Taking (contradictory) sides

I’ve noticed that, save for an irrelevant minority, people tend to stick to either one of the following groups: 1) those who are against Israel invading Lebanon AND in favor of Russia invading Ukraine or else 2) those who are in favor of Israel invading Lebanon AND against Russia invading Ukraine. The bullshitting-pseudo-noble-reason they might claim they took those contradicting sides for doesn’t matter much, like any other bullshitting-pseudo-noble-reason for that matter. It’ll be something about imperialism, capitalism, communism, totalitarianism, nationalism, fascism, racism, terrorism, zionism, islamism or any other “-ism”. What’s sure is that they are taking sides against one invasion AND in favor of the other one. Either one.

Princess - Jean Sasson

Sultana, a princess of the Al Saud royal family, decided to tell the story of her life through the pen of Jean Sasson, an American author. Her main purpose was to expose the pitiful situation, at the time of her youth, of women in Saudi Arabia, a country dominated by men, where the most significant event in their lives seems to take place when they are handed over as private property from their fathers to their husbands, which in most cases they are not allowed to choose by themselves.

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.

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.