Resources

Current Events

• Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  —  www.wrmea.com
  • Monthly magazine reporting on regional events and alternative perspectives.
• Electronic Intifada —http://electronicintifada.net
  • The Electronic Intifada is an independent online news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine, its people, politics, culture and place in the world.
• Mondoweiss — https://mondoweiss.net/
  • Mondoweiss is an independent website devoted to informing readers about developments in Israel/Palestine and related US foreign policy. They provide news and analysis unavailable through the mainstream media regarding the struggle for Palestinian human rights.Palestinian human rights.
• If Americans Knew — https://ifamericansknew.org/
  • The mission of If Americans Knew is to inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media.

Electronic Resources

Most of the sites listed below contain factsheets and other resources.
The links have not been recently updated — Feb 2021.

Background Information

• Americans for Middle East Understanding  —  www.ameu.org
  • Strives to create a deeper understanding in the US of the conflict. Involves many former diplomats and businessmen. Publishes bimonthly newsletter, The Link, focusing on individuals who make significant contributions.
• If Americans Knew —www.ifamericansknew.org
  • Seeks to explicate and expand on US media coverage of the issues. Provides indispensable and regularly update statistics and data, all meticulously referenced.
• Middle East Books — https://www.middleeastbooks.com/
  • A project of the American Educational Trust, a non-profit, non-partisan organization incorporated in 1982 in Washington, DC, by retired U.S. Foreign Service Officers. It offers a wide and scholarly selection of books and background information plus Palestinian crafts.

Palestinian Human Rights Organizations

• Addameer (Arabic, for “conscience”) – https://www.addameer.org/about/our-work
  • Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

• Al-Haq (Arabic, for “truth”) – https://www.alhaq.org/about-alhag/7136.html
  • Protects and promotes human rights and the rule of law in the Occupied Territory.

• DCI-P (Defense of Children International-Palestine) – https://www.dci-palestine.org/who_we_are
  • Dedicated to defending and promoting the rights of children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Human Rights Organizations

• Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions —  www.icahd.org
  • An Israeli-based, international organization working against the demolition of Palestinian homes
• B’tselem Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories  —  www.btselem.org
  • Israeli-based, B’Tselem documents human rights violations in the Occupied territories and efforts to counter them.
• Rabbis for Human Rights ‒ http://rhr.org.il/eng/about/
  • RHR is the only rabbinic voice in Israel dedicated specifically to advocating for human rights.
• Zochrot –  http://zochrot.org/en/keyword/45328
  • Zochrot (“remembering” in Hebrew) is an NGO working since 2002 to promote acknowledgement and accountability for the ongoing injustices of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948.

United Nations

• United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs  —  http://www.ochaopt.org/
  • Documents human rights violations in the Occupied TerritoriesAdvocacy
• United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — https://www.unrwa.org/
  • Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, UNRWA was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949 to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees. The Agency began operations on 1 May 1950.
  • In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate, most recently extending it until 30 June 2023.

General Information

• Churches for Middle East Peace  —  www.cmep.org
  • An ecumenical working group with offices in Washington DC.
• Jewish Voice For Peace  —www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
  • Leading US-based Jewish anti-occupation organization
• US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) — https://uscpr.org/
  • a national network of activists and organizations who are committed to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and who work to end U.S. complicity in their oppression
• American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) — https://www.ampalestine.org/
  • a national education and grassroots-based organization, dedicated to educating the American public about Palestine and its rich cultural, historical and religious heritage

Churches

• United Methodist Church: Church & Society — https://www.umcjustice.org/what-we-care-about/peace-with-justice/conflicts
  • The United Methodist Church calls for an end to the Israeli occupation; we affirm our commitment to nonviolent responses and the inclusion of all voices harmed by the conflict – including Muslim, Christian and Jewish – in seeking a just and durable peace.
• United Methodist Kairos Response  —  www.kairosresponse.org
  • In October, 2010, United Methodist clergy and laity from around the United States came together in a grass roots effort to respond to the “Kairos Palestine Document.” The UMKR movement includes United Methodists around the world, whose goal is to bring about a just peace for Israelis as well as Palestinians. 
• The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)  — http://The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
  • encourages congregations and presbytery mission committees, task groups and other entities, toward specific mission goals that will create currents of wider and deeper involvement with Israel/Palestine. 
• Peace Not Walls (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)  —  https://www.elca.org/Our-Work/Publicly-Engaged-Church/Peace-Not-Walls
  • Through accompaniment, advocacy and awareness-raising, Peace Not Walls connects ELCA members to our companions and promotes dignity, full respect for human rights, healing and reconciliation.
• United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network (UCC PIN) — https://www.uccpin.org/
  • the United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network affirms the dignity and sacredness of all people, stands against oppression and injustice, and works for peace with justice in Palestine and Israel.  
• American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) —
  • https://www.afsc.org/office/palestine
  • https://www.afsc.org/key-issues/campaign/justice-palestine-and-israel
  • Since 1948 AFSC has worked with Palestinians, Israelis, and the international community to realize a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis. In the U.S., AFSC supports efforts to change government policies and corporate/institutional practices that support inequality, the Israeli occupation, and denial of refugees’ rights. In the region, AFSC challenges the fragmentation of Palestinian society and the militarization of Israeli society to support the implementation of international humanitarian and human rights law, promote implementation of Palestinian refugees’ right of return, and call for full equality between Palestinians and Israelis.
• Kairos Palestine Document  —www.kairospalestine.ps
  • a Christian Palestinian movement, born out of the Kairos Document, which advocates for ending the Israeli occupation and achieving a just solution to the conflict.
• Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center— www.sabeel.org
  • Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians. This liberation theology seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, to promote unity among them and lead them to act for justice and peace.
• Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) — https://www.fosna.org/
  • FOSNA is a Christian ecumenical organization seeking justice and peace in the Holy Land through nonviolent advocacy and education. Sabeel is an international peace movement initiated by Palestinian Christians, who seek a just peace as defined by international law and existing United Nations resolutions.

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Print Resources

Memoirs and Fiction

• Blood Brothers  —  Elias Chacour, 2003
  • In Blood Brothers, Chacour blends his riveting life story with historical research to reveal a little-known side of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the birth of modern Israel.
• The General’s Son – Miko Peled, 2012
  • In 1997, a tragedy struck the family of Israeli-American Miko Peled: His beloved niece Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. That tragedy propelled Peled onto a journey of discovery. It pushed him to re-examine many of the beliefs he had grown up with, as the son and grandson of leading figures in Israel’s political-military elite.
• The Lemon Tree —  Sandy Tolan, 2007
  • In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust.
• A Little Piece of Ground – Elizabeth Laird, 2006
  • A Little Piece of Ground will help young readers understand more about one of the worst conflicts afflicting our world today.  It explores the human cost of the occupation of Palestinian lands through the eyes of a young boy.
• Jerusalem:  Chronicles from the Holy City  —  Guy Delisle, 2012
  • In Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, Delisle explores the complexities of a city that represents so much to so many. He eloquently examines the impact of the conflict on the lives of people on both sides of the wall while drolly recounting the quotidian: checkpoints, traffic jams, and holidays.
• Palestinian Memories – Alex Awad, 2008
  • Rev. Awad shares his mother’s story, a story that epitomizes the tragedy of the Al Nakba (the Catastrophe of 1948).
• Palestinian Walks  —  Raja Shehadeh, 2008
  • Raja Shehadeh is a passionate hill walker. He enjoys nothing more than heading out into the countryside that surrounds his home. But in recent years, his hikes have become less than bucolic and sometimes downright dangerous. That is because his home is Ramallah, on the Palestinian West Bank, and the landscape he traverses is now the site of a tense standoff between his fellow Palestinians and settlers newly arrived from Israel.   In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006.

Background / Peace / Religion

• Bethlehem Besieged – Mitri Raheb, 2004
  • Written by a Lutheran Palestinian Pastor, this book focuses on  the siege of Bethlehem in April 2002.
• Christians and a Land Called Holy – Charles Lutz and Robert Smith, 2006
  • Fair-minded and sympathetic to Jewish, Muslim, and Christian concerns, Lutz and Smith provide a clear account of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and a compelling plea for Christian involvement in the area.
• The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine – Ilan Pappe, 2007
  • In a ground-breaking piece of archival research, Ilan Pappe demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population.  Since publishing the work and receiving death threats, Pappe has been forced to live in exile.
• Jerusalem:  One City, Three Faiths – Karen Armstrong, 1997
  • Armstrong traces the history of how Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all laid  claim to Jerusalem as their holy place, and how three radically different concepts of holiness have shaped and scarred the city for thousands of years.
• Palestine – Joe Sacco & Edward Said, 2001
  • A landmark of journalism and the art form of comics.  Based on several months of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, this is a major work of political and historical nonfiction.
• Peace, Not Apartheid  —  Jimmy Carter, 2007
  • Carter offers an assessment of what must be done to bring permanent peace to Israel with dignity and justice to Palestine. 
• Through the Eyes of the Victims (ebook)– Alex Awad
  • Alex’s latest book documents the history and the current happenings of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It includes many helpful maps that illustrate the some lesser well known elements of the situation. A copy of the book can be downloaded for free at http://www.alexawad.org/book.php.
• Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict – Phyllis Bennis, 2012
  • A primer organized as a set of frequently asked questions
• Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told – Gary Burge, 2003
  •  A critical analysis of the current Arab-Israeli conflict from a Christian perspective
• Whose Promised Land? – Colin Chapman, 2002
  • Unravels the complex issues surrounding the continuing crisis between Israel and Palestine.