Following are links to organizations and resources, news sources, books, films, shopping suggestions, and alternative travel options.
Selected Background Reading:
- Hanan Ashrawi, This Side of Peace (political memoir)
- Phyllis Bennis, Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer
- Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians
- Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems
- Amira Hass, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege
- Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity
- Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict,1881-2001 and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949
- Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and A History of Modern Palestine
- Tanya Reinhart, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948
- Joe Sacco, Palestine (comic / graphic journalism)
- Edward Said, The Question of Palestine or any of his many other books
- Lynd Staughton, Editor, Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians
- Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
- Michel Warschawski, On the Border (political memoir)
Films about Palestine:
- The Chicago Palestine Film Festival has a pretty extensive database of Palestinian films on their website, so if you’re thirsting for more, check it out.
- Arna’s Children, Juliano Mer Khamis documentary about a theatre group that was established in Jenin refugee camp by Arna Mer Khamis (the director’s mother, and a Jewish Israeli who married a Palestinian in the 1950s). Footage from 1989-1996, and 2001, often following the same kids/men throughout the years.
- Ford Transit, Hany Abu Assad director combines documentary and fiction as he films taxi-van driver Rajai speeding through checkpoints and dabbling in pirated CDs on the side. The documentary also offers backseat interviews with politicians, psychologists, filmmakers, and ordinary folks.
- Frontiers of Dreams and Fears, Mai Masri documentary about the lives of a group of Palestinian children growing up in refugee camps in Palestine and Lebanon. The film focuses on two teenage girls and combines daily teenage worries with the wider context in which they live. Filmed in 2000 as Israeli troops withdraw from Lebanon and as the second Intifada begins in Palestine.
News & Commentary:
- Al Jazeera
- Alternative Information Center
- BBC
- Electronic Intifada
- Ha'aretz
- Indymedia
- International Middle East Media Center
- The Palestine Chronicle
- Palestine Media Watch
- Palestine News Network
- To subscribe to an excellent daily digest of stories from Palestine called "Today In Palestine" go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi or if that doesn’t work, send an e-mail to f_shadi@yahoo.com
Boycott/Divest/Sanction Israel + Invest in Palestine (BDS+I)
It worked in South Africa, it can work in Palestine.
Palestinian Boycott and Divestment resources:
- Palestinian civil society call and campaign
- Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
- Stop The Wall
Additional Boycott and Divestment resources:
- U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
- Methodists' Divestment Task Force
- Somerville Divestment Project
- Who Profits?
Buy Palestinian products and promote their sale in your communities:
Palestinian Organizations and Resources:
- Apartheid Masked as Peace
- BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
- Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs
- Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign
- Palestine Land Society
- Palestine Remembered
- Stop the Wall
Israeli Organizations:
- B'Tselem (Israeli human rights organization)
- Israeli Citizens for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions on Israel to End the Occupation
- The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
- New Profile
- Zochrot "Remembering" is a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948.
International Organizations in Palestine:
- Birthright Palestine a travel, homestay, internship and language study program created by Native Palestinians for Diaspora Palestinians
- Christian Peacemaker Teams
- International Solidarity Movement
- International Women's Peace Service
US-Based and International Organizations & Resources:
- Boycott Israeli Goods (BIG) and Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), Britain
- Don't Buy Into Apartheid Grassroot U.S. based deshelving campaign
- Jewish Voice for Peace based in San Francisco, with member organizations around the country
- New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel
- Palestine Solidarity Movement nationwide campus movement, focusing on divestment
- U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation based in DC, with member organizations around the country
- War Tax Resistance International
- It IS Apartheid
- Companies that profit from the occupation of Palestinian land.
Alternative Travel Options:
Birthright Unplugged is not able to accommodate all travelers who would like to visit Palestine on our programs. Below are a number of organizations we recommend to assist you in planning your travel in Palestine. You might want to check out Palestine and Palestinians, a travel book for justice tourism. You may also look at Alternative Tours in English, a site that includes some of the opportunities listed below, as well as a few others. Israeli travel restrictions make it nearly impossible to enter and to leave Gaza at this time and we regret that we are unable to assist with travel to this region.
PALESTINIAN ORGANIZATIONS
- Alternative Tours offers half-day and one-day tours of Jerusalem (one of the Old City and one of areas most affected by settlements and the Wall), of a West Bank refugee camp, Bethlehem, Hebron, Nazareth, Jericho, Qalqilya and the Dead Sea for $15-$40. Tours are often available with short notice. Contact Abu Hassan. Tel.: 0522-864205 Email: abuhasan@alqudsnet.com
- The Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) is a Palestinian NGO specializing in tours and pilgrimages that include critical examinations of the history, culture, and politics of the Holy Land. Established in 1995, ATG operates according to the tenets of "justice tourism", that is, tourism that holds as its central goals the creation of economic opportunities for the local community, positive cultural exchange between guest and host through one-on-one interaction, the protection of the environment, and political/historical education.
- Hanthala Tours offers one day tours of Hebron (the Old City and the areas most affected by settlements in the heart of the city), to refugee camps and areas affected by the wall, and to the south Hebron hills where Palestinians live traditional lives and suffer ongoing settler attacks. Hanthala Tours also organizes home stays for visitors, providing positive cultural exchange between guest and host through one-on-one interaction, and can host you in the HANTHALA guest house in Hebron city center. Tel: 0599.271.190, Email: h_sharabati@hotmail.com
- Holy Land Trust and Siraj both offer a range of travel and study programs, mostly based in the Bethlehem area.
- Palestine Solidarity Project is a Palestinian-led project dedicated to opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land through nonviolent direct action. They are available to offer one-day trips to people wanting to learn about settlements, land confiscation, nonviolent resistance, and prison issues within the Beit Ommar area (between Bethlehem and Khalil/Hebron).
ISRAELI ORGANIZATIONS
- Breaking the Silence is a group of ex-soldiers, most of whom served in Hebron, who are speaking out about what they saw and did while there. They give half-day tours of Hebron in which they talk about what they did there and also meet with Palestinian families in the city who are affected by settler and soldier violence.
- The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) gives half-day tours of East Jerusalem, including issues of house demolition, the Wall, settlements, and more. They also give half-day Jerusalem tours through the Israeli Black Panthers focusing on Mizrahi Jewish experience and struggle.
- Zochrot ("Rememberers") is an Israeli organization that works with Palestinian communities within Israel to remember the Nakba (1948) and the destroyed villages that these communities are from. They visit the villages and place signs on the land, commemorating and honoring the past in an attempt to move forward and create peace in the future.