Two Books to Read on Palestine

The ferociously brutal bombing of Gaza in October drove me to immerse myself in literature on Zionist colonialism in Palestine and the Palestinian people’s resistance. Most of what I did was rereading. Rashid Khalidi’s and Wasseem El Sarraj’s books were two that I read for the first time, and found invaluable. They are both similar in two ways.

First, as with many other books worth reading on the history of the Palestinian struggle, they both provide a rich history of the land. Tracing this back for centuries, they disprove the Zionist lies of “a land without people, for a people without a land.” They reveal Britain’s deceitful actions, spanning from the Balfour declaration to the Nakba, and the continuous backing of Jewish colonialism by imperialist powers. The books examine how Arab countries, like Jordan, have had conflicting stances on the Palestinian cause and how this impacts the people’s struggle. And prominently, they highlight this struggle’s “history from below” in all its strength, weakness, pains and tenacity.

Second, a distinctive element of these books is the personal ties the writers have with the stories they tell. Both authors come from influential families that opposed Zionist expansionism before the Nakba and have remained committed to the Palestinian liberation movement.

In The Hundred Years War on Palestine, Khalidi points out that Britain and such Zionist institutions as the Jewish Colonisation Association left no one in doubt that their aim was colonisation of Palestine. But “once colonialism took on a bad odour in the post-World War II era, the colonial origins and practice of Zionism and Israel were whitewashed and conveniently forgotten in Israel and the West”. And the Zionist movement was even presented as an anticolonial struggle of Israel for self-determination, in the period leading to the Nakba.

In Mental Health and Human Rights in Palestine, El Sarraj writes as “a young bi-racial (half Palestinian/half English) man”. The book is a completion of the task which his father Eyad Sarraj had set himself; writing Eyad’s memories. The older Sarraj could not finish this definitively because his life was intertwined with the life of the struggle for a liberated Gaza, and a free Palestine. The younger Sarraj did not exaggerate when he said the book is a biography of his father’s life, and “it is also a history of Palestine with a focus on Gaza.” His father fearlessly spoke truth to power, even challenging Palestinian leaders. This earned him imprisonment several times by the state of Israel as well as the Palestinian authority.

One aspect of the book which struck me in the light of current events is where it points out that aerial bombings became a feature of life in Gaza, decades back. Reading this, I could not but reflect at the folly of arguments that Israel needed Hamas’ 7 October attack to bomb the Gaza strip. Whilst the current merciless bombardment is unprecedented, it is in essence, the continuation of a long-standing trajectory of blood-soaked settle colonialist “disciplining” of the people whose land they had stolen.

Eyad spent the better part of his life fighting to “end the siege on Gaza.” And his words “I would rather die with dignity than live in fear” captures the spirit of the struggle for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.

As Palestinians in Gaza face one of the most vicious bombardments in recent history, this spirit gives strength even in the face of trauma. For radicals in Africa and across the world in this traumatic era, this is a spirit that must continue to guide us. Books like Khalidi’s and Sarraj’s are tonic for this spirit.

Baba Aye

Post Script: the text is drawn from "ROAPE's 2023 Best Reads for African Radicals." You can read the other reading suggestions on the Review of African Political Economy's (ROAPE) website, here.