Reading Through the Trauma

How do you get a handle on things when no two accounts agree?

Photo by Eddie Kopp on Unsplash

News of a possible Hamas-Israel ceasefire and hostage exchange has raised a lot of people’s hopes that finally, finally something positive could happen in the Middle East.

As a reasonably smart, sorta decently read American Jewish journalist who has been struggling to make sense of this conflict for many years (but especially since October 7^th), I have to say that there’s not much in the way of positivity in the history of this region.

Over the last year-and-some, I’ve been soaking up as much as possible about what’s happened and is still happening in Israel. I feel like I’m doing an unofficial PhD on the Arab-Israeli conflict, being sucked down one extensive rabbit hole after another. (Does anyone want to actually give me a PhD for doing this? I’m game.)

When I searched for relevant books in my university’s library, I found hundreds. Books, articles, pamphlets, you name it, published over the last century and then some. It was overwhelming, both literally and figuratively. Where do you start with such a wealth of information?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

As a journalist I chose to begin educating myself with the most reputable sources from the widest variety of perspectives. I grew up hearing about the conflict from the Israeli side only, so I started with Edward Said’s book The Question of Palestine, published in 1979 and updated in 1992. Since then I’ve read half a dozen other books (I’ll add the running list at the end of this post), and I have a lot of thoughts about all of them.

But the one I want to share here today is, I think, most relevant to anyone who’s trying to make sense of this long, layered מצב, or situation: Every time I read one source and think, That makes sense, I find it’s been countered by another source that tears it to shreds. The rules here are constantly changing. Even when I find a source who seems reliable—Israeli historian Benny Morris, for instance, who wrote a respected book about the origins of the 1948 war—I learn something new that calls that perspective into question. (In this case, it’s the fact that Morris’s viewpoint seems to have shifted right over the last few years.)

At this point, I barely trust anything I read. Every narrative seems biased, which of course they are, because we’re human beings with opinions and points of view, not machines. There’s no such thing as objectivity when it comes to history (or much of anything else, but that’s another story).

There is often some level of consensus, though. The details might vary but the general outlines agree. But not in this case. Every account of the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to have a different point of view, and those points of view agree on nothing.

So rather than try to find some fundamental Truth with a capital T, I’m reading now for smaller truths. I’ll write about some of them in my next post.

Here’s a list of what I’ve read so far. Maybe we should start a book club? I’d love your suggestions too.

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Reading List

Helman, Anat. Becoming Israeli: National Ideals and Everyday Life in the 1950s. Brandeis University Press, 2014.

(in process) Morris, Benny. 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press, 2008.

Peters, Joan. From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Over Palestine. 1984.

Said, Edward W. The Question of Palestine. Vintage, 1992.

(in process) Shavit, Ari. My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. Random House, 2013.

Tal, David. Israeli Identity : Between Orient and Occident. Routledge, 2013.

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On my night table (currently threatening to collapse):

Finkelstein, Norm. Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End. O/R Books, 2012.

Finkelstein, Norm. Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Verso, 1995.

Horn, Dara. People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present. W.W. Norton & Company, 2021.

Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Harvard University Press, 1991.

Khalidi, Rashid. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Metropolitan Books, 2020.

Oren, Michael B. Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. Norton, 2007.

Pappe, Ilan. Ten Myths About Israel. Verso, 2017.

Schneer, Jonathan. The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Random House, 2012.