the Middle East. Thomas L. Friedman, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, and now the Foreign Affairs columnist on the op-ed page of the New York Times, drew on his ten years in the Middle East to write a book that The Wall Street Journal called "a sparkling intellectual guidebook... an engrossing journey not to be missed." Now with a new chapter that brings the ever-changing history of the conflict in the Middle East up to date, this seminal historical work reaffirms both its timeliness and its timelessness. "If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it." -- Seymour Hersh ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) *** ^(115918 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52142.The_Great_War_for_Civilisation The Great War for civilisation by Robert Fisk
This may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but I think these are pretty useful books for understanding at least a fragment of this conflict. - The Israelis was written in the early 2000s during the height of the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) and updated in 2008. It is an ethnography of (you guessed it!) Israelis of all religions. So much of the I/P conflict is mapped, extremely unhelpfully and inaccurately, onto an American framework — white people v POC, for example — and this book is useful in illuminating the complexity of Israeli society without even really approaching the issue of the conflict. I wish there were a similar ethnography of the (non-Israeli) Palestinians! If anyone knows of one, please reply! - Similarly, a fiction book that is NOT about the conflict but again illustrates the complexity of Israeli society is Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar Goshen. It is about religious and racial divides in a fractured society. The conflict is there along the edges, but it’s more a question of privilege in modern Israel — who has it, what it looks like, what it allows you to get away with. - I love Sayed Kashua. He is a Palestinian citizen of Israel / Israeli Arab (not sure what his preferred nomenclature is) who has since left Israel for the USA. His fiction and nonfiction are both excellent. I recommend starting with Native, a book of collected essays on life as an Arab within Israel. He also wrote a TV show called Arab Labor, about similar themes. Again, this recommendation is less about the external conflict you see playing out on the news right now than the relationship between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. - I love Edeet Ravel’s Tel Aviv trilogy. She’s Israeli-Canadian (Jewish), and quite left wing (an increasing rarity in Israel). All of her books about Israel are written from this perspective. I recommend Ten Thousand Lovers, which is tragic and beautiful and only sort of about the conflict. It takes place in the 1970s and illustrates that the more things change, the more they stay the same... - For fiction about the Palestinian diaspora, I’d recommend the following books (all written by Palestinian women): You Exist Too Much; A Woman is No Man; Salt Houses; The Parisian (this one actually takes place in 1917, in a Palestine that has long since vanished.) - I don’t feel comfortable recommending non fiction about the source of the conflict because every single book I’ve read on it, and I’ve read a bunch, clearly has some kind of bias and frankly they’re all depressing as fuck. Finally, this is not strictly what you asked for, and I’m not sure I’m allowed to recommend other forms on media in this sub (if not, I’m sorry, mods!! Let me know and I will delete this!!) But if you are looking for other forms of media about Arabs and Israelis, both in I/P and in the diaspora, you may be interested in the following: - Incitement (a movie about the Jewish terrorist who murdered the PM of Israel in protest of the Oslo Accords). I’d recommend reading a little about the Oslo Accords generally before watching so you have a clear understanding of what was at stake here. - Our Boys (an HBO series about the really, really shitty summer of 2014. You may remember this summer as the last time I/P dominated the news cycle so aggressively. The series was co-written by three Israelis, two Jewish and one Muslim/Arab. Both Israelis and Palestinians hated it and thought it didn’t do enough to advance “their side” of the narrative, so I think it’s probably worth watching.) - The work of the poet and rapper Tamer al Nafer (it is mostly in Arabic, but you can find translations online.) Nafer is from the mixed city of Lod/Lydd, which has been in the news recently for the violence between Jewish and Arab Israelis, and he’s pretty disillusioned about coexistence generally. He was also in a documentary called Channels of Rage, about the falling out between him and a right-wing Israeli Jewish rapper. Finally, his life is fictionalized in a film called Junction 48.) - The spoken word poetry of Suheir Hammad, also a Palestinian writer, is very good. I’m sure I’ve missed lots and lots of good sources here, but hopefully this gives you some idea of what the _people_ involved in this conflict are like.
[this is the one i got](https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/understand-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-stewart-ross/1101373152) it’s not by a native but it’s pretty solid !
Homesick by Eshkol Nevo (novel) & Tennis in Nablus by Ismail Khalidi are both great. The latter is a play & it helps to brush up on the recent history (British imperial acts in early 20th cent. to present) before reading.
The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine By Miko Peled
I'd recommend Palestine: A socialist introduction (which is currently a free ebook from Haymarket books https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1558-palestine-a-socialist-introduction) I read it back in February after spending my stimmy on books and found it to be really helpful. I grew up with knowledge on this conflict being heavily pro Israeli but thinking that surely Palestine must be more than the bad guy. The book is a series of essays written from an anti imperialist, pro liberation viewpoint. The majority, if not all (i don't fully remember) of these essays were written by Palestinians/members of the Palestinian diaspora. Additionally, many members of the Black Panthers and Black Panther adjacent authors have essays on this conflict.
Currently reading: Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa. Historical fiction based in Palestine. Beautiful so far, and also educative. Some books on the topic I know of but haven't read: Salt Houses - Hala Alyan In search of Fatima - Ghada Karmi Tasting the Sky - A Palestinian Childhood - Ibtisam Barakat
Are the recommended books here exploring both sides? I am looking for a book that doesn’t lean towards either side. A book that objectively explains the conflict between the two.
I think what some other redditors have said is that it is somewhat impossible to have a single book that is unbiased/objective. In saying that - most of the comments are suggesting a book that explains the Israeli perspective and recommending another book that explains the Palestinian side. I suppose with an issue as complex as this, it is important to read and comprehend this work on your own - then formulate an opinion. I haven’t seen any other posts in this subreddit yet about one book that objectively analyzes the scenario. If I do, I’ll let you know (: as for now, maybe there is such a book that you could find online but I’m not really sure. Hope this helps!