Dark Hope

"American-born Israeli David Shulman takes us right into the heart of the conflict with Dark Hope, a chronicle of his work as a member of the peace group Ta'ayush, which takes its name from the Arabic word for "living together."" "Though Shulman never denies the complexity of the issues that fuel the conflict - nor the culpability of people on both sides - he forcefully clarifies the injustices perpetrated by Israel every day by showing us the human dimension of the occupation. Here we meet Palestinian families whose houses have been blown up by the Israeli army, shepherds whose sheep have been poisoned by settlers, farmers stripped of their land by Israel's dividing wall. We watch as whip-swinging police on horseback charge into crowds of nonviolent demonstrators, as Israeli settlers shoot at innocent Palestinians harvesting olives, and as families and communities become utterly and irrevocably destroyed by the unrelenting violence of the occupation." "Opposing such injustices, Shulman and his companions - Israeli and Palestinian both - doggedly work through checkpoints and blockades to bring aid, rebuild houses, and physically block the progress of the dividing wall. As they face off against police, soldiers, and hostile Israeli settlers, anger mixes with compassion, moments of kinship alternate with violent confrontation, and, throughout, Shulman wrestles with his duty to fight the cruelty enabled by "that dependable and devastating human failure to feel.""--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.