Battle of the books: The five books of Michael

When 90 people – writers and other toilers in Australia’s book industry – got together and sent five books about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to all 227 members of the federal parliament, I thought "good on them".

What could be wrong with sending books to MPs about a conflict that is having such a profound effect on Australian society, on Australian multiculturalism and on the wellbeing of Australian Jews and Australian Muslims?

The more they knew and understood about a conflict with a complicated and contested history going back more than 100 years– the better able our members of parliament would be to listen to and act on the concerns and fears and hopes of their constituents.

Many of their constituents have been deeply traumatised by what happened on October 7, 2023 and by its aftermath, the war – that is still not over – between Hamas and Israel.

In a letter to the MPs, the group of writers and literary workers describe the books that have gone to every member of parliament as "authoritative, highly readable books" that will counter the lack of nuance in the public debate about Israel and the Palestinians.

This in my view, is contestable to say the least.  I am not making a judgement on the readability or even the power of these books when I say this is a partisan list in the sense that books by Israeli writers and writers who in today’s world would be described as Zionists are wholly absent from the books that were sent to the 227 MPs.

Given that the history of the bitter and often violent disputes between Israelis and Palestinians is contested, given that in my view, there are two peoples in the conflict with their own fiercely held – and legitimate – national story, the suggestion that these books are nuanced and authoritative is debatable.

Among my writer friends there was a frenzy of activity in response to the writers’ list of books. Lists of alternative books were drawn up. After a while, there were scores of books that had to be sent to MPs. Looking at these lists I wondered at how many books had been published, how much coverage over many decades there had been in newspapers and magazines and on television of the Middle East conflicts.

I decided to have a go at a list of five books that I would send to all  federal MPs, not to counter the books the writers had sent them, but to offer a different perspective, one that recognises that there are two peoples in this conflict, each with real connections to this tiny place, people – Jews and Palestinians – who have nowhere else to go and ultimately, will have to work out a way to live together.

There would be no writers on my list who advocate for one state- the erasure of Israel or for one Jewish state, the dream of the Israeli far right that would deprive millions of Palestinians of the right to self-determination.

No list like this can be “objective’” indeed no historian is objective and that is certainly the case in this conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But I have chosen books that are not simply polemics that describe one side of the conflict as victims and the other side as oppressors.

One of the limitations was that the books would need to be sourced and sent in a matter of days if they were to get to all MPs by the time parliament rose for the summer break. Waiting until next year was a wait too long. And I needed to find a way to pay for the purchase of the books and funding for delivering them.

Josh Frydenberg found an anonymous donor who was prepared to purchase the books. And the ECAJ agreed to order the books from publishers and deliver the books to the MPs. The ECAJ would have no say about the books I chose to send. Neither would Josh Frydenberg. The books were purchased and sent. Together with a letter to the MPs from me.

My Promised Land by Ari Shavit

I read this book some years ago – it was published in 2013. Shavit was a senior journalist at Haaretz, a left winger who feared for Israel’s future if the occupation continued and there was no end to the suffering of the occupied Palestinian people. This book is beautifully written, full of telling anecdotes about the country and his personal history as an Israeli. It is a sort of love letter to a country whose future is clouded by a failure to resolve the long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby

Tishby is an Israeli American writer and television producer. She has a large following on social media. Her book is lively, the writing conversational and accessible, and clearly influenced by what works on social media. But Tishby is thoughtful, clear about where she is coming from and where she stands – she comes from a left-leaning family that is opposed to the occupation. Her book is challenging and deeply researched.

Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis

This is a narrative history of Zionism and of Israel from its birth in 1948 to the present. It is a lively and engaging book by one of Israel’s leading public intellectuals. It is unashamedly a narrative that is rooted in Jewish history, in the belief that Zionism was and remains a Jewish liberation movement. It is a history underpinned by the belief that the birth and growth of Israel has profoundly changed Jewish life and Jewish communities around the world.

Letters to my Palestinian Neighbour by Yossi Klein Halevi

Halevi is one of Israel’s best-known writers. He is a Modern Orthodox Jew who, nevertheless, can reasonably be described as a small  ‘l’ liberal Zionist who is a fierce opponent of the Netanyahu Government who believes that the Israel he believes in and wants to live in—a secular democratic Jewish Israel—is threatened by the continuing occupation of the Palestinians in the West Bank. This is a touching and deeply personal book, a sort of reaching out by Halevi to his Palestinian neighbours that live just a short distance away from his home in Jerusalem, the start, he hopes, of a dialogue between them. It is unclear, given the events of the past 12 months, whether for now, such a dialogue is possible.

My Life as A Jew by Michael Gawenda

My Life as a Jew is my book. It was published on October 5, 2023 two days before the October 7 Hamas massacres and hostage taking. It is a memoir of my Jewish life, a personal story, and at the same time, it is about in my long career in journalism and my time as Editor and Editor in Chief of The Age, what it meant to be a Jewish journalist and editor. And it examines how sections of the left and a significant number of journalists have embraced anti-Zionism.

I left out books that profoundly affected me when I was younger. David Grossman’s The Yellow Wind for instance, which was published in 1987 and is report of Grossman’s encounter with Palestinians on the West Bank and his profound fears for Israel’s health if the occupation continues. I think Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem which was published in 1989 and that he is apparently updating, is a superb piece of journalism that even now, is well worth reading.

With the books that were delivered last Thursday, on the last sitting day of the parliament for the year, I wrote a letter to each MP. Here is part of what I wrote:

Australian multiculturalism is under serious stress. Jewish Australians feel vulnerable and unsafe. Antisemitism, some of it violent, has exploded since the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in which 1200 Israelis—men, women and children― were murdered and 250 Israelis were taken hostage.

Hostility to Jews is rising exponentially. Jewish writers and artists are being cancelled. Jewish businesses are being vandalised. At our leading universities, Jewish students are vilified and threatened. Many feel unable to go to classes.

In our Muslim communities there is great sorrow at the deaths of so many thousands of people in Gaza who have died in a war that Hamas started when its fighters invaded southern Israel.

For our politicians—all our politicians—these are challenging times, a time when Australia’s multiculturalism is under serious threat. And a time when positions taken by our politicians on the conflict, the war, between Israel and Hamas, Hezbollah and their patron Iran, really matters.

I am a writer. I was a journalist and an editor for more than 40 years. I have thought about what I can do—what writers like me can do—to help our politicians deal with the challenges they face dealing with the conflict and with its fall-out in the communities that they represent.

What I can do—with help—is send a bunch of books to you and to each member of the federal parliament, that I believe will help you understand the history of the conflict, understand its complexities and understand too the obstacles that stand in the way of a peaceful resolution to a bitter conflict that goes back more than 100 years.

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Battle of the books: The first salvo (TJI)