I have just realized that despite my book group ending some weeks ago, I have not been able to properly write a blog post about it yet. The book we read was Palestine Walks by Raja Shehadeh. I chose to be a part of this reading group as it was a book that covered an international topic that was interesting to me. Since I live in the U.S., I often hear about the conflict between Israel and Palestine from the Israeli standpoint. The U.S. (especially under the Trump administration) backs Israel over Palestine most of the time so justification for that policy is what is often debated. In his book, Shehadeh guides the reader through his time living in the West Bank and what it is like to ave so much Israeli influence over him. The biggest idea I personally got from the book is that Israel is not facing enough international push-back for its settlement policies and that it should be condemned more often for its actions than it currently is. The reasoning for this is that Israel is effectively trying to integrate the entirety of the West Bank into its territory. This is sneaky behavior and not something that should be ignored.
Part of the reason as to why the U.S. does not condemn the Israeli government is because Evangelical Christians are huge backers of the country. They believe that the Jewish people must have complete dominance over the biblical land of Israel in order for the second coming to happen. This leads them to support the expulsion or assimilation of the Palestinian citizens in the West Bank. Personally, I think this is somewhat shortsighted, perhaps because I am not an Evangelical Christian.