Readings on Palestine

Every week, on alternate Fridays and Sundays, The Left Berlin hosts a reading group on different topics related to Palestine. This is a collection of the topics and readings that we’ve covered so far, which we are continually updating.

For more information on the next reading group, check the updates on our Instagram and the events page on our website. To help organize or moderate, join our Telegram channel.

 

What is Zionism?

Suggested Reading

  • We Are Conquerors Adam Shatz, London Review of Books- (review of David Ben Gurion’s biography, background on Zionism and the founding of Israel)
  • Ilan Pappé, The Idea of Israel, Chapter 1 “The ‘Objective’ History of the Land and People” p 14- 21
  • Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, chapter 2 ‘The Drive for an exclusively Jewish State’, p 10-29

Supplementary Viewing

Supplementary Listening

 

Palestinian Resistance

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

  • “Comes a Time We Are All Enthusiasm”: Understanding Palestinian Suicide Bombers in Times of Exighophobia (Ghassan Hage)
  • Israeli Control and Palestinian Resistance (Fouad Moughrabi)
  • Hamas Contained (see link above) (Chapter 2: Military Resistance Comes Undone, Chapter 3: The Politics of Resistance, and Conclusion: Containment and Pacification)

Supplementary Listening

 

German Memory Culture

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

Supplementary Viewing

 

The One State and Two State Solutions

Recommended Reading

Short articles

Recommended Watching

Recommended listening

Supplementary Reading

And if you really want to follow the discussion, we recommend this book

  • Edward W. Said The End of the Peace Process. Oslo and After

 

The Arab States and the Arab Street

Suggested Reading:

Supplementary Viewing:

 

Who are the Agents who can bring about change?

Suggested Reading:

Supplementary Reading:

 

Why do the US and Europe fund Israel?

Suggested reading:

 

Post-colonialism, colonialism and settler colonialism

Suggested reading

Additional Reading

 

Countering common narratives

NOTE: these are pro-Israel texts which we want to answer

Recommended Reading

The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary

  • Chapter 3, How to talk about Palestinian self government and prosperity, pp. 22-32
  • Chapter 4, Isolating Iran-backed Hamas as an obstacle to peace, pp. 33 – 38
  • Chapter 6, Gaza: Israel’s right to self defense and defensible borders, pp. 45-58
  • Appendix 1, The toughest questions, pp. 103-106

Examples of Brand Israel

Matti Friedman, An insider’s guide to the most important story on earth,

Creative Community for Peace, The truth about the BDS movement

Hillel Neuer, The Jew Among nations – Israel and the UN, 2022 – YouTube or podcast

Yossi Klein Halevi, What Israelis fear the world does not understand

Howard Jacobson, The founding of Israel wasn’t a colonial act,

Hamas Raped Me Too website [content note: images of bound and gagged woman in blood soaked trousers in distress in video on home page]

Deborah Lipstadt and Michèle Taylor, Israeli women and girls have suffered horrific sexual violence from Hamas. where is the outrage?

Reading in German (please use DeepL or another online translation service if needed)

Additional resources

  • Anne Herzberg and Olga Meshoe Washington, Debunking the Apartheid Lie, YouTube or podcast

  • Scroll through headlines on the Israel21c website homepage which works with the Israeli Foreign Ministry to focus attention on ‘the 21st century Israel that exists beyond the conflict’ so that by ‘promoting positive images of Israel and Israelis, people will come to view Israelis as more like themselves and understand the relevance of Israel to their own lives’

For a (perhaps unnecessarily) deeper dive

 

How other Colonies were liberated

Recommended Reading

Further Viewing

Further Reading

 

Violence of the Oppressed

Suggested Reading:

Supplementary Reading: –

Text Summaries:

Supplementary Viewing:

 

The Israeli “Left”

Suggested Reading

Supplementars Listening

Supplementary Reading

 

Palestinians in the Diaspora

Suggested reading:

Supplementary Reading on the Palestinian diaspora in Germany:

Recommended viewing:

Recommended listening

Supplementary Reading

Books (longer read, not for the Reading Group):

  • Mourid Barghouti: I saw Ramallah
  • Edward Said: Out of place

 

Reading Kanafani

Suggested Reading

Suggested Viewing

Pinkwashing and purplewashing

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

Supplementary Viewing

Supplementary Listening

 

Militarism and How Israel Exports its Occupation

Recommended Reading

Supplementary Reading

Supplementary Listenting

 

Manufacturing global Islamophobia

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

Supplementary Viewing

 

Feminist Perspectives on the Occupation of Palestine

Suggested Reading

Suggested Listening

Supplementary Reading

Supplementary Listening

Supplementary Viewing

 

The ICJ ruling and the limitations of international law

Suggested  Viewing:

Suggested Reading:

For reference: full ICJ documents:

 

Socialist perspectives on Palestinian liberation

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

Supplementary Viewing

 

Literary Text – Saeed – The PessOptimist

Suggested Reading

 

Iran and Israel

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

 

Who are the Antideutsche?

Recommended Reading

Supplementary Reading

 

Palestine and Climate Change

Suggested readings
Additional reading:  

 

Effect of the Collapse of the USSR on Palestine

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

 

Antisemitism: Definitions and pitfalls

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

Read critically

Supplementary Viewing

 

Mental Health as a Colonial tool

Recommended reading:

Supplementary reading:

Supplementary viewing:

 

Economics of the Israel-Palestine conflict

Recommended Reading

Supplementary Reading

 

Palestinian poetry

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

Supplementary Viewing

 

Pan-Arabism

Suggested Reading

Supplementary Reading

 

Mainstream and Critical Definitions of “Terrorism”

Suggested Reading:

Supplementary Reading:

 

How the Western media lie about Palestine

Recommended Reading

Supplementary Reading

Books to read on the general subject of media

  • Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky  Manufacturing Consent
  • John Molyneux  Will the Revolution be televised?

 

Israel and South Africa – Similarities and Differences

Recommended Reading

Supplementary Listening

Supplementary Reading

 

Syria, Assad and Israel

Recommended Reading

Supplementary Reading

 

Will Zionism Collapse?

Reommended Reading

Recommended Viewing

Supplementary Reading

 

What is the Israel lobby?

Recommended Reading

Supplementary Reading

 

How to Speak to Germans about Palestine

Building strategies

Helpful arguments to use

Further videos

Understanding the German Context (all in German)