Dark Hope
Subtitle: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Published: June 1, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 236
ISBN-13: 9780226755748
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history: postwar, from c 1945 -; Peace studies; History; Politics / Current Events; History: World; Palestine; Middle East - Israel; Peace; History / Israel; General; 1993-; Arab-Israeli conflict; Government policy; Israel; Palestinian Arabs; Peace movements
Description: "American-born Israeli David Shulman takes us right into the heart of the conflict with Dark Hope, a chronicle of his work as a member of the peace group Ta'ayush, which takes its name from the Arabic word for "living together."" "Though Shulman never denies the complexity of the issues that fuel the conflict - nor the culpability of people on both sides - he forcefully clarifies the injustices perpetrated by Israel every day by showing us the human dimension of the occupation. Here we meet Palestinian families whose houses have been blown up by the Israeli army, shepherds whose sheep have been poisoned by settlers, farmers stripped of their land by Israel's dividing wall. We watch as whip-swinging police on horseback charge into crowds of nonviolent demonstrators, as Israeli settlers shoot at innocent Palestinians harvesting olives, and as families and communities become utterly and irrevocably destroyed by the unrelenting violence of the occupation." "Opposing such injustices, Shulman and his companions - Israeli and Palestinian both - doggedly work through checkpoints and blockades to bring aid, rebuild houses, and physically block the progress of the dividing wall. As they face off against police, soldiers, and hostile Israeli settlers, anger mixes with compassion, moments of kinship alternate with violent confrontation, and, throughout, Shulman wrestles with his duty to fight the cruelty enabled by "that dependable and devastating human failure to feel.""--Jacket.