Jewish American seeks justice for Palestinians New book encourages shift in interfaith dialogue to reach peace in the Holy Land

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CONTACT: Amy Currie (512) 478-2028 ext. 211

Jewish American seeks justice for Palestinians New book encourages shift in interfaith dialogue to reach peace in the Holy Land

WASHINGTON, D.C. – There are few topics in the world as divisive as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For years, the American viewpoint has largely portrayed Israelis as victims and Palestinians as aggressors — just look at the U.S. government’s unconditional support of Israel. But in a world where matters aren’t always what they seem, author and peace activist Mark Braverman, Ph.D., says it’s time we reframed the conversation on Israel and Palestine to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

In his new book, Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land (SynergyBooks | February 2010 |

978-0-9840760-7-9 | Paperback | $16.95), Dr. Braverman delivers a controversial message to Jews and Christians alike: it is not anti-Semitic to stand up for justice for the Palestinian people.

“I am frequently placed in the ‘pro-Palestinian’ camp because I criticize Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians,” Braverman says. “I reject this designation. I lived in Israel and have family there. I want Israel’s people to live in peace. I fear for Israel’s future and seek to preserve its accomplishments, culture, security and, most of all, its people. This is not a struggle between good guys and bad guys, with one side as villain and the other side as blameless victim.

The issue is that short of full recognition of the ongoing abridgement of Palestinian rights, no political settlement will bring a lasting peace.”

Raised in the Jewish tradition, Braverman has strong familial ties to Israel, frequently visiting throughout his life and living on a kibbutz there for a year as a young man. However, after a life-changing trip to the West Bank in 2006, what was once a nagging suspicion that something was amiss in the Holy Land became a heartbreaking certainty that the Israeli government was violating the human rights of Palestinians.

“It’s acceptable for us to criticize every other government in the world, including the U.S., but not Israel. Why is that?” asks Dr.

Braverman. “To an increasing number of Jews, here and in Israel, it has become clear that Israel’s present course is tragically self-destructive and must change if Israeli society is to continue and prosper.”

Fatal Embrace looks to American society to change the political wind.

Braverman contends that the Jewish quest for safety and empowerment and Christian guilt for centuries of anti-Semitism play a major role in suppressing the dialogue needed to end the conflict. By challenging Jews to turn a critical eye on themselves and helping Christians overcome their fear of questioning Israel’s actions, Braverman hopes to advance a social movement that will result in lasting peace in the Holy Land.

Dr. Braverman holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, a master’s degree in education from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Boston University. He is a cofounder of Friends of Tent of Nations North America, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Palestinian land rights and peaceful coexistence in historic Palestine. He serves on the board of directors of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA, the advisory committee of Friends of Sabeel North America and the advisory council of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace. Braverman currently lives in Bethesda, Md., with his wife, Susan. Visit http://markbraverman.org for more information.

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To schedule an interview with Braverman, or to receive a review copy of Fatal Embrace, please contact Amy Currie at (512) 478-2028 ext. 211 or acurrie@phenixpublicity.com.

Mornings in Jenin: a novel by Susan Abulhawa

I have read almost every book published on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In part, I've read them all because I live in the United States where, as a Palestinian, I hunger for the truth about the Arab Israeli conflict. Here in the United States, the book publishing industry has been biased. Those few books that manage to make it into print under small usually left-wing book labels, have never satisfied my contempt for the bias in this country.

I've read all the books -- or, maybe to be more precise, I have tried to read all of them and have read most -- also because I continue to look for the Palestinian version of "Exodus," the propaganda novel penned by Leon Uris at the urging of a publicist hired by the Israeli government that recognized the power of compelling literature, something that has for far too long been missing from Arab literature in English.

Exodus was the benchmark of American understanding of Palestine, a story of poor victims of the Holocaust (victimized not by Arabs but by European Nazis and anti-Semitic Western countries like the United States). It told a great story even though much of it was false.

A lifetime of searching for one book that might have a shot at grabbing the heartstrings of American audiences in the same way that Uris' compelling and well-written propaganda moved Americans to embrace injustice against Christian and Muslim Arabs in Palestine, the original homeland of Christianity.

I may have finally found that book, although after a half century of seeking, I may not be able to stop myself from continuing a hunt for the perfect Palestinian literary novel that has become my second avocation in life. That book is "Mornings in Jenin."

"Mornings in Jenin" has everything I have found in Exodus and that has been missing in most literature written by Arabs about the tragedy of Palestine. Human compassion. A compelling human story. A believable narrative that is written not only from the perspective of a trouble Palestinian writer, and refugee from the second Nakba, 1967, but from the perspective of wanting to tell Americans and the West a story that by its nature would easily mesh into what Americans want.

I have always said in hundreds of speeches around the world that the real battle for justice in Palestine is not on some hate-driven web site or in an emotion-driven protest in the streets of Chicago or the Middle East, but in the pages of a book that is so compelling it will grab the heart strings of its readers. A book that is so compelling that the story rises above the politics and the message is delivered not with a sledgehammer, typical of most Palestinian and Arab narrative, but with a style and grace that flows like a creek through the American Dream.

Author Susan Abulhawa has written that book, one that takes the reader through a believable and captivating story of drama, tragedy and human life. For the first time, a palestinian has actually set aside the politics and with a literary finesse, has embedded that tragedy in the pages of an inspirational story that demands that you read it through the end, even if at times it challenges the stereotypes and false notions that have been spoon fed by a propaganda machine and a media bias in America and the West.

The 330 pages is more importantly an easy read. It flows with cries that force you to want to finish the book, and distracts you from the hot buttons that are ingrained in Western brainwashing that they can't even think for themselves.

This is the book I hope one day is made into a movie. The book that Americans can easily pack away in their luggage and carry with them to the battlefield for the minds and hearts of the Palestine-Israel conflict, vacation beaches where more novels that have damaged the Arab image have been absorbed and swallowed and believed by hundreds of millions of Americans who have never had their false notions and beliefs challenged by truth. I always run in to tourists readings books like Exodus that tell the Israeli story or cast Arabs as the villain. But I have never come across one tourist carrying the great literary political works by Edward Said, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, my mentor in Palestinian identity, nor any of the other thousands of authors who have told and retold the tragedy of Palestine in the same clinically boring politics and academic rhetoric that has rendered or heart wrenching story into one that could so easily be brushed aside. That is not to say that Edward Said is not one of our great writers. But his writings have never appealed to the masses of Western audiences, an audience we as Arabs have failed to properly address.

Susan Abulhawa's novel will put its readers in a headlock they will not be able to escape until they finish every last word in this compelling drama taken from the pages of history and presented as a human story rather than some political argument or narrative.

This is the book I hope to one day see in the hands of tourists as they lazily lounge on the world's simmering beaches, absorbing truth in the ultimate moment of exposure to truth. This is the book I hope to one day watch on the big screen, in a theater filled with American audiences waiting for the next word.

Mornings in Jenin
Susan Abulhawa
Bloomsbury Books, New York
Paperback edition
2010
Formerly titled "The Scar of David."

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Fatal Embrace by author Mark Braverman

Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land
By Mark Braverman

This is a fascinating perspective on the Middle East conflict by a Jewish American author with much experience in the Middle East. Braverman has the courage to argue that it is not anti-Semitism to criticize Israel nor is it anti-Semitism to defend the rights of the Palestinian people.

Braverman articulates his perspective eloquently and in an easy-to-read writing style. Although he suggests support for the "one state" agenda, which supporters argue is the only just solution and many moderates view as the longterm imprisonment of Palestinians in an occupation-apartheid purgatory, his book addresses American Christians to break free from their limited understanding of the Middle East conflict and see past the propaganda to understand the truth of Palestinian justice.

I enjoyed reading it although I may disagree with some of the notions offered. It certainly engages your understanding or the lack of understanding of this very complex conflict.

-- Ray Hanania

Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land

By Mark Braverman

Synergy Books

Austin, Texas

$16.95, 416 pages

www.SynergyBooks.net

Here is some information on the book from the author's web page at www.MarkBraverman.org.

The State of Israel was established as a safe haven for the Jewish people, but its expansionism and treatment of the Palestinians have made the prospects for peace in the Holy Land recede further and further. In Fatal Embrace, author Mark Braverman shows how the Jewish quest for safety and empowerment and the Christian endeavor to atone for centuries of anti-Semitism have united to suppress the conversations needed to bring peace. Tracing his own journey as a Jew struggling with the difficult realities of modern Israel, Braverman delivers a strong message to Jews and Christians alike: it is not anti-Semitic to stand up for justice for the Palestinian people.  Describing the spiritual and psychological forces driving the discourse in America, in Israel, within the Jewish community, and within the church, Braverman turns to the prophets’ cry for justice and to Jesus’ transformative ministry to show the way forward.

BOOK SUMMARY

Fatal Embrace:

Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land

Mark Braverman

Israel-Palestine is the longest-running problem on the world stage. The conflict pulls all who try to solve it into a quicksand of contradiction and enmity.  A civil war has broken out between those American Jews who staunchly defend the Jewish State against all critics and those who fear for its very soul.  A powerful, well-organized system of American Jewish institutions — synagogues, Jewish Philanthropic Federations, political lobbying organizations — move quickly to suppress or neutralize any possible criticism or threat to that support.  The Pastor who opens his or her church to a conference on Palestinian human rights faces protests and editorials from Jewish organizations charging anti-Semitism.  Powerful Christian Zionist organizations join with the pro-Israel Lobby to support the U.S. administration’s unconditional support of the Jewish State.

Meanwhile, sputtering efforts at a “peace process” to resolve the conflict between Israel and its Palestinian subjects appears increasingly futile to a growing number of stakeholders on all sides.  Indeed, the entire effort to achieve a “settlement” appears to be based on a massive, collective self-deception:  While appearing to hold Israel to account, the world powers actually give Israel free rein to pursue policies that breed popular resistance among Palestinians and promise only to prolong the conflict.

This book presents the struggle of an American Jew to come to terms with the dilemma of modern Israel.  It presents an approach to solving the conflict through an understanding of the origins of Zionism and the contemporary Christian reaction to its own anti-Jewish past. Through a discussion of issues of faith deeply embedded in our Western culture, the book addresses two fundamental questions: (1) Why are Jews pursuing a course in Israel which, far from fulfilling the goals of the Zionist movement, is actually heightening the threat to Israel’s security and serving to isolate us in the world?  and (2) Why is the Christian world enabling Israel’s tragically flawed policies rather than holding us to a faithfulness to our shared tradition of justice?  In addressing the first question, I explore the tension in Judaism between the universalism inherent in our monotheistic creed and ethical code, and the particularism so deeply embedded in our cultural identity and history.  I argue that the Jewish quality of exclusivism enshrined in the concept of election is being enacted in the current self-defeating policies of the modern State of Israel.  In taking up the second question, I review post-Holocaust revisionist Christian theology.  I discuss the attempts by contemporary Christian theologians to rehabilitate Judaism through a revised Christian theology and world view in order to atone for the horrors of  anti-Semitism.  I show how this effort, although courageous and commendable, has now resulted in the uncritical legitimization of Zionist strivings as well as a suppression of any honest interfaith dialogue on the issue of the State of Israel.  It has and continues to give Jews license to establish and pursue a nationalist, colonial political agenda in Israel that violates principles of justice as well as international law, and which presents a formidable obstacle to peace. I show how even those Christian thinkers most committed to a social justice agenda struggle with a profound ambivalence toward the Jewish people’s right to a tragically flawed political project.  This ambivalence runs counter to their principles and continues to lend support to those political elements that would block holding Israel to account and that impede progress toward peace.

It’s a fatal embrace:  together, these two powerful, deep-seated forces combine to keep us stuck in Israel-Palestine. I argue that the persistence and power of these beliefs – the more powerful because they are unrecognized, unexamined and even denied – play a major role in thwarting progress toward a peaceful settlement of the political conflict.  I believe the key to a political resolution lies in the initiation and strengthening of a broad-based movement within the major Christian denominations in the U.S., and my book will include a call to action directed at them, as well as to other groups.

Fatal Embrace should be at home on both the Religion and Current Affairs shelves of the bookstores.  A deep exploration of the religious issues is fundamental to understanding the political situation in the Holy Land as well as the social and political forces in the U.S. that exert such a profound influence on Israel’s politics.  There is an excellent literature that covers Zionism from historical, philosophical, and sociological perspectives, and the book reviews some of these writers.  However, the topic has not been approached from the perspective outlined here.  The literature on the question of Zionism and Israel, from Christian and Jewish writers alike, in the fields of politics, history, sociology and religion, are devoted either to defenses of or critiques of Zionism.  Furthermore, I do not believe that anyone has yet addressed the phenomenon of the Zionism – implicit and explicit – to be found in mainstream Christian thought and practice.

In the course of the book I return again and again to my personal journey.  I have deep family roots in Israel, grew up as a religious Jew in the U.S., and in the past several years have become deeply involved in social and political activism with various Jewish and interfaith organizations working for peace and justice for all peoples of the region.  My family background, my experiences growing up Jewish in postwar America, and my encounters with Israelis, Palestinians and Americans since my first visit to the West Bank in 2006 form the scaffolding for the book’s chapters.
I have written the book primarily in order to influence the minds, hearts and actions of Christians in the West today and to lend support to those Jews who are working to salvage our people’s moral standing in the world.  I believe that only in this way can we create a future for the people of the State of Israel as well as for the Palestinian people.  My hope is that by exposing the unexamined assumptions and unacknowledged strivings that are in part responsible for the failure to resolve the conflict, and by helping Christians overcome their fear of being perceived or labeled as anti-Semitic, the book will enable a more open, productive dialogue within the Christian community as well as between the faiths.  I also directly appeal to the church to embrace and pursue actions that will advance the cause of peace in the Holy Land based on justice.  I present specific actions that will advance the emerging broad social movement needed to change Israeli and US policy in the region.

New Book by Hussein Ibish debunks myth of "one-state" agenda

Scholar and media pundit Hussein Ibish, one of the nation's leading champions of Palestinian rights, has published a new book called  "What's Wrong with the One-State Agenda?" The book, available for only $10 from the American Task Force on Palestine and free as an eBook download, details why the "one-state" agenda is designed to prevent peace and undermine the Palestinian national drive to establish a national homeland and state in Palestine.

Ibish, who writes a popular web blog at www.IbishBlog.com, argues with reason and common-sense to expose the fraud of the "one-state agenda" which in its fundamental premise actually weakens the battle against the Israeli occupation. The one-state agenda essentially assumes that Jews, Christians and Muslims can go back to a 1920's scenario where everyone lives together as equals, assuming that Israelis -- who have refused to return land or dismantle settlements, will simply extend "equal rights" to non-Jewish citizens.

The one-state agenda actually negates the suffering of Palestinians under Israel's oppressive military rule and ignores the decades of discrimination against so-called Arab Israeli "citizens," pretending as if those denials of rights ever existed.

Ibish discusses his precedent-setting book which advances the only solution to the conflict, creating a "two-state solution," during an interview on my national radio show (Radio Baladi).

Click hear to listen to the podcast of the interview.

Ibish argues that the one-state agenda relies on a fallacy that a one-state reality already exists, and that Arab population growth threatens to impose a one-state reality on Israel. In fact, the population growth has not threatened Israel's anti-Arab policies at all and in fact are leading to a situation where issues of apartheid-like scenarios have become more and more common practice.

Ibish also discusses the powerful agenda that President Barack Obama is pursuing which has taken the push for a Palestinian state durther than any other American president. Obama's speech to the United Nations (and past speeches including the speech to the Muslim World) have put enormous pressure on Israel's government, which has resisted peace.

Of course, the Palestine-Israel conflict is troubled by years of pain and suffering and that pain and suffering has been exploited by activists who argue calls to continued conflict and non-solutions like the one-state agenda. It's difficult for some to accept the reality of the only choice left to them, two states -- the majority of Palestinians support the Two-State Solution, although the one-state activists continue to exploit the suffering and fan the flames of rejection.

Ibish's book re-sets the fundamentals of Palestinian reality and helps those who desire the creation of a Palestinian State to actually see the possibility of it being achieved. It definitively exposes the flaws in the one-state agenda argument, revealing am agenda that will only mean more and more suffering for Palestinians who have suffered more than any people deserve.

It's time to end the conflict and create two-states and allow Palestinians to begin the process of nation-building and national salvation. The only way to do that is through the Two-State Solution which has found a powerful advocate in President Barack Obama.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

New Book: What's Wrong with the One State Agenda? by Hussein Ibish

ATFP presents a new Task Force book publication:

What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda?

Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal
by ATFP Senior Fellow Hussein Ibish

In this new book, Dr. Ibish examines the arguments generally put forward by Palestinian and other Arab American proponents of abandoning the goal of ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state and instead seeking to promote a single, democratic state in all of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The book also looks at differences between the deployment of the one-state idea by some Palestinian figures in the occupied territories as a diplomatic "threat" intended to spur greater Israeli seriousness about a negotiated agreement and the diasporic discourse that drives most one-state rhetoric. Finally, Dr. Ibish explains in some detail why ending the occupation and peace with Israel, while difficult to achieve and thus far elusive, are the only plausible and practicable Palestinian national strategy.

The book also includes a preface by ATFP President Ziad J. Asali.

For more information visit www.AmericanTaskForce.org

PRESS RELEASE: Gabriel Tabarani's "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict"

Author House, an Indiana, USA based publishing house confirmed today the release of a new book titled: "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration - The Complications and The Road for a Lasting Peace"

The author, Gabriel Tabarani, is a very well known and respected specialist on Middle East affairs. He has been involved in journalism in Beirut and London as a reporter, Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief for over 25 years. He has already authored two books: "The Tears of the Horizon" a romantic novel, as well as "The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf" (1991) about the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein took over Kuwait.

"My goal with this book is to provide a fair and balanced view on a very important, sensitive and long running conflict," says Mr. Tabarani. Experts agree that the book is a fair and balanced piece, which makes it very rare in its kind.

Mr. Tabarani takes us on a trip back through the history of the Middle East reaching back into Biblical times. He discusses in detail the origins of both Zionism and the Palestinians as well as from which Biblical and historical sources the Jewish and the Palestinians factions base their claims to the former British mandate of Palestine.

The book develops and explains the substantial body of history required for meaningful understanding of the current troubles, it covers in detail the wars, conflicts and compromises, as well as their impacts and consequences on the Palestinian and the Jewish peoples, including the 1948 war, the Suez war in 1956, the Six-Day War in 1967, the 1973 War, the Lebanese Wars, and most recently the two Palestinian "Intifadas" (uprising)…

Furthermore, he argues and discusses in detail the issue of both Palestinian and Jewish refugees in addition to the political effects of those wars on the peace process.

Moreover, Tabarani speaks in detail about the obstacles to a lasting peace, taking into consideration international involvement of various parties, including USA, EU, Russia and Iran. In addition, he discusses the economical and political viability of a Palestinian state in the West bank and in the Gaza Strip.

In his conclusion Tabarani comes to recommendations as to how to broker a stable peace in the Middle East. It is groundbreaking for a book to provide such a detailed course of action that can help all parties involve to reach a lasting peace.

This book (450 Pages) can be found and bought by Internet on www.authorhouse.com, or www.amazon.com, or www.barnesandnoble.com or www.borders.com or www.booksamillion.com, or www.target.com… The Internet selling price (from authorhouse) is 22.99US$ plus the shipment costs. From Amazon, other Internet sellers and in stores the price is 24.99US$. The book can be found too at Ingram Book Group and its affiliates and other distributors in USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and around the world.
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For more information you can contact:
Lisa Metcalf
Author Services Representative
Author House
1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200
Bloomington, IN 47403, USA
Tel: 1-888-519-5121 Extension: 5407
Fax: 1-812-349 0807
Email: Lmetcalf@authorhouse.com
Website: www.authorhouse.com

On the Hills of God by author Ibrahim Fawal

Author Ibrahim Fawal's novel "On the Hills of God" (Black Belt Press, 1998) is one of my favorite books, one of the few great Palestinian novels in English that tells the story of the Palestinian experience in English and more importantly, compelling. The story is about Yousif, a Palestinian in 1947 Palestine who falls in love for the first time, with a young Palestinian girl and with Palestine itself.

Fawal was born in Ramallah, Palestine, and graduated with a Masters degree from UCLA in Film. He worked as the "Jordanian" assistant director on the classic film "Lawrence of Arabia."

Get more information at www.BlackBeltPress.com