Book reviews

Displaced Palestinians return to what is left of their homes in the Shuja'iya neighborhood, east of Gaza city, January 28, 2025. (Yousef Zaanoun/Activestills)

The Western liberal’s moral collapse in Gaza

Omar El Akkad’s new book explores why the West only venerates resistance in hindsight, and how we might reconstruct humanity from the ashes of genocide.

By Amir Rotem July 7, 2025

Palestinians march during a rally marking the anniversary of the Nakba in the West Bank city of Nablus, May 15, 2024. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

How do we tell the story of the Nakba when the plot hasn’t ended?

Elias Khoury’s new book encapsulates the symbiotic relationship between literature and the Nakba, exploring its nature as a continuum of calamities.

By Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani May 15, 2024

Pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protesters face off as thousands march in the streets of London against the celebration of the 100th anniversary for the Balfour Declaration, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joining the event, November 4, 2017. (Ahmad Al-Bazz/Activestills)

Inventing the new antisemitism

Israel and its acolytes have long pushed the agenda that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Jewish racism. A new book shows how this endeavor came at the expense of Palestinians and diaspora Jews alike.

By Em Hilton January 16, 2023

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Palestinian youth Ahed Tamimi and her mother, Nariman, are welcomed by family and friends in their village, Nabi Saleh, following their release from an Israeli prison after an eight-month sentence, July 29, 2018. (Oren Ziv/Activestills)

A Palestinian ‘lioness’ sets her record straight

Co-written with Dena Takruri, Ahed Tamimi's memoir spotlights the violent context that was missed by the media's fixation with her slapping of a soldier.

By Sarah Ariyan Sakha November 21, 2022

Soldiers from the Kfir Brigade at an IDF swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall, Jerusalem, December 24, 2015. (Israel Defense Forces/CC BY-NC 2.0)

A most moral violence

A new collection of essays explores how the Israeli army justifies its violence against Palestinians — and why Israeli society so readily accepts its abuses.

By Noam Sheizaf December 29, 2021

Hundreds of members of the Arab Liberation Army attend the funeral of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni at the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, April 8, 1948. (GPO)

Who fought in 1948?

A new book uncovers letters by Jewish and Arab fighters from the 1948 war, highlighting the personal lives of those who fought to establish Israel and those who tried to defend Palestine.

By Tom Pessah September 22, 2021

A model of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi is displayed at the center of the Rawabi project site, Feb. 23, 2014. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

The Palestinian city that mimics its colonizers

The West Bank city of Rawabi illustrates how Palestinian capitalists are trying — and failing — to form a middle class by mirroring Israel's neoliberal policies.

By Matan Kaminer August 29, 2021

Israelis hold flags and dance during the Flag March at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, June 15, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Liberal Zionism is dying. Will foregoing the Jewish state save it?

A new book calls for Zionism to be re-envisioned as a binational project in order to shed Jewish historical trauma and salvage democratic values.

By Shaul Magid August 10, 2021

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stands with Mpho Franklyn Parks Tau, Mayor of the city of Johannesburg, in front of the new Mandela statue during the inauguration of Nelson Mandela Square in the West Bank city of Ramallah, April 26, 2016. (Flash90)

Do Palestinians really want a South African solution?

Mahmood Mamdani believes Palestinians and Israelis should build a state that transcends their national identities. Here are three problems with his case.

By Dana El Kurd July 14, 2021

Proud Boys participating in a neo-Confederate protest in Pittsboro, North Carolina on October 26, 2019. (Anthony Crider/ CC BY 2.0)

Disrupting the dark web of white supremacy

In ‘Culture Warlords,’ Talia Lavin goes beyond exposing the underbelly of the far right in the United States — she actively resists it.

By Shane Burley November 11, 2020

View of the separation wall as seen from the Palestinian town of Abu Dis. February 26, 2017. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

The Israeli center’s road to endless occupation

'Catch-67' claims to find a middle ground between the left's and right's concerns over the occupation. Its real proposal is to keep the status quo intact.

By Joshua Leifer January 23, 2020

Israeli police fire tear gas at protesting Palestinian youths in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, October 6, 2015. (Flash90)

Everything you think you know about Israeli-Palestinian peace is wrong

Israelis and Palestinians have grown the furthest apart during periods of quiet; it is in times of violence that the two nations have suddenly become flexible in their positions. That defies everything we tell ourselves about prospects for peace, and everything the world has told Palestinians they must do to achieve it. A review of…

By Noam Sheizaf September 20, 2017

‘Literature’s task is to pose alternatives to political reality’

A conversation, not an agreement. Beth Kissileff talks politics, literature, Israel, Diaspora, conformity, and literature's role in shaping the world with Shimon Adaf and Lavie Tidhar, authors of ‘Art and War.’

By +972 Magazine May 7, 2016