Scroll down to see the books in this category.
These collections of books have been assembled from many sources of recommended reading on Israel/Palestine, including: the United Church of Christ (UCC) and UCC PIN, Sabeel, Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JFJFP) and others.
Presented in the following categories on individual pages:
• About/By Palestinian Christians
• Religion; The Bible; Christian Zionism
• History
• Personal Histories: Memoirs, Autobiographies
• Political Analysis; Diplomatic History
• The Current Situation
• Activism; Resistance; Solidarity; Intersectional Justice
• Novels; Short Stories; Poetry
• About Palestinians inside Israel
• Zionism; Jewish Identity
• Faith Relations; Anti-Semitism
• Visual Arts; Crafts (poetry moved to new list)
• Tourism; The Politics of Tourism
• Children’s Books
Some books are listed in more than one category.
Please send us your suggestions for additions to these lists; contact us at [email protected].
The order of the books within each category is random and is not related to the importance of the work.
The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story
By Ramzy Baroud
This is a history of modern Palestine like no other: built from the testimony of people who have lived through it. Ramzy Baroud here gathers accounts from countless Palestinians from all walks of life, and from throughout the decades, to tell the story of the nation and its struggle for independence and security. Challenging both academic and popular takes on Palestinian history, Baroud unearths here the deep commonalities within the story of Palestine, ones that draw the people together despite political divisions, geographical barriers and walls, factionalism, occupation, and exile. Through these firsthand reports—by turns inspiring and terrifying, triumphant and troubled—we see Palestine in all its complexity and contradictions, ever vibrant in the memories of the people who have fought, physically and otherwise, for its future. A remarkable book, The Last Earth will be essential to understanding the struggles in the contemporary Middle East.
“At times reminiscent of the storytelling of the iconic Gabriel García Márquez, Baroud mingles past, present, dreams, and fantasy to forge a document that demands respect and rejects pity. . . . Engrossing . . . A vital and inspiring document.”
― Truthout
“In the finest tradition of people’s history, these sensitive, painful and evocative pieces provide a human face to the painful saga of Palestinian torment and the remarkable courage and resilience of the victims.”
– Noam Chomsky
“This book is a powerful tool to revive and record the human history of al Nakba, the largest, longest, most comprehensive and still continuous ethnic cleansing in Palestine’s history. Al Nakba is not a traffic accident but a process subjecting its victims to a constant tragedy across many countries and many decades… a must read for all those who want to see the concealed human dimension of the Palestinian life and suffering.”
– Salman Abu Sitta, Author of Mapping my Return and the Atlas of Palestine
“Hundreds of Palestinian writers and bloggers around the world sent in their stories and the book was worked out over Skype interviews—all part of Baroud’s Herculean efforts to condense the narrative into complete, rich stories while staying true to each individual account. . . . The loss and forced relocation recorded by Baroud is overwhelming, but important to read and remember.”
― Arab News
Israel/Palestine and the Queer International
By Sarah Schulman
In this chronicle of political awakening and queer solidarity, the activist and novelist Sarah Schulman describes describes her dawning consciousness of the Palestinian liberation struggle. Invited to Israelto give the keynote address at an LGBT studies conference at TelAviv University, Schulman declines, joining other artists and academics honoring the Palestinian call for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. Anti-occupation activists in the United States,Canada, Israel, and Palestine come together to help organize an alternative solidarity visit for the American activist. Schulman take sus to an anarchist, vegan café in Tel Aviv, where she meets anti-occupation queer Israelis, and through border checkpoints into theWest Bank, where queer Palestinian activists welcome her into their spaces for conversations that will change the course of her life. She describes the dusty roads through the West Bank, where Palestinians are cut off from water and subjected to endless restrictions while Israeli settler neighborhoods have full freedoms and resources.
As Schulman learns more, she questions the contradiction between Israel’s investment in presenting itself as gay friendly—financially sponsoring gay film festivals and parades—and its denial of the rights of Palestinians. At the same time, she talks with straightPalestinian activists about their position in relation to homosexuality and gay rights inPalestine and internationally. Back in the United States, Schulman draws on her extensive activist experience to organize a speaking tour for some of the Palestinian queer leaders whom she had met and trusted. Dubbed “Al-Tour,” it takes the activists to LGBT community centers, conferences, and universities throughout the United States. Its success solidifies her commitment to working to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and it kindles her larger hope that a new “queer international” will emerge and join other movements demanding human rights across the globe.
Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique
By Sa’ed Atshan
From Ramallah to New York, Tel Aviv to Porto Alegre, people around the world celebrate a formidable, transnational Palestinian LGBTQ social movement. Solidarity with Palestinians has become a salient domain of global queer politics. Yet LGBTQ Palestinians, even as they fight patriarchy and imperialism, are themselves subjected to an “empire of critique” from Israeli and Palestinian institutions, Western academics, journalists and filmmakers, and even fellow activists. Such global criticism has limited growth and led to an emphasis within the movement on anti-imperialism over the struggle against homophobia.
With this book, Sa’ed Atshan asks how transnational progressive social movements can balance struggles for liberation along more than one axis. He explores critical junctures in the history of Palestinian LGBTQ activism, revealing the queer Palestinian spirit of agency, defiance, and creativity, in the face of daunting pressures and forces working to constrict it. Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique explores the necessity of connecting the struggles for Palestinian freedom with the struggle against homophobia.
“This utterly brilliant book will be a classic. Sa’ed Atshan’s comprehensive study of queer Palestinian activism provides a rich understanding of the complex intersections of selfhood, activism, and belonging. By demonstrating the limits of binarisms of East/West and self/other through detailed empirical analysis and powerful theoretical interventions, Atshan has given us a landmark work valuable to Middle East studies, queer studies, and anthropology in the broadest sense.”
―Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine, author of The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia
“Sa’ed Atshan brilliantly weaves together ethnography and personal experience in the most thoughtful, engaging, and emotionally captivating ways. His sophisticated work captures the nexus of a scholar-activist, offering an authoritative account of the challenges and trajectory of the Palestinian LGBTQ movement. A tour de force and a remarkable book for both its theoretical and empirical contributions.”
―Amaney A. Jamal, Princeton University
“This powerful and prophetic book shows that the struggle for justice and freedom against empire and homophobia are indivisible. Sa’ed Atshan’s text is a major intellectual force for good.”
―Cornel West, Harvard University
Glory to God in the Lowest: An American Evangelical Christian Man’s Awakening to Palestine
By Don Wagner
A personal, political, and religious journey from Evangelical Christian faith and conservative politics to solidarity with the poor and advocacy for anti-war, anti-racism, and Palestinian rights
After serving for five years as a pastor in a remarkable Black church, Donald Wagner comes to fully understand the original sin of racism. As his journey continues, he encounters another marginalized people—the Palestinians—and witnesses their struggle for justice and equality. Touched by their resilience and fight against injustice, he leaves the pastorate to assume full time work as an advocate for Palestinian political and human rights.
The memoir begins in mid-September 1982, with a gut-wrenching day interviewing survivors of the Sabra-Shatila massacre in Lebanon, as they wept and waited for the bodies of family members to be pulled from the rubble. Donald Wagner’s conversation with the local Imam ended with a challenge: “You must return home and tell what you have seen. This is all we ask. Go back and tell the truth.”
”Glory to God in the Lowest” is a metaphor for his counter intuitive journey with the victims of the “chosen people” in the“unholy land,” also called historic Palestine or Israel. The irony of the journey reminds us that God is everywhere especially with the disinherited, the victims of the powerful, including the victims of Israeli oppression.
The memoir touches on history and includes political analysis and theological reflection. Init, Donald Wagner describes Israel’s continued colonization and destruction of Palestinian lives and chronicles his involvement in a grassroots movement of resistance that demands justice based on full equality, an end to the Israeli military occupation and settler colonization project, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and full political rights for the Palestinian people.
Filled with stories—some humorous and some shocking—as well as encounters with people of every race, gender, and religious affiliation working below the radar, this book will inspire, challenge, and offer a narrative that envisions a transformed “unholy land,” where justice, liberation, and equality for all is the reality for every citizen.
“Glory to God in the Lowest provides a rare view of the spiritual turmoil which led Don Wagner, an untypical Christian Evangelical, to a painful life journey of unpredictable commitment to helping ‘the Lowest,’ or the Palestinian, and discovering along the way what is unholy about American foreign policy and its totem pole of values.”
—Ghada Hashem Talhami, D. K. Pearson’s Professor of Politics, emeriti, Lake Forest College
“If you have never read a single book about the struggle for justice and peace in Israel and Palestine, this is the one I hope you’ll read. If you’ve read a lot, and are about to give up hope, this is also the book I hope you’ll read. Glory to God in the Lowest not only helps you understand the situation in the so-called Holy Land; it also helps you feel the pain, the longing, the courage, and the love of good people working, praying, and giving their lives to bend the arc of history toward justice. Don Wagner educates and inspires me, and this book will educate and inspire you too.”
—Brian D. McLaren, author of Faith after Doubt
“Compelling … Donald Wagner’s grasp of the truth that powered his battle for justice for all is likely to be a microcosm of what the warring parties and their backers must eventually experience for … peace to reign in this tortured land.”
– Rami G Khouri, American University of Beirut
“Beautifully written, carefully nuanced, and deeply moving … More than a memoir, this welcome book is a model narrative of how we are summoned to go beyond safe ideological assumption to engagement in the deep pain and odd possibilities of our human world.”
– Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Seminary
“Inspiring … A brave journey anchored in truth and driven by justice for Palestine … a spiritual pilgrimage and a theological transformation in favor of the ‘lowest’ … Readers will find Don’s lucid critique of Christian Zionism stimulating and provocative.”
– Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, Co-founder of Sabeel―Jerusalem and author of Justice and Only Justice
“A powerful personal testimony and an incisive political history … Christians, Jews—or anyone concerned with justice in Israel/Palestine—would do well to read this book.”
– Rabbi Brant Rosen, Tzedek Synagogue, Chicago
“A treasured gift … Don Wagner has had the courage to listen to Palestinians, and to speak the truth about Palestine at the times and in the places where silence would have been much easier.”
– Ali Abunimah, Co-founder, Electronic Intifada
“Eye-opening, heart-moving … This is the engrossing story, briskly told, of someone whose experience in the Middle East transformed him from ‘an apathetic, conservative evangelical Christian’ to an energetic and courageous advocate of justice for the Palestinians ….”
– Nicholas Wolterstorff, Emeritus Professor of Philosophical Theology, Yale University
“These are the notes from a modern prophet: often inspiring, frequently passionate, occasionally angry, sometimes generating heated disagreement.”
– Gary M. Burge, Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary
“Wagner’s book is not a mere memoir of a brilliant person who made an impact locally and globally … [He] provides us with that essential contemporary prophetic voice that is much needed to bring peace with justice to our turbulent and changing world … For readers of all faiths, this gently-told story will inspire and motivate us in our own journey to a better future.”
– Mazin Qumsiyeh, Professor at Bethlehem University (Palestine) and author of Sharing the Land of Canaan and Popular Resistance in Palestine
“A gripping memoir … A must read for anyone looking for an eyewitness account of major political and religious developments in the modern Middle East.”
– Rev. Prof. Dr. Mitri Raheb, President, Dar al-Kalima University, Bethlehem, Palestine
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
By Angela Davis
In this collection of essays, interviews, and speeches, the renowned activist examines today’s issues—from Black Lives Matter to prison abolition and more.
Activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis has been a tireless fighter against oppression for decades. Now, the iconic author of Women, Race, and Class offers her latest insights into the struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.
Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today’s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.
Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build a movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that “freedom is a constant struggle.”
Angela Y. Davis is a political activist, scholar, author, and speaker. She is an outspoken advocate for the oppressed and exploited, writing on Black liberation, prison abolition, the intersections of race, gender, and class, and international solidarity with Palestine. She is the author of several books, including Women, Race, and Class and Are Prisons Obsolete? She is the subject of the acclaimed documentary Free Angela and All Political Prisoners and is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
“Angela Davis new book made me think of what Dear Nelson Mandela kept reminding us, that we must be willing to embrace that long walk to freedom. Understanding what it takes to really be free, to have no fear, is the first and most important step one has to make before undertaking this journey. Angela is the living proof that this arduous challenge can also be an exhilarating and beautiful one.”
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“Whether you’ve grown up with the courage and conscience of Angela Davis, or are discovering her for the first time, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle is a small book that will be a huge help in daily life and action, from exposing the “prison industrial complex” that she named long ago to understanding that leaders are only leaders if they empower others.”
—Gloria Steinem
“Angela Davis once again offers us an incisive, urgent, and comprehensive understanding of systematic racism, the grounds for intersectional analysis and solidarity, and the importance of working together as equals to unmask and depose systems of injustice. This wide-ranging and brilliant set of essays includes a trenchant analysis of police violence against people of color, of the systematic incarceration of black people in America, the grounds of Palestinian solidarity for the Left, the affirmation of transgender inclusion, and the necessity of opposing the G4S corporation and its high-profit empire dedicated to the institutionalization of racism in the name of security. These essays take us back in history to the founders of revolutionary and anti-racist struggle, but they also take us toward the possibility of ongoing intersectional solidarity and struggle. Angela Davis gathers in her lucid words our luminous history and the most promising future of freedom.”
—Judith Butler
“In this latest text of her magisterial corpus, Angela Davis puts forward her brilliant analyses and resilient witness here and abroad. In a clear and concise manner, she embodies and enacts “intersectionality” – a structural intellectual and political response to the dynamics of violence, White Supremacy, patriarchy, state power, capitalist markets, and imperial policies.”
—Dr. Cornel West
Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
The Western media paint Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation as exclusively violent: armed resistance, suicide bombings, and rocket attacks. In reality these methods are the exception to what is a peaceful and creative resistance movement. In this fascinating book, Dr Mazin Qumsiyeh synthesizes data from hundreds of original sources to provide the most comprehensive study of civil resistance in Palestine.
The book contains hundreds of stories of the heroic and highly innovative methods of resistance employed by the Palestinians over more than 100 years. The author also analyses the successes, failures, missed opportunities and challenges facing ordinary Palestinians as they struggle for freedom against incredible odds. This is the only book to critically and comparatively study the uprisings of 1920-21, 1929, 1936-9, 1970s, 1987-1991 and 2000-2006.
The compelling human stories told in this book will inspire people of all faiths and political backgrounds to chart a better and more informed direction for a future of peace with justice.
Mazin B. Qumsiyeh is a professor at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities and works with a number of civil society organizations. He has published over 1000 articles in newspapers, journals, books, and internet outlets. His previous books include Sharing the Land of Canaan (Pluto, 2004) and Mammals of the Holy Land (1996).
“This is a timely and remarkable book written by the most important chronicler of contemporary popular resistance in Palestine. Mazin Qumsiyeh brilliantly evokes the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Edward Said, Rachel Corrie and many others, to tell the unvarnished truth about Palestine and Zionist settler colonialism. With its focus on ‘history and activism from below’, this is a work of enormous significance. Developing further his original ideas on human rights in Palestine, media activism, public policies and popular, non-violent resistance, Mazin Qumsiyeh’s book is a must read for anyone interested in justice and how to produce the necessary breakthrough in the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
– Nur Masalha, author of The Bible and Zionism and The Politics of Denial
“Qumsiyeh’s inspiring accounts of both the everyday and the most extraordinary acts of Palestinian indigenous resistance to colonialism expose the misguided claims that Palestinians have never tried nonviolence; in fact, they are among the experts, whose courage, creativity, and resilience are an inspiration to people of conscience everywhere. Even with the arms of a military superpower, the Israeli government’s failure to quell the Palestinians’ spirit and insistence on human rights reminds us that the greatest strength of all belongs to those with justice on their side, who will ultimately triumph.”
— Anna Baltzer, author of Witness in Palestine”
The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine, and the Legal Battle for Human Rights
by Michael Sfard
A farmer in the West Bank, cut off from his fields by Israel’s separation barrier, wants to petition the courts to build a gate in the wall. But while the gate would help the farmer harvest his crop, would it not also confer legitimacy on the wall itself? For Michael Sfard, pursuing justice means encountering such dilemmas on a daily basis.
This groundbreaking work examines the ethics and challenges of legal work for human rights. Recounting key cases and issues, Sfard lays bare the reality of the occupation and exposes its surreal legal structures. With emotional force and penetrating analysis, he offers both a moral reckoning with the occupation and a blueprint for a hopeful future.
Michael Sfard is one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers. A former conscientious objector, he received the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award and an Open Society Fellowship. His writing on human rights has appeared in The New York Times, Haaretz, The Independent, and Foreign Policy. He lives in Tel Aviv.
“Sfard stands securely among the stars of the civil rights and human rights committed lawyers/scholars of his generation…. The energy and passion that inform his superb book exist side by side with meticulous detail, informed by a historian’s love for tracing attitudes, themes, and politics as they have evolved over a half century.”
―Henry J. Steiner, The Times of Israel
“Engaging, highly informative, and thought-provoking, this is a book that only an activist, scholar, and top human rights lawyer like Michael Sfard could have written. It should be required reading for anyone wanting to understand the struggle for human rights in occupied Palestine.”
―Raja Shehadeh, author of Where the Line Is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships, and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine
“At a time of surging ethnic nationalism, the legal struggle to prevent injustice against Palestinians is especially difficult. Michael Sfard is at the forefront of this struggle and his account is both a compelling story and an important contribution to understanding how battles for human rights are fought in the courts.”
―Aryeh Neier, former executive director of the ACLU
“Comprehensive, detailed, reflective, troubling, thought-provoking and rooted in universal human principles, The Wall and the Gate is the definitive study of the struggle for Palestinian human rights under occupation – a must read.”
―Naomi Chazan, former member of Knesset and president, the New Israel Fund
“The Wall and the Gate grapples candidly with the dilemma of working within Israel’s courts to achieve some modicum of justice for the occupation’s victims while knowing that doing so reinforces a system of injustice. It is essential reading.”
―Kenneth Roth, executive director, Human Rights Watch
“Providing an intimate history of the occupation, as well as an honest reckoning with the dilemmas inherent to the legal quest for justice, The Wall and the Gate will serve as an inspiration for all who labor in the field of human rights and seek to use the law to confront oppression.”
―John Dugard, judge ad hoc, International Court of Justice; former UN special rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village
By Jody Sokolower
Silwan is a Palestinian village located just outside the ancient walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village is a moving story of a village and its people.
As Silwani youth and community members share their lives with us, their village becomes an easily accessible way to understand Palestinian history and current reality. Written with young people in mind, the richly illustrated text stresses connections between the lives of youth in the US and Palestine: criminalization of youth, forced relocation, the impact of colonialism on Indigenous communities, efforts to bury history, and inspiring examples of resistance and resilience.
“An urgent book about the impact of Israel’s occupation on Palestinian youth …Through the personal stories of Palestinians, Sokolower lays bare daily realities of segregation and displacement … Each chapter in this clear, evocative, moving work shows how Palestinians are routinely harassed, dehumanized, and detained … The narratives and background information vividly show readers how Israel’s occupation affects mental health, education, employment, and everyday familial life, but they also paint a beautiful picture of resistance in the face of harrowing despair.”
—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“What is life like for you, Jody Sokolower asks the children and young people of the Palestinian village of Silwan. Her extraordinary book tells their stories … And she brings the stories home, documenting the parallel histories in which Israeli efforts to destroy Palestinian lives and seize their land are met with the same generations of resistance as US efforts to eliminate the Indigenous people of this land.”
—Phyllis Bennis, author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
“Jody Sokolower weaves a transnational story across settler-colonial geographies from Northern California to East Jerusalem to illuminate ongoing struggles for land and freedom…. Determined to Stay is a must-read book for all ages and stands to fill a critical gap in US standard curricula.”
—Noura Erakat, activist and human rights attorney, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, co-editor of Jadaliyya
“As a Palestinian high school educator and mother of school-aged children, Determined to Stay is the book I have been waiting for. This is the book I want my own children reading in their classrooms. It is one of the few contemporary books that sheds light on the current reality of Palestinians and is written particularly for middle and high school students….The history and current reality of the people of Silwan is reflective of the plight of Palestinians in their homeland—struggling to resist settler colonial occupation and still celebrate the joy of family, friends, and their ability to survive. An essential read for educators and students trying to understand the Palestinian fight to hold onto home.”
—Samia Shoman, Northern California high school social studies teacher and district leader for ethnic studies implementation
Assuming Boycott: Resistance, Agency and Cultural Production
by Kareem Estefan (Editor), Carin Kuoni (Editor), Laura Raicovich (Editor
Street protests are one side of a worldwide citizens’ movement. Another side is the increasing use of boycotts, one of the most powerful weapons in the organizer’s arsenal: it is an effective and moral lever for civil rights, most notably today in its adoption by the BDS movement.
Since the days of the 19th century Irish land wars, when Irish tenant farmers defied the actions of Captain Charles Boycott and English landlords, “boycott” has been a method that’s had an impact time and again. In the 20th century, it notably played central roles in the liberation of India and South Africa and the struggle for civil rights in the U.S.: the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott is generally seen as a turning point in the movement against segregation.
Assuming Boycott is the essential reader for today’s creative leaders and cultural practitioners, including original contributions by artists, scholars, activists, critics, curators and writers who examine the historical precedent of South Africa; the current cultural boycott of Israel; freedom of speech and self-censorship; and long-distance activism. It is about consequences and causes of cultural boycott. Far from withdrawal or cynicism, boycott emerges as a productive tool of creative and productive engagement.
“Assuming Boycott is an essential contribution to an ongoing, urgent conversation about how artists, writers, and thinkers have time and again created subtle, meaningful, powerful, and vibrant ways to engage the political sphere. This book is a valuable guide to cultural boycotts from South Africa to Palestine.”
―Walid Raad, artist, professor, Cooper Union
“The brilliant writers and debaters assembled here come at the issue from different angles, all from the central belief that art is never not political.”
―Holland Cotter, co-chief art critic, The New York Times
“An essential guide to the terrain of cultural politics today. With colleagues and comrades like these, one feels not only bolstered but downright emboldened.” ―Hal Foster, Professor of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
Freedom Sailors: The Maiden Voyage of the Free Gaza movement and how we succeeded in spite of ourselves
By Greta Berlin (Author, Editor), William L. Dienst MD (Editor)
Freedom Sailors is a much-needed account of how a small group of ordinary people conceived and executed what seemed like a grandiose and audacious plan to break Israel’s illegal military blockade of the Gaza Strip, a blockade that keeps more than 1.5 million people in an open-air prison. Knowing what we know now – that Israel Defense Forces would later murder nine people, including an unarmed American citizen, Furkan Dogan, executed at point-blank range during a later Freedom Flotilla – our chutzpah is astonishing.
In a little over two years, we raised the money to purchase two dilapidated fishing boats stored in secret ports in Greece, collected 44 passengers, crew and journalists, aged 22 to 81 and chose Cyprus as our embarkation point.
People who weren’t there or weren’t close to us may not realize just how isolated we were once we finally set sail to Gaza on the late morning of August 22, 2008; over 33 hours on the sea, no internet, and only a couple of satellite phones which were blocked by the Israelis after night set in.
That first voyage in 2008 achieved exactly what we hoped it would. We opened the door just a bit, proving it could be done. None of the later actions, by land or by sea, would have been possible or even attempted if we hadn’t climbed into two ramshackle boats with nothing but our determination and our naiveté holding us together.
Our story of how we came together, raised the necessary money, and pulled off the successful voyage, despite the prying eyes of Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, is often riveting. More to the point, it helps us understand the importance of taking a stand when you see an injustice rather than becoming complicit through silence.
“A riveting account of one of the great moments in the history of non-violent resistance: breaking the criminal and sadistic siege of Gaza, and letting the prisoners know that at least some in the outside world care about them and their grim fate. The Free Gaza flotillas are truly an inspiration.”
—Noam Chomsky, Professor, MIT