A political firebrand in her home country, Israeli defense attorney Lea Tsemel is known by her opponents as "the devil's advocate," for her decades-long defense of Palestinians who have been accused of resisting the occupation.

Allen, Lori. The Rise and Fall of Human Rights: Cynicism and Politics in Occuplied Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.
The Rise and Fall of Human Rights provides a groundbreaking ethnographic investigation of the Palestinian human rights world—its NGOs, activists, and "victims," as well as their politics, training, and discourse—since 1979. Though human rights activity began as a means of struggle against the Israeli occupation, in failing to end the Israeli occupation, protect basic human rights, or establish an accountable Palestinian government, the human rights industry has become the object of cynicism for many Palestinians. But far from indicating apathy, such cynicism generates a productive critique of domestic politics and Western interventionism. This book illuminates the successes and failures of Palestinians' varied engagements with human rights in their quest for independence.

Chomsky, Noam, and Ilan Pappé, edited by Frank Barat.On Palestine.Chicago: Haymarket, 2015.
Operation Protective Edge, Israel's most recent assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. On Palestine is the sequel to their acclaimed book Gaza in Crisis.

Erakat, Noura. Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Stanford, CA: Standford University Press, 2020.
Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures―from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza―Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel's interests than the Palestinians'. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine.

Hannum, Hurst. Rescuing Human Rights: A Radically Moderate Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
This is a multi-disciplinary book with a primary focus on international law and human rights. It analyzes human rights successes and failures, and argues that the role of human rights in foreign affairs continues to be crucial in the twenty-first century.

Khalidi, Rashid.The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.Boston: Beacon, 2006.
At a time when a lasting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis seems virtually unattainable, understanding the roots of their conflict is an essential step in restoring hope to the region. In The Iron Cage, Rashid Khalidi, one of the most respected historians and political observers of the Middle East, homes in on Palestinian politics and history. By drawing on a wealth of experience and scholarship, Khalidi provides a lucid context for the realities on the ground today, a context that has been, until now, notably lacking in our discourse.

Pappé, Ilan.The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.Oxford: OneWorld, 2006.
Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé's groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing". Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappé offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel's founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.

Said, Edward.The Question of Palestine.New York: Vintage, 1979.
This original and deeply provocative book was the first to make Palestine the subject of a serious debate–one that remains as critical as ever. With the rigorous scholarship he brought to his influential Orientalism and an exile’s passion (he is Palestinian by birth), Edward W. Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied–as well as in the conscience of the West. He has updated this landmark work to portray the changed status of Palestine and its people in light of such developments as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the intifada, the Gulf War, and the ongoing MIddle East peace initiative. For anyone interested in this region and its future, The Question of Palestine remains the most useful and authoritative account available.

Sfard, Mikharel. The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine and the Legal Battle for Human Rights. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2017.
In The Wall and the Gate, Michael Sfard chronicles this struggle - a story that has never before been fully told - and in the process engages the core principles of human rights legal ethics. Sfard recounts the unfolding of key cases and issues, ranging from confiscation of land, deportations, the creation of settlements, punitive home demolitions, torture, and targeted killings - all actions considered violations of international law. In the process, he lays bare the reality of the occupation and the lives of the people who must contend with that reality.

Abulhawa, Susan. Mornings in Jenin. New York, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.
Mornings in Jenin is a multi-generational story about a Palestinian family. Forcibly removed from the olive-farming village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejos are displaced to live in canvas tents in the Jenin refugee camp. We follow the Abulhejo family as they live through a half century of violent history. Amidst the loss and fear, hatred and pain, as their tents are replaced by more forebodingly permanent cinderblock huts, there is always the waiting, waiting to return to a lost home. The novel's voice is that of Amal, the granddaughter of the old village patriarch, a bright, sensitive girl who makes it out of the camps, only to return years later, to marry and bear a child. Through her eyes, with her evolving vision, we get the story of her brothers, one who is kidnapped to be raised Jewish, one who will end with bombs strapped to his middle. But of the many interwoven stories, stretching backward and forward in time, none is more important than Amal's own. Her story is one of love and loss, of childhood and marriage and parenthood, and finally the need to share her history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she has.

Chabon, Michael. Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation. New York: Harper Perennial, 2017.
In Kingdom of Olives and Ash, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, two of today's most renowned novelists and essayists, have teamed up with the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence—an organization comprised of former Israeli soldiers who served in the occupied territories and saw firsthand the injustice there—and a host of illustrious writers to tell the stories of the people on the ground in the contested territories.

McCann, Colum. Apeirogon: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2020.
The novel of a lifetime about two men and their daughters: divided by conflict, yet united in grief. Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin live near one another - yet they exist worlds apart. Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Rami's license plate is yellow. Bassam's license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam takes an hour and a half. Both men have lost their daughters. Rami's thirteen-year-old girl Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber while out shopping with her friends. Bassam's ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot and killed by a member of the border police outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket she hadn't had time to eat yet. The men become the best of friends. In this epic novel - named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides - Colum McCann crosses centuries and continents, stitching time, art, history, nature and politics into a tapestry of friendship, love, loss and belonging. Musical, muscular, delicate and soaring, Apeirogon is the novel for our times.

Darwish, Mahmoud.Mural, translated by John Berger and Rema Hammami, illustrated by John BergerBrooklyn: Verso, 2017.
Mahmoud Darwish was the Palestinian national poet. One of the greatest poets of the last half century, his work evokes the loss of his homeland and is suffused with the pain of dispossession and exile. His poems display a brilliant acuity, a passion for and openness to the world and, above all, a deep and abiding humanity. Here, his close friends John Berger and Rema Hammami present a beautiful new translation of two of Darwish’s later works. Illustrated with original drawings by John Berger, Muralis a testimony to one of the most important and powerful poets of our age.

Barakat, Ibtisam. Tasting the Sky. New York: Square Fish, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2016.
The author remembers her childhood in Ramallah and as a Palestinian refugee in the late 1960s.

Ellis, Deborah. Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2004.
Deborah Ellis's enormously popular Breadwinner trilogy recounted the experiences of children living in Afghanistan; now Ellis turns her attention to the young people of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After visiting the region to conduct interviews, she presents their stories here — in their own words. Twelve-year-old Nora, eleven-year-old Mohammad, and many others speak directly about their lives — which prove to be both ordinary and extraordinary: They argue with their siblings. They hate spinach. They have wishes for the future. Yet they have also seen their homes destroyed and families killed, and live amidst constant upheaval and violence.

National Geographic Society (U.S.). Every Human Has Rights: A Photographic Declaration for Kids. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2009.
This photographic essay offers kids an accessibly written list of the thirty rights set down in 1948 by the United Nations with commentary by other kids and richly evocative photographs illustrating each right. At the end of this deceptively simple book, kids will know that regardless of individual differences and circumstances, each person is valuable and worthy of respect.

Carter, Anne Laurel. The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. Toronto: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, 2008.
Ever since she was a little girl, Amani has wanted to be a shepherd, just like her beloved grandfather, Sido. For generations her family has grazed sheep above the olive groves of the family homestead near Hebron. But now Amani's family home is being threatened by encroaching Jewish settlements. As Amani struggles to find increasingly rare grazing land for her starving sheep, her uncle and brother are tempted to take a more militant stance against the settlers. Then she meets Jonathan, an American boy visiting his father. Away from the pressures of their families, and despite their differences, the two young people discover a secret meadow where Amani can graze her sheep. A moving novel about one of the most hotly disputed pieces of land on earth.

Laird, Elizabeth. A Little Piece of Ground. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2006.
During the Israeli occupation of Ramallah in the West Bank of Palestine, twelve-year-old Karim and his friends create a secret place for themselves where they can momentarily forget the horrors of war.