BookSection_64-69.qxp_Books and More Special Section 7/16/20 11:03 AM Page 69
Despite being raised a “hardcore Zionist,” Bennis came to realize the colonialist intentions rooted within the occupation of Palestine. In much of her work, she explores the dynamic nature of the discourse about Palestine within the U.S. and its somewhat positive changes. However, the “tragic irony,” she concluded, is that “we’re looking at this moment when the discourse in the United States has begun to change so dramatically and at the same time the condition of life for Palestinians has gotten worse and worse.” Bennis also described literature and books as vital to this movement and emphasized that “Interlink publishes more books, in English, about the Middle East, about Palestine, by Palestinians, in greater numbers in the Interlink catalog than anywhere else in this country.” (Advertisement)
1983: Lebanon, U.S. Embassy bombed, 63 killed. Months later, Marine Barracks bombed, 241 killed. 1987: Cassie accepts a job teaching Shakespeare at a private academy to forget memories of her late husband killed at the barracks. First day, she meets Samir, a senior whose parents were killed in the embassy attack. As Cassie teaches the tragedies of Hamlet & Othello, Shakespeare’s timeless themes of trust, betrayal, love & hate become reality as the Palestinian-Israeli struggle destroys their lives. Amazon ($20.98); Kindle ($3.88) AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2020
N E W A R R I VA L S The Universal Enemy Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity, by Darryl Li, Stanford University Press, 2019, paperback, 384 pp. MEB $29. No contemporary figure is more demonized than the Islamist foreign fighter who wages jihad around the world. Spreading violence, disregarding national borders and rejecting secular norms, socalled jihadists seem opposed to universalism itself. In a radical departure from conventional wisdom on the topic, The Universal Enemy argues that transnational jihadists are engaged in their own form of universalism: these fighters struggle to realize an Islamist vision directed at all of humanity, transcending racial and cultural difference. Darryl Li reconceptualizes jihad as armed transnational solidarity under conditions of American empire, and highlights the parallels and overlaps between transnational jihads and other universalisms such as the War on Terror, United Nations peacekeeping, and socialist NonAlignment. Developed from more than a decade of research with former fighters in a halfdozen countries, Li explores the relationship between jihad and American empire to shed critical light on both. Istanbul, City of the Fearless: Urban Activism, Coup d’Etat, and Memory in Turkey, by Christopher Houston, University of California Press, 2020, paperback, 242 pp. MEB $34 Based on extensive field research in Turkey, Istanbul, City of the Fearless explores social movements and the broader practices of civil society in Istanbul in the critical years before and after the 1980 military coup, the defining event in the neoliberal reengineering of the city. Bringing together developments in anthropology, urban studies, cultural geography and social theory, Christopher Houston offers new insights into the meaning and study of urban violence, military rule, activism and spatial tactics, relations between political factions and ideologies, and political memory and commemoration. This book is both a social history and an anthropological study, investigating how activist practices and the coup not only contributed to the globalization of Istanbul beginning in the 1980s, but also exerted their force and influence into the future. Falastin: A Cookbook, by Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley, Ten Speed Press, 2020, hardcover, 352 pp. MEB $32. The story of Palestine’s food is really the story of its people. When the events of 1948 forced residents from all regions of Palestine together into one compressed land, recipes that were once closely guarded family secrets were shared and passed between different groups in an effort to ensure that they were not lost forever. In Falastin, Sami Tamimi retraces the lineage and evolution of his country’s cuisine, born of its agriculturally optimal geography, its distinct culinary traditions and Palestinian cooks’ ingenuity and resourcefulness. Tamimi covers the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River—East Jerusalem and the West Bank, up north to the Galilee and the coastal cities of Haifa and Akka, inland to Nazareth, and then south to Hebron and the coastal Gaza Strip. WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
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