Meet the Moment Book Club

September Book Club: The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

Sat, Sep 12 · 2:00 PM AEST

The ERKO Erskinville Hotel, 102 Erskineville Rd, Erskineville NSW 2043, Sydney, AU

Welcome to Meet the Moment Book Club, where we read books that meet the moment and make sense of it all together. Please see our group page for a list of upcoming books.

After examining the economic system, we now understand how economic growth fuels many of the crises in our world today, including historical and ongoing colonialism. This leads us to one of the most salient examples of our time: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I've long known I needed to understand more about Palestine, and how the horrors there are interlocked with the current crises we face. Civil rights leaders have long spoken of collective liberation, that "none of us are free until we are all free." But what does that really mean? Of all the issues today, why must we care about this one that is so far away?

Recently I came across this interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUyIjQLh9J0), then read his book The Message, and feel like I am on my way to the very beginnings of understanding. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, long recommended to me, feels like the natural next step in my learning journey.

If you'd like to join me on this quest to understand more about Palestine, please join me in reading -- the author, Rashid Khalidi, is not only a renowned historian and Columbia professor, but his family's history is interwoven with Palestine's -- his great-great-great uncle was the mayor of Jerusalem in the 1800s and was the first Palestinian leader on record to write to the Zionist founder Theodor Herzl when the Zionist movement was still nascent. Khalidi weaves his own and his family's history into this history of the conflict in this acclaimed international bestseller.

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"A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history."

https://www.amazon.com.au/HUNDRED-YEARS-WAR-PALESTINE-Colonialism/dp/1627798552#

"Rigorous and lucid . . . Rashid Khalidi, the intellectual heir to Edward Said, has written one of the great books on the Israeli-Palestinian question."
--Financial Times

"Rashid Khalidi makes clear that the Zionists could not have created modern day Israel without abundant help from Britain and the United States. A must read for the growing number of people who are interested in understanding the real roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
--John J. Mearsheimer, coauthor of The Israel Lobby

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We will be meeting at The Erko Hotel, at the big square raised table next to the bar.

We will start and end on time.

There's no fee, but please purchase your own food/drinks from the venue.

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If you have trouble getting the book, message me.

On reading a book: I encourage people to read books over just interviews or summaries, because nothing beats the slow digesting of the beauty and nuances in a book. Especially for the books in this book club that challenge our worldviews and help us see the world as it truly is, these books need to be really grappled with, to be fully engaged with, to receive the full benefits.

For reference, I use book clubs to motivate me to finish the books I want to read, so the date of the book club becomes a deadline to finish the book by. I calculate the number of pages in a book and the number of days I can realistically read, and work out how many pages on average I need to read each day. That's how I've finished many books. Invariably, they're worth reading to the end.

Of course, life happens and we're all busy. If you really can't finish a book or can only watch videos this time, that's okay. Come by with an attitude of listening, open to being inspired, and take in what others have to say; perhaps you'll want to read/finish the book afterwards.

Just know that books are like most things in life: what you put in is what you get out of it. A podcast or ChatGPT can give you the high-level points, sure, perhaps to BS your way to a decent grade in class; but we're not in school anymore, and we read these books because they better our lives and help us see more clearly. But they can only do so if we read them, because reading is what makes all the new concepts come to life enough to maybe change yours. For the full magic, you just gotta read.

Alright, thanks for reading my ode to reading.

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If the RSVP list is full, please join the waiting list as there will likely be fluctuations closer to the date.

If you RSVP'ed and can't make it, please edit your RSVP so that others can attend. No-shows will be noted and barred from the book club.

Look forward to seeing you there!