Jerusalem: the biography - Simon Sebag Montefiore

The history of the holy and mystical city par excellence from King’s David reign to the intifadas.
This is a marvelous work by a famous historian who manages to tell the history of the city basing it on written, oral and archeological sources, stating merits and faults of all the people, civilizations and religions that had a part in it.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a very short introduction - Martin Bunton

I found this short essay on the shelves of a very nice second hand book shop in Pattaya, of all places! It’s a very useful overview on a conflict whose causes are very old and intricate, academic style but easy to read, free of all the irritating and confusing biased nuances typical of those media outlets that tend to support one side, for genuine or dubious reasons. It starts telling us about the Ottoman Empire land reform that lead to the centralization of most of the agriculturally interesting areas in the hands of some Muslim prominent families.

Family matters - Rohinton Mistry

When I read Rohinton Mistry’s “A fine balance”, a few years ago, I thought that it was a beautiful story about Indian castes and politics (the story is based at the time of The Emergency and the sterilization campaigns of the ’70s), but I didn’t like the writing style at all.
I found “Family matters” a much better written novel. A little less interesting from the historical and political point of view, this book delves into the lives of a family belonging to the Bombay’s Parsi community. Mistry, being a Bombay Zoroastrian himself, is very detailed about the description of the community customs and traditions. I did like that aspect a lot.

Inshallah (Insciallah) - Oriana Fallaci

A novel based in Beirut, Lebanon, during the 1982-84 Italian army peacekeeping mission to the Middle Eastern country.
The Israeli army has recently invaded the country and ousted the Palestinian fighters. Along with American, French and a few British soldiers, Italian sailors, paratroopers and Bersaglieri are patrolling the sensitive areas in and around Sabra and Shatila, where a few months earlier bands of Maronite phalangists had carried out a terrible massacre.

O Jerusalem - Dominique Lapierre & Larry Collins, From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas, L. Friedman

A good thing about the current pandemic is that I’ve had plenty of time to read. I'm currently updating a list of the best books I’ve come across so far. Please see my home page for the previous entries.

16th item on the list.

The Arab-Israeli conflict, besides defining the personal histories of the millions of people directly involved in it, has had a strong impact on many aspects of the life of pretty much anyone living anywhere for the past 70 years.

Moving hands - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

(Summer 2007)
At one o'clock we break for lunch and I take my students to the Petronas Towers. We sit alfresco at a nice cafe, where a spray of fine drops can cool our skin. When we're studying the menus somebody asks about her. There is an Arab woman a few meters away. Under the headscarf we can glimpse her face.

When we were choosing a place to sit, she swiftly moved to a separate table, which she shares with a column that shuts her away. I mask my embarrassment behind a menu. I pretend it's nothing and I don't do anything. I'm fairly confident: it's better this way.

All around me it's a waiving of hands. The anxious fingers of a Chinese student are inviting the woman to sit with us. She replies with a nod and an outstretched palm, as if she was begging us to forget that she exists. The big hands of a Croat are squeezing the chair, while his head keeps turning from side to side. He looks at his self-marginalized classmate and silently wonders what we can do. After a few seconds you can tell from his face that the obvious answer is a disappointing one. The fingers of the Saudi men are scanning the menu. They are calm and unconcerned: this is normal for them.