Books to Understand the Conflict Between Israel and Hamas

“Arafat,” Amnon Kapeliouk

The Israeli journalist wrote a biography of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, thanks to the friendship that developed between them in the 1980s in Lebanon, which allowed him access to very dramatic moments in Arafat’s life, at the cost of sacrificing the necessary distance to judge the PLO leader with his successes and failures.

“Israel’s Long Wars: A History Since 1947,” Ahron Bregman

The history of the wars fought by Israel since its creation, particularly highlighting the conflicts in the Gaza Strip between 2007 and 2014, which are deemed essential for understanding the current confrontation. The author was a captain in the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War, and his work includes numerous maps and illustrations for better comprehension.

“Israel’s Asymmetric Wars,” Samy Cohen

A book that focuses on the asymmetric conflicts fought by Israel against irregular groups that have affected its security. This work explains both the strategy of Israeli forces to confront this type of conflict and the tactics of radical Arab and Islamic militias to strike a more powerful enemy.

“Israel’s Long War with Hezbollah: Military Innovation and Adaptation Under Fire,” Raphael D. Marcus

The first work to fully address the decades-long history of conflicts and wars between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. In addition to providing a detailed analysis of the adaptation to new contexts in the use of force, it accounts for military innovation by both adversaries to include new capabilities in emerging scenarios.

“Israel-Palestine: The House of War,” Miguel Ángel BastenierThe late Spanish journalist from El País published a text with an almost pedagogical tone to help understand who the protagonists of the conflict in the Middle East are, their objectives, and how they relate to one another. It also includes boxes with milestones such as the Six-Day War or the assassination of Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat, along with brief profiles of figures like Golda Meir and Yasser Arafat.

“Notes from Gaza,” Joe Sacco

In this visual chronicle, the Maltese-born cartoonist depicts daily life in Gaza, where overcrowding and poverty serve as a backdrop to investigate a massacre of a hundred Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in 1956 that has been lost to history.“Death as a Way of Life,” David Grossman

One of the most important living Israeli writers questions in this book the reasons for the failure of the Oslo Accords of 1993, which sparked so much hope at the time. The underlying question posed by David Grossman is why it is so difficult to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a question that remains unanswered to this day.

“New Palestinian Chronicles,” Edward Said

Born in Jerusalem to a Palestinian family, who was considered one of the great Arab intellectuals of the 20th century, he addresses in a series of articles what the rise to power of hardline leader Ariel Sharon in Israel and the September 11 attacks in the United States meant for the peace process stemming from the Oslo Accords. Both events marked a turning point in the Middle East.