Recommended Reading
This is a partial list of the books that I have found helpful in deepening my understanding of the history, society and politics of Palestine/Israel and the religious background to the conflict.
Bible and Theology in the Conflict
Walter Brueggemann (1933-2025) wrote a classic study of the theme of the land in the Bible. His first edition almost completely ignored the contemporary question of Palestine/Israel and the conflict there. A later edition included a superb introduction to the question:
Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, second edition 2002.
He also produced a short guide the issue of the Palestine/Israel conflict:
Walter Brueggemann, Chosen? Reading the Bible amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, John Knox Press, Louisville, 2016.
Rosemary Radford Ruether (1936-2022) was a Catholic, feminist theologian who was also a critical thinker about Palestine/Israel. Her writings include a classical study of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism and a critique of Zionism.
Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism, New York 1974, Seabury Press.
Rosemary Radford Ruether and Herman Ruether, The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Minneapolis, Augsburg Fortress, 2002.
Nur Masalha (b. 1957) is a Palestinian historian based in the United Kingdom. He has written extensively on Palestine/Israel, among which are:
Nur Masalha, The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism, in Palestine-Israel, London, Zed Books, 2007.
Nur Masalha and Lisa Isherwoord, Theologies of Liberation in Palestine-Israel: Indigenous, Contextual, and Postcolonial Perspectives, Eugene, Pickwick Publications, 2014.
Stephen Sizer (b. 1953) is an Anglican priest in England who has researched Christian Zionism. He is a strident voice for Palestinian rights.
Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism: Road Map to Armageddon? Lisle, InterVarsity Press, 2004.
Israel – History and Politics
Martin Buber (1878-1965) was a Jewish philosopher and theologian who moved to Palestine from Germany in the 1930s. He promoted Jewish-Arab coexistence and was very troubled by the militarism of the Zionist movement and the Nakba in 1948.
Martin Buber, A Land of Two People: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs (edited by Paul Mendes Flohr), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Shlomo Avineri (1933-2023) was an eminent Israeli political scientist who taught at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His works include:
Shlomo Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism, New York, Basic Books 2017.
Shlomo Avineri, Herzl: Theodor Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State, London, W&N, 2013.
Ilan Pappe (b. 1954) is an Israeli historian living in England. He has written extensively on the history of the state of Israel and the Palestinians.
Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, London, Oneworld, 2006.
Ilan Pappe, Ten Myths About Israel, New York, Verso. 2017.
Ilan Pappe, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, London: Oneworld, 2024.
Avi Shlaim (b. 1945) is a historian of Jewish Iraqi descent, grew up in Israel and moved to England. He has written extensively on Palestine/Israel.
Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.
Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew, London, Oneworld, 2023.
Hillel Cohen (b. 1961) is an Israeli historian. His writing also analyses relations between Jews and Palestinians in the twentieth century.
Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948, Berkley, University of California Press, 2008.
Hillel Cohen, Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Agencies and the Israeli Arabs, 1948–1967, Berkley, University of California Press, 2010.
Hillel Cohen, Enemies, a Love Story: Mizrahi-Arab-Ashkenazi Relations Since the Dawn of Zionism, University Park, Penn State University Press, 2025.
Ella Shohat (b. 1959) is a Jewish-Arab Israeli US scholar of cultural studies, who has written extensively on Jewish Arabs and the Palestine/Israel conflict.
Ella Shohat, On the Arab-Jew, Palestine and Other Displacements, London, Pluto Press, 2017.
Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation, London, IB Taurus, 2010.
Ammiel Alcalay (b. 1956) is a New York professor of literature and cultural studies. He has written on the interrelationship of Jewish and Arab cultural milieux.
Ammiel Alcalay, After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture, Chicago, University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Ammiel Alcalay, Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing, San Francisco, City Lights Publisher, 1996.
Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) is a US linguist and outspoken intellectual. His critique of Zionism and the state of Israel as well as US foreign policy in the Middle East has been resounding.
Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe, Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the US-Israeli War Against the Palestinians, Chicago, Haymarket Books, 2013.
Noam Chomsky, Power and Terror: Conflict, Hegemony, and the Rule of Force, London, Pluto Press, 2011.
Amos Goldberg (b. 1966) is an Israeli scholar of Jewish history at Hebrew University and outspoken in his criticism of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. He and Bashir Bashir (b. 1976), a Palestinian Arab citizen of Israel, have edited an important work on the convergence of the Shoah and the Nakba.
Bashir, Bashir; Goldberg, Amos (2018). The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History, New York, Columbia University Press, 2018.
Palestine – History and Politics
Edward Said (1935-2003) was an eminent Palestinian thinker whose publications framed discourse on Palestine for decades. Based in New York, a professor of literary theory, among his works are the following:
Edward Said, The Question of Palestine, New York, Vintage, 1992 (first edition 1979).
Edward Said, Orientalism, New York, Vintage, 1979.
Edward Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, New York, Vintage, 1997.
Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens (editors), Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, New York, Verso Books, 2001.
Rashid Khalidi (b. 1948) is a US Palestinian scholar who has written extensively on the history, politics and society of Palestine/Israel. Among his many writings are:
Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, New York, Columbia University Press, 1997.
Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017, New York, St Martin’s Press, 2021.
Rosemary Sayigh (b. 1927) is a British scholar who spent much of her life in the Middle East. She wrote an important history of the Palestinians.
Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries; A People’s History, London, Zed Books, 1979.
Critical Jewish Voices
Daniel Boyarin (b. 1946) is a US academic, specialist in Talmudic Judaism and the ancient Jewish and Christian worlds. His books on Zionism and Judaism are seminal in defining the challenges Judaism faces in our age.
Daniel Boyarin, The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1923.
Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin, Powers of Diaspora: Two Essays On The Relevance of Jewish Culture, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Shaul Magid (b. 1958), an American-Israeli academic, he has written extensively on Judaism and the dilemmas of contemporary Jews.
Shaul Magid, The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, New York, Ayin Press, 2023.
Enzo Traverso (b. 1957) is a Jewish Italian scholar who has researched Jewish modernity.
Enzo Traverso, The End of Jewish Modernity, London, Pluto Press, 2016.
Peter Beinart (b. 1971) is a Jewish journalist and writer in the United States. He has produced a number of books on Israel and Zionism but his most recent marks the changes in Jewish thinking as a result of the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza and the genocide that was perpetrated there.
Peter Beinart, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza, New York, Knopf, 2025.
Norman Finkelstein (b. 1953) is a US Jewish academic, a strong critic of Zionism and Israel, whose work is provocative and thought-provoking.
Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, London, Verso, 2003.
Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005.
Judith Butler (b. 1956) is a Jewish US feminist philosopher, who has written on Israel, Zionism and Judaism.
Judith Butler, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism, New York, Columbia University Press, 2012.
Marc Ellis (1952-2024) was a Jewish theologian who wrote extensively on Judaism in the age of Zionism, criticising the policies of the state of Israel. Among his works are:
Marc Ellis, Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation, Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1987.
Christian Palestinian Voices
Michel Sabbah (b. 1933) served as Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1988 to 2008. He was the first Palestinian to serve in this role. His pastoral letters, sermons and other writings influenced whole generations of Christians in Palestine and throughout the Middle East. He drew attention to the plight of the Palestinians and the need for equality, justice and peace.
Michel Sabbah, Faithful Witness: Michel Sabbah on Peace and Reconciliation in the Holy Land, New York, New City Press, 2009.
Naim Ateek (b. 1937) is a veteran Christian Palestinian theologian, an Anglican priest, who was the first to adopt the term Liberation Theology to describe his theological reading of the Palestine-Israel conflict. He has produced a number of volumes that have marked Christian understanding of what is going on in the conflict. Among these are:
Naim Ateek, Justice, and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation, Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 1989.
Naim Ateek with Cedar Duaybis and Maurine Tobin, eds. Challenging Christian Zionism, London, Melisende, 2005.
Naim Ateek, A Palestinian Theology of Liberation, Maryknoll, Orbis Books, 2017.
Mitri Raheb (b. 1962) is a Palestinian theologian, Lutheran pastor and activist. His works have been an important contribution to Christian thinking about the Palestine/Israel conflict. Among his works are:
Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes, Maryknoll, Orbis, 2014.
Mitri Raheb, The Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire, Waco, Baylor University Press, 2021.
Mitri Raheb, Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible, Maryknoll, Orbis, 2023.
Munther Isaac (b. 1979) is a Palestinian theologian and activist. He serves as a Lutheran pastor and has published important works on the Bible and the Palestinian experience. Among these are:
Munther Isaac, From Land to Lands, from Eden to the Renewed Earth: A Christ-Centred Biblical Theology of the Promised Land, Carlisle, Langham Monographs, 2015.
Munther Isaac, The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope, Lisle, IVP, 2020.
Munther Isaac, Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2025.
John Munayer and his brother Samuel represent a new generation of Christian Palestinian theologians. The volume they have edited presents writings of this new generation.
John S. Munayer and Samuel S. Munayer (editors), The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology amid Gaza, Maryknoll, Orbis Press, 2025.
The Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Assembly of Ordinaries in the Holy Land served as a thinktank for the Church, regularly reflecting on all aspects of the life of the Church in Palestine/Israel. In 2019, the Commission published a collection of their statements as well as a description of the Church in the Holy Land.
Justice and Peace Commission, Is Peace Possible? Christian Palestinians Speak, Jerusalem, Latin Patriarchate Printing Press, 2019.