Side by Side

Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine

Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, Eyal Naveh, and Peace Research Institute in the Middle East

paperback

$24.95

In 2000, a group of Israeli and Palestinian teachers gathered to address what to many people seemed an unbridgeable gulf between the two societies. Struck by how different the standard Israeli and Palestinian textbook histories of the same events were from one another, they began to explore how to “disarm” the teaching of the history of the Middle  East in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms. The result is a riveting “dual narrative” of Israeli and Palestinian history. Side by Side comprises the history of two peoples in separate narratives set literally side by side, so that readers can track each against the other, noting both where they differ as well as where they correspond. This unique and fascinating presentation has been translated into English and is now available to American audiences for the first time. An eye-opening—and inspiring—new approach to thinking about one of the world’s most deeply entrenched conflicts, Side by Side is a breakthrough book that will spark a new public discussion about the bridge to peace in the Middle East.

 Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME) is a nongovernmental organization established by Palestinian and Israeli researchers with the help of the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany. A co-founder with the late Dan Bar-on of PRIME and its current co-director, Sami Adwan has published widely on the role of education in peace-building. PRIME co-director Eyal Naveh is a professor of U.S.history at Tel Aviv University and teaches history and history education at the Kibbutzim College of Education.