My brother, my land A story from Palestine

Sireen Sawalhas' account, told by Hermez, of her brother becoming a Palestinian resistance fighter and bomber couldn't be more timely. Sireen's mother single-handedly reclaimed the family's West Bank property, walking to Palestine from Jordan with three toddlers in tow. Sireen's father was in exile while his family faced increasingly aggressive land grabs by Israeli settlers. He exhorted his three sons, "'Promise me you will stand your ground should that time come,' he said without giving a thought to the lasting resonance this would have on his sons." As teens, Yousef and Ihab become involved in resistance activities, but it is Iyad who dedicates himself to the cause and ends up trapped for seven years without a trial in a hellish Israeli prison. Ultimately, Iyad's determination to liberate Palestine leads to unspeakable tragedy. Hermez conveys the cruel complexities of occupation. "All around, the landscape masks the politics in its midst, and for a moment, one could be excused for forgetting that the horizon is a prison wall and that the land is being settled by strangers." Essential reading for understanding the Palestinian experience.

This is a deeply moving history of one Palestinian family. Hermez (anthropology, Northwestern Univ. in Qatar; War Is Coming) worked with cowriter Sireen Sawalha, now a U.S. resident, to capture her stories and complex family history. Beginning around the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the book takes readers through the various intifadas and resistance to Israeli settlement and occupation. Their book engages readers with tales of Sawalha's upbringing in a large family under Israeli occupation, as her mother farms land in Kufr Ra'i, a small village in the Northern West Bank. The author's descriptions of what life under occupation looks like and as the children in the family grow into adulthood are poignant. One of Sawalha's brothers, Iyad, early on, challenges the authority that rules over the West Bank. He takes on a larger role in fighting Israeli occupation, serves time in an Israeli jail, and later joins the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A deep love of the land and family is uppermost in the stories that illuminate this innovative book. VERDICT A timely, powerful book from a Palestinian perspective. For readers who want to gain a deep understanding of the current conflict in Palestine, particularly about life in Gaza and the West Bank.--Amy Lewontin