Nora Lester Murad - The View From My Window in Palestine

Did Public TV Doc Promote Peaceful Coexistence—or the UAE? 

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This article explores deception in this PBS-hosted documentary promoting UAE-Israel relations at the expense of Palestinians. It was first published by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Screenshot of title slide from documentary "Amen-Amen-Amen" (in Hebrew, English and Arabic
From film’s website

WNET, the PBS station distributing the 2021 documentary feature Amen-Amen-Amen: A Story of Our Times, called it

the story of the first Jewish community formed in a Muslim country in centuries (in Dubai), and a historic gift of a Torah scroll dedicated to the memory of an Arab-Muslim ruler, the late Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of the United Arab Emirates.

The Boston Globe featured Amen-Amen-Amen in its documentary events program, GlobeDocs.  The Globe hosted filmmaker Tom Gallagher of Religion Media Company in conversation with Loren King on March 14.

The film has an attractive premise—that the United Arab Emirates is a champion of religious tolerance, exemplified by the establishment of a Jewish community in Dubai. This is presented as so historically significant (presumably because the Arab Muslim world is otherwise hostile to Jews) that the Jewish community decided to gift a Torah scroll in honor of Sheikh Zayed, the deceased founding father, to his son Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces.

Despite the stamp of credibility provided by the Boston Globe and PBS, and the film’s ten international documentary awards, anyone familiar with current Israel/UAE relations will wonder how a film with such obvious political interests is seen as a documentary rather than pure propaganda.

Dubious champion of tolerance

“The United Arab Emirates is an oasis of tolerance,” announces a voiceover at the beginning of the film. Amen-Amen-Amen features the February 2019 visit by Pope Francis to the UAE for the much publicized Year of Tolerance, which attracted a diverse crowd of 180,000 people. This visit, and a signed document on human fraternity, are further presented as evidence of the UAE as a champion of religious tolerance.

The crown prince is described on camera as “a humble man” with “exquisite” communication. One describes meeting him as “a spiritual experience.”

The film also notes that the UAE is “very diverse,” as 90% of people in the UAE are not Emirati, and uses this fact to conclude that ““there is no way that the UAE cannot be inclusive.” It’s such a glowing portrait of the country that viewers might be surprised to know that the conservative nonprofit Freedom House rates it “not free,” ranking it below countries like Egypt, Russia and Qatar in terms of political rights and civil liberties.

Human Rights Watch: “Many activists and dissidents…remain detained simply for exercising their rights to free expression and association.”

The country’s diversity springs not from a commitment to tolerance but from the UAE’s dependence on imported workers. Human Rights Watch calls the “tolerance narrative” of the UAE a sham, and concludes:

United Arab Emirates authorities continue to invest in a “soft power” strategy aimed at painting the country as progressive, tolerant and rights-respecting. Many activists and dissidents, some of whom have completed their sentences, remain detained simply for exercising their rights to free expression and association. Prisons across the UAE hold detainees in dismal and unhygienic conditions, where overcrowding and lack of adequate medical care are widespread. The UAE continues to block representatives of international human rights organizations and UN experts from independently conducting in-country research and visiting prisons and detention facilities.

In 2020, Amnesty International and dozens of other human rights organizations issued an open letter (2/24/20) calling the UAE “a country that does not tolerate dissenting voices” and arguing that “the UAE government devotes more effort to concealing its human rights abuses than to addressing them and invests heavily in the funding and sponsorship of institutions, events and initiatives that are aimed at projecting a favorable image to the outside world.”

A 2020 report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explored whether, despite some reforms, the UAE migrant policy is akin to human trafficking.

Of course, Amen-Amen-Amen doesn’t mention any of these critiques that contradict the image it wishes to portray. In fact, in the Boston Globe–sponsored discussion of the film, filmmaker Tom Gallagher squirmed out of an audience question about human rights violations in the UAE by saying the film sticks strictly to the issue of religious pluralism and intentionally stayed away from geopolitical analysis.

Hidden political motivation

Trita Parsi (Responsible Statecraft, 9/16/21): “The US is helping cement conflict under the guise of forging reconciliation between three countries that never have been at war.”

But the relationship between the UAE and its Jewish residents can’t be fully understood without geopolitical context—including the country’s changing relationship with Israel.  The Abraham Accords, a series of US-sponsored treaties first signed in September 2020, normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, formalizing long-term relationships that were previously covert. The bedrock of the Abraham Accords is a military alliance against Iran, though the UAE also benefits from direct access to US weapons, and there are huge opportunities for profit from new regional trade. Also important, the Abraham Accords officially break what was at least rhetorical opposition by Arab countries to Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, and expand the bloc of countries in alliance with Israel’s governing right wing.

The Abraham Accords have been and will continue to be extremely profitable for Israel and the UAE, both financially and militarily. At least $11 billion has been made available by the UAE for investment in Israel. The Rand Corporation, proponents of the Accords, concluded its 2021 report:

If these new relations evolve into deeper economic integration, we estimate that the economic benefits for Israel’s partners in this endeavor could be particularly significant, creating approximately 150,000 new jobs for just the four current signatories. This number could grow to more than 4 million new jobs, and more than $1 trillion in new economic activity over a decade, if the accords grow to include 11 nations (including Israel), as some have speculated may be possible.

Though it might not be immediately obvious, enhanced arms sales to the UAE, valued in the tens of billions, are tied up with, not contradictory to, the US commitment to Israel’s military superiority. In other words, both the US and Israel benefit from the increased militarization of Israel’s allies, especially given their shared interest in opposing Iran. And it is in the interest of the UAE, Israel and the US to rewrite the narrative they spun about terrorist Arabs into a good Arab/bad Arab story, with the UAE being “good guys” who will get political props for making nice with Israel.

Much is made in the film and its marketing materials about the Jewish community in Dubai being the “first Jewish community formed in an Arab-Muslim country in centuries,” implying that Muslim countries have not been friendly to Jews until now. But the film also goes into detail (13:00–15:00) about a time when there was “relative harmony, warm social relationships, neighborhood relationships, business relationships, intellectual exchanges” between Jews and Muslims over centuries, into the twentieth century. So which is it?

It’s true that Jews have been an integral part of Arab Muslim communities for many hundreds of years, and faced much less discrimination than in Christian Europe. The main rupture that occurred—which is conspicuously not mentioned in the film—was not a religious rupture between Arab Muslims and Jews, but a political rupture between Arab countries and the state of Israel over the position that Palestinians have rights, and should not be exiled, occupied and colonized.

Presenting the warming relationship between the UAE and its Jewish population without explaining any of the political context suggests that the more hostile relationship between the UAE and Israel that preceded it was simply due to antisemitism, rather than a political stance against Israeli colonization and occupation of Palestinian land.

In this overarching context, the release of a film that offers an entirely uncritical and glowing portrait of the UAE ought to make PBS take a closer look at the film’s funding.

Questionable funding 

FCC guidelines require broadcasters to “fully and fairly disclose the true identity” of all broadcast program funders,” including original production funders.

Amen-Amen-Amen‘s funders, however, are difficult to fully discern. It is the sole project of Religion Media Company (RMC), which appears to be essentially a one-man outfit run by Tom Gallagher. Gallagher is the former head of Religion News Service and has no apparent training or previous experience as a filmmaker. Although RMC was registered as a nonprofit public charity in 2021, there are no publicly available financial documents showing its sources of income, nor does it have a website listing its board of directors.

According to the film’s website, Gallagher “conceived of the documentary” in 2018 and founded RMC in January 2020—after the events shown in the film—to produce “original media projects that tell powerful stories of our common search for meaning, wherever those stories are found.”

Sarah Jones (New Republic, 4/27/18): The removal of published RNS columns under Tom Gallagher was seen as “an example of censorious overreach by an inexperienced publisher” who “may have exhibited religious bias on the job.”

The New Republic (4/27/18) called Gallagher’s short reign at Religion News Service a “spectacular implosion.” A highly regarded religion writer cited “irreconcilable differences” with him, after one journalist was fired and others left in protest. Religion Dispatches (6/19/18) reported that Gallagher was subject to widespread criticism for a “pro-Catholic bias,” considered ethically compromising in interdenominational publishing.

Notably, sources at RNS told the blog Get Religion (12/11/19) “that Gallagher had barely stepped into his position three years ago when he flew off to Abu Dhabi to talk with a moneyed sheik about some kind of RNS collaboration; as in the staff providing content for the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Tolerance.” His exit from RNS would have been just around the time that Gallagher took on the producing, writing and directing of Amen-Amen-Amen.

In terms of outside funders, several names are listed on the film’s website as executive producers—a title given to those who fund a film—with Marc Bell, an NYU trustee, given top billing. At least one other executive producer, James Deutsch, has ties to NYU. Deutsch was, at the time of filming, a trustee of elite Manhattan prep school the Trinity School alongside former NYU president and central Amen figure John Sexton; Deutsch has since become an NYU Law trustee.

Sexton himself plays a pivotal role in the film as the person who introduced directly to Sheik Mohamed the idea of the Torah gifting; he was also present at the gifting ceremony and interviewed in the film. Sexton was the founder of NYU Abu Dhabi, which is fully funded by the UAE. The film’s credits give “a special thanks” to “the inestimable John Sexton and his team of Nancy Gessner, Dan Evans, Elizabeth Cheung-Gaffney, Emily Daughtry and Catherine DeLong” and note that “the film would not have been possible without John Sexton’s overall leadership.” The only other people given special thanks are seven UAE government officials, including Sheik Mohamed. While special thanks do not always imply a transfer of money, this roster raises questions about conflicts of interest.

Essential individuals

PBS funding standards aim to “protect its credibility and integrity by ensuring the editorial independence of all content from funders.” In the case of Amen-Amen-Amen, questions should be asked about the individuals and organizations that appear essential to the film’s production. Moreover, the constellation of relationships among funders, participants, those featured in the film and their political and economic interests are complex, and raise suspicions about editorial independence.

In fact, numerous individuals associated with NYU are given thanks in the film credits, including:

  • Nancy Gessner, administrative manager of NYU
  • Dan Evans, chief of staff and deputy to the president at NYU
  • Elizabeth Cheung-Gaffney, instructor and administrator at NYU Shanghai
  • Emily Daughtry, preceptor of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars, NYU/ Abu Dhabi
  • Catherine DeLong, associate vice chancellor & CFO at NYU/Abu Dhabi
  • Sara Aeder, director of development of NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life, as well as the staff of the Bronfman Center
  • Emily Hirsch, formerly senior brand strategist at NYU
  • Tracy Lavin, director of community and education engagement, NYU/Abu Dhabi
  • Eric Hilgendorf, an employee of NYU/Abu Dhabi

In addition, Cheung-Gaffney and DeLong received credits as “legal” and “accounting and financial” for the film, respectively. Both worked directly under Sexton at the time in similar capacities for the Catalyst Foundation for Universal Education, which Sexton founded and directed.

Yehuda Sarna, another prominent figure in the documentary, is the executive director of the NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life, who simultaneously serves as chief rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates (and is a public proponent of the Abraham Accords).

The large role that NYU staff and trustees played in the film raises questions about the film’s financial relationship with the school and potential conflicts of interest.

Also featured in the film is Eli Epstein, identified as an “interfaith activist” and American businessman, with the idea of the gifting of the Torah. Epstein is also listed as an executive producer, which indicates he not only stars in the film but also helped fund it.

In the film, Epstein alludes to his decades of business activities in the UAE; he is currently chief innovation officer at the aluminum company Aminco Resources, and he was the founder and CEO of Calco, a partner of Conoco Oil. Epstein currently also runs a US-registered nonprofit organization, Visions of Abraham, which “provide(s) our clientele with a one-stop-shop for individually curated group tours to two of the world’s most popular destinations.” Its website also says:

Recently, our team has adopted a common goal of maximizing the historic potential of the Abraham Accords by making it as easy as possible for Jewish and Israeli groups of all sizes and denominations to explore the UAE and Bahrain firsthand.

Amen-Amen-Amen filmmaker Tom Gallagher said he didn’t take any money from the UAE government, but the funding sources of the UAE-based Muslim Council of Elders, which is thanked in the credits, are not transparent, and are very likely to include government funding. And as noted, NYU/Abu Dhabi, many of whose employees are credited by the film, is a project fully funded by the UAE.

In other words, the film appears to have been funded or otherwise made possible by the same people who are featured in the film, and who also have economic and political interests in the narrative advanced by the film.

If it looks like a duck

In light of its funders and collaborators, it’s dubious to view Amen-Amen-Amen as simply a celebration of religious tolerance. It makes more sense to read it as a performative film that seeks to promote the UAE’s and Israel’s political interests in normalization, as well as the interests of NYU.

Tom Gallagher talking to GlobeDocs

The manipulation of the film and its backers is very well done and consistent. For example, in the filmmaker talk sponsored by the Boston Globe, Gallagher stressed that Jews in Dubai who descended from Holocaust survivors were especially moved by the UAE’s welcome. He said, “So many come to this with the horrific history of the Holocaust and persecution, and they see that they can actually be accepted.” An uninformed viewer might find this poignant, except that Arabs and Muslims had nothing to do with the Holocaust.

But the filmmakers mince no words when they tout their own importance. In a discussion in Amen-Amen-Amen among Epstein, Sarna and Elie Abadie, senior rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates, they call the events featured in the film a “landmark.” They call it “an anchor in a way that could redefine the terms of civilization.” This is a powerful claim, to say the least—one that the film does little to justify.

While there isn’t a strict or agreed upon definition of “documentary,” among the general public the word tends to evoke the idea of objectivity. Given how close expository documentaries might be to propaganda, it is surprising that there are no industry standards for evaluating films branded as documentaries; and each promoter is left to develop and enforce their own guidelines.

After several inquiries, the Boston Globe answered my question about selection criteria and due diligence simply by saying, “We often have filmmakers reach out and pitch us their ideas and their films throughout the year to screen during our GlobeDocs monthly screenings—that was the case for this film.”

WNET also didn’t provide details, but told me: “All of our programs are carefully vetted to ensure that they meet broadcast standards and represent community needs. Vetting includes funding, content, and other production standards.”

In fact, it is not clear how Amen-Amen-Amen  complies with the standards of any media organization that claims to be nonpartisan. The problems include the absence of context that would inform an understanding of the political motivations of the film, several questions about the integrity of the story and production, and lack of clarity about the transparency and independence of funding for the film. The dubious credibility of this “documentary” ought to give pause to discerning viewers and lead them to look more deeply at the Abraham Accords and those who profit from them. Hopefully, the gatekeepers like PBS and the Boston Globe who lift up films making politically-interested claims can also learn to comply with their own standards, which are necessary to ensure public trust.

The Mapping Project is Not Antisemitic but it is Destructive Activism

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This opinion piece about The Mapping Project first appeared in Mondoweiss.

The Mapping Project is undermining years of social justice efforts to bring Palestinian rights into the mainstream. In greater Boston, where I live and organize, the folks I know can’t stop shaking our heads and asking “why?”

Palestinians and social justice activists have hard ideas to bring into the mainstream. We need to show how the state of Israel is allied with right-wing causes like policing and imperialism and that mainstream Jewish organizations are complicit with (and sometimes fronts for) pro-Israel political pressure. 

I suppose that’s what The Mapping Project was trying to do, to expose the system we’re up against, to bring into one place, for example, the way the ADL simultaneously promotes a militarized, racist Israel and militarized, racist policing in the US. This is true, but being right is not the same thing as being effective.

Protest in Boston, May 2021

Because of our opposition’s free wielding of false accusations of antisemitism and the confusion it causes among potential allies, the movement has spent much effort over the years being  intentional about how we communicate. We explain to policymakers and the public that there is nothing inherently pro-Jewish about supporting Israel, a right-wing, militarized, Apartheid state that does not embody Jewish identity. We explain that there is nothing anti-Jewish about fighting for Palestinian rights. We explain that one can’t be truly antiracist on behalf of any group without also standing up for the humanity of Palestinians. We work hard to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism because we support the humanity of Palestinians and Israelis (and everyone!) and believe that we are all  oppressed in some form until everyone is liberated.

Yes, it is exhausting and infuriating to have to work so hard to consider the comfort of (mostly white, mostly Jewish) people when the lives and rights of Palestinians and other people of color are being taken. But while Palestinians in Palestine fight for their land, their livelihoods and their security, we in the US are fighting for a narrative – a narrative that respects Palestinians as equal in every way, a narrative that will open policy options that aren’t available now. So, we are careful.

And then, out of the blue, comes The Mapping Project. 

Good, smart people can disagree, but it is my view that The Mapping Project, while a Herculean effort that provides lots of useful information, is a poor piece of research and a destructive piece of activism. If they intended it to be truth-telling, they didn’t implement it well.

The Mapping Project is Poor Research

First, it’s important to trace institutional and political relationships between pro-Israel and other military interests, like police, and creative to show links with other harms like medical apartheid. While many of the organizations identified by The Mapping Project are legitimate advocacy targets, it is unhelpful to throw random organizations like a disability rights group (even if they do advance Israeli interests) in along with major players like the ADL. Including every possible actor hides the important differences in their levels of influence, and it unnecessarily opens windows for attack.

Second, while the data is well-referenced, the conclusions drawn by The Mapping Project are not always supported. A single interaction between Facing History and Ourselves and AIPAC is not sufficient evidence to conclude the organizations are collaborators. Ironically, there is relevant information not included in The Mapping Project, perhaps because it didn’t lend itself to an easily linked data point, but rather requires the harder work of unraveling narratives and exposing distortions. Facing History and Ourselves is a good example. An influential educational nonprofit, they promote an understanding of antisemitism that considers some critiques of Israel to be anti-Jewish. This does show a convergence in narratives between Facing History and AIPAC that is useful to map. In other words, I think Facing History is a strategic choice for action and their narrative supports AIPAC’s pro-Israel agenda, but I don’t think you can conclude that from the data point that Facing History presented at an AIPAC event in 2019. The problem of selective data and weak conclusions is especially troubling in a project that presents itself as data-driven.

Third, I see no analytical value to presenting organizations on a geographical map. I understand that maps can be powerful tools for illustrating local-global connections and facilitating local organizing. But showing that an organization with offices on Arlington Street gets a grant from an organization on Tremont Street doesn’t add to their analysis.

The Mapping Project is Destructive Activism

Besides being poor research, The Mapping Project is a strategic mistake of incalculable proportions that we will pay for over many years.

First, the release of the Mapping Project, without the support of key antiracist groups working in the Israel-Palestine space, and without a clear call to constructive action, put activist groups in a bad position of catch-up. The ADL and friends were highlighted in media spaces that covered The Mapping Project with their anti-Palestinian spin, but no one was ready from the social justice community to step in and convey our message. Every time the media said “we reached out to The Mapping Project and other local pro-Palestinian actors and got no response,” it was a huge missed opportunity. 

Second, while we all know that pro-Israel advocates would have attacked the project even if it had been good, their attack is stronger because the advocacy message of The Mapping Project is so unclear. Saying, “Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them. Every entity has an address, every network can be disrupted” makes sense to me, a progressive in the movement who understands organizing, nonviolent action, and local-global connections. But any informed person could anticipate that these words would be interpreted by fear-mongerers and mainstream media as a call to antisemitic violence. If, as the developers say, the map “is intended first and foremost to cultivate relationships between organizers across movements and deepen our political analyses as we build community power,” the project should have been vetted more broadly and coordinated with other organizers, including ones positioned to bear the brunt of the pushback.

Third, and importantly, The Mapping Project alienates potential allies and upends rather than cultivates synergies between causes. A case in point is the inclusion of Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey on the map. While the information provided about them is likely true, some people would consider Warren and Markey on the right side of many other issues, and worthy of inclusion in the “need to cultivate” category – unlike others on the map, such as the Consulate General of Israel to New England. I’m not saying we should excuse or go easy on those who are “progressive except for Palestine,” but I do think each kind of actor needs its own strategy. And the left is hardly in a position to throw progressives under the bus for their imperfections, especially since we too are imperfect. The challenge is to learn how to hold tight to our values while building alliances, especially with people in positions of power who can move our policy aspirations forward.

The Mapping Project is not ideologically or religiously anti-Jewish as the ADL and other spokespeople for zionism claim, and those bogus accusations should be exposed for what they are–virulent, deceptive, anti-Palestinianism. But even though it is not antisemitic, The Mapping Project is still destructive to our public-facing work and to the movement.

Confusion Within the Movement

We have been asked to defend The Mapping Project because it has been attacked by the same forces that regularly attack us, and there’s some logic in that. For example, respected Mondoweiss activist/journalists Phil Weiss and Adam Horowitz doubled down on their defense of The Mapping Project, saying:

The attacks on one element of this analysis demonstrate a truth of the report and a problem we have long pointed out here. Israel lobby institutions have considerable political and cultural power in dictating the discourse of Israel/Palestine, and the resultant policy. But they are unaccountable. That power can never be pointed out. Because it’s supposedly a form of Jew hatred. 

But others point out, if not publicly, that while we’re used to having to defend against attacks on movement work, in this case we’re asked to do that with no preparation, context or collaboration on the content of what we’re asked to defend, and we don’t even know who is behind the project. This is an organizing problem that extends beyond The Mapping Project.

Damage Control

How do we know what is the most constructive stand to take in this situation? So much time and effort has already been wasted doing damage control, when a respectful, movement-grounded effort would have been better positioned to withstand the inevitable attack. Many activists feel derailed rather than helped by The Mapping Project, meaning that empirically, it’s not having the effect the authors likely wanted.

But let’s be honest, there are sub-par research projects and poorly conceived social justice  campaigns all the time. Why did this one garner such incredible visibility, to the extent that the city council in Newton, my Boston suburb, felt compelled to make a statement against it? Because we do not have the civic space to have open discourse around Israel-Palestine. Just last month pro-Israel advocates leveraged fear of Jew hatred to try to shut down and control an event sponsored by Families Organizing for Racial Justice that featured Palestinian-Americans in Newton talking about their search for belonging. But the Newton City Council didn’t make a statement against anti-Palestinian racism, no. They didn’t even respond to my invitation to attend the event. That’s my point: The civic space we have is small and precious and must be utilized wisely.

Pro-Israel actors have long searched for examples of “antisemitism from the left.” These examples are essential to their twisted logic claiming that “everyone hates Jews, including those who call themselves antiracist, so Jews are never safe, which is why Israel must be supported unconditionally or there will be another Holocaust.” Sadly, the Mapping Project has given those pro-Israel forces a gift and we, social justice movement actors, are left trying to mitigate the harm.

Since this article was published, I did an interview with KKFI’s “Understanding Israel and Palestine.” You can hear our discussion about The Mapping Project followed by an interview with Charlotte Kates of Samidoun. Also, Jewish Currents “On the Nose” podcast discussed The Mapping Project, and referred to my and other articles exploring various points of view.

Fragmented Love in Alison Glick’s “The Other End of the Sea”

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This Palestinian book review originally appeared in The Markaz Review.

It would be easy to focus on the Jewish protagonist in Alison Glick’s debut novel The Other End of the Sea. After all, it was the search for her roots that first took Rebecca Klein to Israel. But like the author, whose visit to Israel “opened her eyes to the realities for Palestinians living under Israeli control,” the protagonist, too, was captivated not by Israel, but by Palestine.

Palestinian Book Review: The Other End of the Sea - Alison Glick (Book Cover)
Available from Interlink

The premise — a US Jew who evolves to support Palestinian rights — is more than plausible. Increasingly, Jewish Americans are becoming informed about Israeli history, and they are more vocal in critiquing Israel’s policies — Peter Beinart being only one case among many who are speaking out and taking action based on the principle of liberation for all.

But The Other End of the Sea is not another pro-Palestinian screed, it is a bona fide love story, complete with the tenderness, pain, intimacy and miscommunication that define any romantic relationship.

In this narrative, Rebecca Klein meets Zayn Majdalawi in the early 1980s in a taxi cab as both try to find a way out of Gaza. Zayn is a refugee from Shati camp studying in the West Bank, where Rebecca works as a teacher in the Quaker school. Even this plot point — a US Jew falling in love with a Palestinian Muslim — is conceivable. In fact, I myself am an American Jewish woman who married a Palestinian Muslim, and in our nearly forty years together, we have met many other “mixed” couples.

The rest of the plot, however, is completely far-fetched. Despite already serving fifteen years as a political prisoner, Zayn gets exiled by Israel and over the next several years, the couple move between Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and Syria trying to find a safe and secure place to raise their daughter. On the way, Rebecca sees the inner workings of Palestinian families, refugee camps, the life of exiles, political strategizing, and so much more. The protagonist, Rebecca, takes the reader deep into places and situations that no non-Palestinian could ever see.

Except for one thing: The Other End of the Sea is a fictionalized memoir, based closely on the life of the author, Alison Glick. Those “far-fetched” events and forays into the depths of Palestinian experience really happened. It is a story that no one else could have told.

Glick takes readers through a unique and important experience — that of Palestinian exiles. Her masterful storytelling is gripping, pulling us fully into every scene. Over the course of the 30-year-long story, each historical event, place, situation and person erupts into Technicolor. Something as mundane as watching her husband eat melons is told in a way that makes the reader salivate:

In the late morning light, juice the color of a harvest moon ran in rivulets down his smooth arms as, one after the other, he sliced through the fruit’s flesh, scooped out the seeds, and quartered them, methodically eating each one down to the rind. The waiting garbage can registered each fruit with a clunk.

I related deeply to the charged moments at which Rebecca and Zayn just couldn’t understand one another. In one situation, Rebecca expresses her liberal values around gender relations, values that Zayn had always shared. But in a foreign country, and beaten down by his exile, Zayn is overwhelmed. He throws up his hands and says, “You just don’t get it, do you?” Neither is able to explain themselves across the cultural divide, widened by trauma and despair.

Like all good fiction — and effective memoir writing — Glick tells a story that is not only entertaining, but one that matters. Even though politics and culture pervade every aspect of the story, the book centers on one thing: The impact of Israel’s fragmentation of Palestine on a family.

Of course, the story of Palestinian fragmentation cannot be fully captured in a single novel, and it did not end on the last page of Glick’s book. With a population of around 13 million today, there are over 2 million Palestinians living as second-class citizens in Israel, 2.5 million under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, and 2 million living under Israeli siege in the Gaza Strip. Another 3 million Palestinians live in Jordan, with the rest scattered across the Arab world, Europe, Latin America and North America, each group with a different, often precarious, legal status. Nearly every Palestinian is touched by this fragmentation: grandparents are strangers to their grandchildren, aunts miss their nieces’ weddings, and brothers are absent from their brothers’ death beds.

It’s not surprising, then, that love, no matter how strong, can choke from the toxicity of this fragmentation. This shows up poignantly, and tragically, in Glick’s life and her brilliant novel. At one point in the story, Rebecca returns to the house in Gaza she shared with Zayn, a house to which Zayn can no longer go. She says:

“Standing in that hushed house, I understood that it wasn’t the Palestine Street chickens or leftovers that shifted the course of our relationship. It was the realization that despite all we had lost — friends, family, our home, our work — there was still more left to lose.”

Aiding Liberation, a book chapter

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“Do non-Palestinians only stand in solidarity with the struggle against Israeli settler colonialism? Or do we recognize that the struggle for actual liberation is bigger than statehood? Does our understanding of Palestinian liberation include a critique of racial capitalism and neoliberal globalization and the ways they too perpetuate exploitation, inequality and injustice? If so, how should liberation-minded activists interact with Palestinians whose interests diverge, like those who aspire to build a Palestine that is allied with US and European corporate interests or those who want to establish another Islamic state?”

Our Vision for Palestinian Liberation book cover

This is an excerpt from my chapter, “Aiding Liberation” in Ramzy Baroud and Ilan Pappe’s edited volume, Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders & Intellectuals Speak Out.”

Get your copy from your favorite independent bookstore or from bookshop.org.

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