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Letters from Palestine: Palestinians Speak Out about Their Lives, Their Country, and the Power of Nonviolence

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I seldom read books from cover to cover. But when I received Kenneth Ring's book, Letters from Palestine, I couldn't put it down.

Ken presents a collection of personal stories from Palestinians, inside and outside the occupied territories, that provide penetrating insights - sometimes harrowing, sometimes funny, always fascinating - into their daily lives and thoughts. It would not surprise me if, in time, these accounts became inscribed in Palestinian folklore.

They reveal the Palestinians' strength of character so well. For these are among the world's most civilised and sophisticated people. They have withstood 90 years of betrayal and humiliation, and still they bubble with humour and friendship, thanks to their resilience and a gritty determination to overcome the collective and individual tragedies inflicted on them.

The thirty whose voices are heard in the letters they write to their American friend, are a wonderfully varied group.

One young lady says that, for her, the adeyat phalastin (question of Palestine) is the ultimate fight for humanity and justice. "And being Palestinian reminds me every day that justice and human rights can never be taken for granted. Because, in theory, every person is entitled to equality and his or her rights. In reality they are a privilege a select few enjoy."

A young Palestinian-American woman visiting family members in Birzeit comments: "Despite the occupation, Palestinians still remain some of the most educated people in the Arab world. They sit at the checkpoint if they can't make it to school and read their books, or have class right there if their teacher happens to be around..."

She tells how "the majority of the students I worked with at the camp had a parent or a sibling in jail. One boy's father was shot by Israeli soldiers right in front of his eyes. Many of the children wore pictures of dead loved ones or of martyrs around their necks or on their shirts. It was a constant part of their lives."

Fareed, a peace activist, challenges Israel's claims that the clamp-down on Palestinian movement is in response to the new Hamas-led government. "The reality is that Israel first established its system of permits and closures in 1991, and we have been living under these difficult conditions ever since."

The first-hand accounts of terrified families trying to survive the horror and devastation unleashed by Israel on the Gaza Strip in December 2008 are very powerful indeed. As Ken himself reminds us, "by the time it was over nearly seven thousand Gazans had either been killed or wounded, and Gaza itself had been largely reduced to smoke, burning phosphorous, and rubble".

The book's hard message is softened by the many threads of humour. "In spite of the terrible hardship, you still won't find people sleeping on pavements like in New York or London," says Ghassan. "So we guess we still have a long way to go before we become an advanced society."

He observes that Israel is losing the demographic war with the Palestinians. "What do you expect people locked up in their homes to do, especially when the power is cut off by the Israeli Army and no TV?"

I laughed out loud at Ghassan's pithy jokes and found myself cheering Manar's exploits, which she reported to her university chums back home in the US. But then I was brought down to earth with a jolt by Ramzy Baraud's heartbreaking account of how his freedom-fighter father, ill and prevented by the Israelis from leaving Gaza for treatment, died there alone, cut off from his family.

Discovering that two of Ken's contributors were friends of mine was a wonderful surprise. Jiries Canavati (I call him George) was a survivor of the infamous 40-day siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002. It is a gripping story of great courage. In the end they had to surrender, but the eyes of the world were on the Church by then.

George was lucky. Many who came out of the Church alive were deported. The Israelis put him on a blacklist. "So I can't leave Bethlehem now. I can't move anywhere. Bethlehem is like a big jail, and that's it... I am a Christian, but there were both Muslims and Christians together in the siege. The relationship became very friendly. We respect ourselves, we respect each other, and we love each other. And they said, now the Church of the Nativity is the most important place and very special for us because this place protected all of us."

George has very recently set up an organisation called Bethlehem Fair Trade Artisans, which promotes small craft workshops. Ken won't mind, I'm sure, if I give this brave man's new venture a plug by mentioning the link, [...].

The second courageous friend is that young Gazan photo-journalist Mohammed Omer. Sheer professionalism, and a determination to tell the unvarnished truth about Gaza to the western world, earned him the coveted Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2008 while he was still only 23. He received the award in London and went on a speaking tour of European capitals. On the way home to his family in Gaza he was detained and brutally beaten up by Israeli border and security thugs at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan, and hospitalized with severe injuries. In the book Mo tells the shocking story in his own words.

Perhaps Mo's darkest hour - and he must have had many in his young life - was in January 2009 at the height of Israel's vicious blitzkrieg on Gaza's civilians. He wrote to me: "I have been in Holland the past few weeks in hospital, with high fever and following up Gaza's appalling situations. My family have been under very awful situations, but today I managed to get hold of them finally and they are all alive. Some damages around, but that doesn't matter as long as they are alive. I have been so worried and also sad to lose some of my friends who are journalists and others were injured... shame on the international community to allow this to happen."

Yes indeed, shame on the international community which, 18 months later, has still done nothing to resolve the situation and actually rewards the lawless Israeli regime while it continues air strikes and threatens to repeat the atrocities.

Ken writes from a humanistic standpoint, as befits a professor of psychology. He treats those he meets with sensitivity and respect. His great affection for them shines through at all times.

And I like the way he came to the task almost by accident, as I did, after reading a book by a remarkable peace activist. It changed his life completely, he says.

Palestinians have been stripped of nearly everything - their lands, water resources, possessions, dignity, quality of life - and are left with only their education (which the Israelis do their damnedest to disrupt) and their culture. Women value education, pursue it energetically and hold down responsible jobs. I think their influence would surprise westerners.

This is not to say that the menfolk neglect their education. On the contrary. Palestine's strangulated economy is full of well-qualified men. But it is right that many of Ken's contributors are female. Despite decades of deprivation and hardship the rich Palestinian-Arab culture survives. The women, with their resourcefulness and strong sense of family, have seen to it and injected it with an indomitable spirit.

Letters from Palestine will put you through the emotional wringer - you'll share the laughter, pride, helplessness, despair, anger and even the camaraderie. It is written with a pleasant light touch while providing an accurate portrayal of the plight of the Palestinians.

The picture painted by Kenneth Ring and his friends is, of course, seriously at odds with the one invented and broadcast by the propagandists in Tel Aviv and their hirelings in the US and British governments. Anyone who has been to the occupied Holy Land knows that Letters from Palestine speaks the truth.

And Ken's being Jewish makes the book all the more remarkable. I see it as one of the few beacons of decency in a swamp of deceit, and I would like one day to shake him by the hand.

I understand that proceeds from the book are to be split between the Atfaluna School for the Deaf in Gaza, where Ken sponsors a child, and civil society NGOs in the West Bank with which co-author Ghassan Abdullah is associated.

God and Allah bless you, Kenneth Ring, for your gift to better understanding.

Every now and then you come across an author whose message transforms your life and inspires you forever. Kenneth Ring has long been active as one of the world's foremost leading researchers in the field of near-death experiences, having published five books on the subject and numerous articles in professional journals. However, his life and his work took a different direction when he learned what it was like for the Palestinian people living in the Occupied Territories these days.

His latest masterpiece, Letters From Palestine, is the result of his journey to discover, uncover, and document the inhumanity that is taking place in Palestine and of the tremendous spirit and resilience of the peple living there.

I must shamefully admit I was ignorant of the horrendous treatment and living conditions taking place in Palestine. This book opened my eyes and my heart to the discrimination and brutality the people of Palestine continue to endure. After reading this book, I don't think I can ever again be oblivious to the tumultous heartbreak and pain the people of Palestine suffer while living under the occupation. From the voices of the actual people living there, we get to read what daily ife is like for them and believe me, no one should live like this!

This rare and wonderful book awakens its readers to examine our own humanity and reminds us of our deeper need to reconnect with the humanity of all the world's people so that our commonalities can build bridges to transition peacefully into a new world of peace and equality for all.

This beautifully crafted book serves as an open doorway to show us how to change the course of history, moving us from the current system of vengeance to the path of restorative justice, and more. The book ends with a resource guide that gives the reader additional information to further understand Palestinian life and what we can do to help, should we choose to.

What an awesome gem of a book which EVERYONE MUST READ!

I think every American should read this book at tax time....See how our taxes help a state to en-slave millions of people. Of course it easy to cry at the first rocket coming down on Israeli settlement, but then its time to ask what the world has done for the refugees living in camp for 3 generations and are they so wrong to try to resist an injust oppression? Is the voice of the strongest allways the one to believe? Palestine will go in history right after the Armenian genocide and the Shoah...

Kenneth Ring and Ghassan Abdullah have done a wonderful thing, giving a voice to Palestinians whose stories would otherwise not be heard.

'Letters from Palestine' is a collection of letters from 30 different Palestinians gathered together by Kenneth Ring, a retired professor living in California, and Ghassan Abdullah, now living in Palestine. For two years they acquired several Palestinian 'internet friends', mostly through word of mouth, and chose thirty to publish in this book. At last, Palestinians have been given a human face, both through their writings and also their photograph at the start of their chapter. In addition, Kenneth Ring writes a charming introduction to each one, giving their personal details and saying how he got to know them.

The chapter by Ziad Abbas called 'From Dheisheh to Home', where he describes his uncle's visit to his village after 50 years of enforced exile, is the most beautiful piece of writing I have read since Ghada Karmi's 'In Search of Fatima' came out 8 years ago. The story of Ziad's uncle will live on now, thanks to the diligence of Kenneth Ring in scouting it out.

Ziad Abbas has fulfilled his uncle's words:

"If I die, this history will not die with me. It will stay with you. You will keep it, and you will pass it on."

For Palestinians, 1948 was a catastrophe. When Israel was born, between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their ancestral homes, farms, villages and towns and became permanent refugees. For them this murderous ethnic cleansing was their Holocaust. Sixty-two years later, it continues. For those who live in what was Palestine, the experience is one of contempt, persecution and eradication.

The following quote from professor and peace activist David Shulman's book Dark Hope is a description of what it is like on the ground. "What we are fighting in the South Hebron Hills is pure, rarefied, unadulterated, uncontainable human evil. Nothing but malice drives this campaign to uproot" people from their homes. ... "They led peaceful, if somewhat impoverished lives, until the settlers came. Since then, there has been no peace. They are tormented, terrified, incredulous, as am I. What black greed, what unwitting hatred, has turned Israeli Jews into the torturers of the innocent?"

The stories in Letters from Palestine are by people who live this reality on a daily basis. Some are refugees who cannot return. Most live in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. In reading their stories, two things are clear: no human being should have to endure what they have endured, on a daily basis, for sixty-two years. It is immoral to allow it to continue.

"Papers, please!" This demand from a French official in the film Casablanca reminds us of the iconic Nazi means of control, that people were not free to travel, and that certain people, like the fictional Victor Laszlo , who was fighting for freedom, were singled out for oppression, arrest, and torture. There is a great need for the world, especially the Jewish Diaspora, to listen to Palestinians' perspectives, and Letters provides an excellent opportunity to do so.

Your heart will be stirred and opened by the letters from young Palestinians living abroad, as well as those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. You will hear from people like journalist Mohammed Omer, who was honored in Sweden, but tortured in Israel for speaking the truth about Gaza. Palestinians are bewildered and outraged at the cruelty they suffer due to the Pass system, enforced by gun-toting soldiers who are trained to speak only three phrases in Arabic: "Forbidden! Stop or I'll Shoot! and Go Back." Then there's the so-called Apartheid Wall (in the West Bank), a physical barrier between the two peoples. Palestinians have no rights to return to their former villages, many of which are unrecognizably altered by Israeli settlers. Mr. Omer says he believes that the underlying problem is that there is no Israeli constitution, and so no universal human rights. One exception to land confiscation is Daoud Nassar, who is still fighting for his family's land in court, while opening it to other people from around the world, planting trees and building peace.

Much like the native peoples in other colonial lands, the Palestinians were herded into these two reservations or ghettos, where they are now being cut off from essentials, even their own future, with hundreds of education-hungry students not allowed to accept scholarships. The Gaza strip is like the world's largest prison, with 1.5 million Gazans, and is blockaded, not just from weapons, but also from necessities like medicine. After its bombardment at the end of 2008, Mazin Qumsiyeh writes a poignant chapter from Bethlehem called: "Sometimes the dead are envied."

There can be no peace in Israel, and indeed the world, unless people understand and honor the Palestinian position. The people in this book are not terrorists; rather, they must live with an occupier who insolently demands their papers, jails or kills them, destroys their homes (sometimes more than once), their security, even their future. Israel is hailed as the only democracy in the Middle East. But actually, to be a true democracy, a better one, it needs a constitution and to recognize all people as equals. Israel must acknowledge the injustice of displacing people from their homes during its birth. Only then can there be reconciliation, as coauthor Ghassan Abdullah states. After going through Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, he inquires whether history's victims, like the Jews after the Holocaust, and Palestinians today, are doomed to become tomorrow's criminals?

It is vital that you read these letters, which give voice to the powerless and often unjustly despised Palestinians. Open your mind to the many first-hand stories in this book, which will inspire, touch and sometimes sadden you. Once you hear and really listen to these voices, you will never be the same again.

Letters from Palestine provides eye-opening, heart rendering accounts of the daily lives of Palestinians living and suffering in the Israeli occupied territories and Gaza. For anyone who is unaware of the Palestinian perspective due to media spinning and/or no coverage at all, this book will certainly educate any American ready and willing to wake up from their media induced coma.

As a staunch supporter of human rights, non-violence and putting an end to racism, I applaud Ken Ring and Ghassan Abdullah for compiling these stories depicting the cold, hard truth about this often misunderstood corner of the globe.

I highly recommend Letters from Palestine for it will allow you to meet heart to heart with other fellow travelers of this earthly journey while causing you meet face to face with your own humanity. Bravo, Ken Ring and Ghassan Abdullah!

Letters from Palestine: Palestinians Speak Out about Their Lives, Their Country, and the Power of Nonviolence

This is the book everyone should have on the top of their list to gift, buy, and encourage others to read. It is beautifully expressed and humble in its desires. Please recommend this book to everyone you know.

It is hard to think of a book which can so delicately yet firmly shake one's own personal foundations for the better. But this book is one of them. If you are still emotionally alive it will create a rising tide of: unease; annoyance; and finally anger. "Man's inhumanity to Man" is an old phrase but it also works here.

From my personal perspective, it has always been a source of explosive mystery how humans can be subjected to horrors by others, and yet, at some time later in life, they can inflict the same exact treatment on others, and usually on those who are vulnerable in some way. I am thinking of persons who were abused as children but who go on to do the same thing to their own children. I came by this mystification quite early in my life.

I also find it easy to think of Palestine and the area where the Palestinian people are locked up in connection (geographically, at least) with California. I mean, both lands are coastal lands facing west. Some day I would like to see a comparative map done showing the land of Palestine superimposed on California to get an idea of the size of Palestine vs. California. (This is no doubt due to the fact that I grew up in California and still think of it as the navel of the world). At least I do have a good idea of the geography of California and relative distances of the various locations. I would also like to have such a knowledge about Palestine.

But --forgive the digression--this wonderful book is about people, all kinds of people who have been forced to live under great duress and brutality by a system which has put them into the same condition (as second or third class persons) that the Nazis put the Jews into decades ago. And it has fenced them in, too.

And I can't resist saying that I am quite fed up with the expression "The Palestine Question". It has been used down through the centuries. The Indian Question. The Irish Question. The Jewish Question. The Question Question.

Well, will some person please put the question in real words I can deal with?? otherwise it is obvious that this irritating phrase is another one which persons use in order not to do anything except remain still.

So, WWGD? (What Would Gandhi Do?) or WWKD? What Would Martin Luther King Jr Do?

Never mind that. What am I going to do? And when??

Whenever I heard the words Palestine or Palestinians, images of blood, destruction and suicide bombers came instantly to my mind, triggered by the too many news reports of this kind I had seen on TV. Since I read Letters from Palestine, I know that the immense majority of Palestinians are not suicide bombers and that the "problem" of Palestine - the drama of Palestine - is complex, sad, outrageous, seemingly never-ending, and that we are all concerned, whether we are aware of it or not. In his writings, Sartre emphasized the ethics of personal responsibility; individually, we are all responsible for our actions - and non-actions! Kenneth Ring PhD, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Connecticut and one of the world's most eminent near-death experience (NDE) researchers, has decided to take on responsibility for the Palestinian cause, as a man and as a Jew, and to publish this important, poignant, powerful and deeply human book. In a carefully constructed way, Kenneth Ring gives the floor to Palestinians who talk about their daily life, struggles and dreams, with humour, despair, revolt ... and love, so much love for their homeland which does not even exist on the world map. I warmly recommend this book which will inform you and transform you, inevitably.

Evelyn Elsaesser-Valarino

Author of Talking with Angel about Illness, Death and Survival