Australian authors back a summer reading list for federal MPs and senators about the Israel-Gaza war
By Nicola Heath
Friday 22 November 2024
Tim Winton, Rosie Batty, Charlotte Wood, Anna Funder and Michelle dr Kretser are among the Australian authors to support the Summer Reading for MPs campaign. (ABC Arts: Christian Harimanow)
More than 90 Australian authors and literary supporters have sent all 227 Australian federal MPs and senators a set of five books relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict to read over summer.
Sixty authors helped fund the campaign, including Tim Winton, Charlotte Wood, JM Coetzee, Anna Funder, Michelle de Kretser, André Dao and Rosie Batty.
The Summer Reading for MPs list features five titles: Balcony over Jerusalem by veteran journalist John Lyons, A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Jewish historian and political scientist Ilan Pappeì, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by historian Rashid I Khalidi, Palestine A–Z by Irish writer Kate Thompson, and The Sunbird, a novella by Lebanese Australian author Sara Haddad.
The campaign is the brainchild of four Melbourne friends: publisher Aviva Tuffield, architect Marcus O'Reilly, writer Paddy O'Reilly (no relation) and IT specialist Jol Blazey.
"What we have in common is we're all big readers," Tuffield tells ABC Arts.
"We were discussing how when we don't understand something, or we need more information, we often turn to books to get more context.
"We gain a better understanding of the present through the lens of history."
The organisers felt the public discourse surrounding the Israel-Gaza war had been limited in scope, overlooking the region's complex past.
In a letter accompanying the books, they said: "The political debate in Australia and internationally rarely touches on the issues, events, and historical analyses that these books reveal – despite their direct relevance to what is happening today."
Aviva Tuffield delivers Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel the books featured in the Summer Reading for MPs campaign. (Supplied)
Endorsed by the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network and the Jewish Council of Australia, they say the campaign is nonpartisan.
"As we say in the letter, we're not telling you to change your views," Tuffield says.
"We're not telling you what to think. We're saying, 'Maybe spending some of the summer reading will enlighten you and allow you to make your own decisions'."
She says it felt like a natural step to seek support from authors who similarly believe in literature's capacity to educate and inform debate.
"Like us … writers believe that words shape minds and hearts and actions."
Reporting on a 'corrosive' conflict
The organisers were unanimous in their decision to include Balcony over Jerusalem, veteran journalist John Lyons's memoir of working as a correspondent in the Middle East from 2010 to 2016.
"It's such a well written and engaging account," Tuffield says.
"He details daily life in Jerusalem and also explores the mindset of both Israelis and the Palestinians. He has empathy for everyone and such a deep fondness for the land."
Stan Grant provided an introduction for the updated edition of Balcony over Jerusalem published in 2023. (Supplied: HarperCollins Australia)
Lyons, who joined the ABC in 2017 and is now the broadcaster's global affairs editor, says he was honoured the group included his book on the list.
"I feel really heartened and grateful that [the campaign organisers] have seen something in my work, that they think it's important."
He says the reading list is "a brilliant idea".
"It's wonderful that 90 or so of Australia's leading writers and thinkers … want to, in some ways, broaden the debate [and] put ideas before our lawmakers on an issue as important as the Israel-Gaza conflict."
During the six years Lyons and his family lived in Jerusalem, they became part of their local community. His son attended primary school in the city, and his family made friends with Israelis and Palestinians who lived in their neighbourhood.
Lyons witnessed the Israel-Gaza conflict play out on "a suburban level" and saw how destructive it was for everyone involved – something he hopes the MPs and senators who read his book take on board.
"I hope that the parliamentarians will get a sense of how corrosive this conflict is to both Israelis and Palestinians," he says.
"It eats at the heart and soul of Israelis and Palestinians. It creates a permanent fear. It creates, from generation to generation, a destructive hatred of the other."
Lyons says in Balcony over Jerusalem he tried to break with the polarised view that sees one side as good and the other bad. "There are faults on both sides." (Supplied: ABC TV Four Corners)
But Lyons hopes readers also take away a sense of hope.
History has shown once-intractable conflicts – such as Apartheid in South Africa and the Troubles in Northern Ireland – can be resolved.
"The Israel-Gaza conflict can be solved, if the right people decide they want to solve it," he says.
"I'm not saying I have all the answers, but I do know enough to know from six years of living there that there's goodwill amongst people on both sides.
"The average Israeli and the average Palestinian wants what all of us want: peace, security, family, friends … [and] that the next generation will be better off than this generation; [that] our children and our grandchildren will have better lives than we've had."
A small but powerful book
The lone work of fiction on the list is The Sunbird, a slim, 10,000-word novella by Sydney writer Sara Haddad.
"It's a small book and it's deliberately brief," Haddad says. "It's designed to be read in a single sitting."
The Sunbird is the first book by Sara Haddad, who works as a freelance editor. (Supplied: UQP)
The Sunbird – named after Palestine's national bird – follows the story of Nabila Yasmeen, an elderly Palestinian woman living in Sydney in 2023.
In the novel, Nabila and her family are among the 700,000 Palestinians who fled their homeland when war broke out following the UN's adoption in 1947 of the Partition Plan for Palestine, known as Resolution 181, which divided the territory into two states.
The narrative shifts between the Palestinian village where Nabila lives as a five-year-old, and the present day, when she catches a train to attend a pro-Palestine march in the city.
Nabila's quiet life in Sydney, a city with unpredictable weather so different to the dry heat of Palestine, is one of enduring displacement and dispossession: 75 years later, she still carries in her pocket a stone she picked up at the spring near her village the morning the first bombs fell, and her family fled their home.
"[Nabila] is a survivor," Haddad says.
"She is very strongly inspired by my aunts and my grandmother who [are] Levantine Arab migrant women. But she's her own character."
At the end of the book, Haddad includes an addendum – a brief overview of the past 120 years, "to give [the story] historical context" – and a postscript summarising the current conflict's status as of September 2024.
Haddad, who grew up in a Lebanese family in Sydney, wrote The Sunbird in late 2023 in response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.
"When I made the decision to write this book … it was with a clear intention that I would, to borrow Arundhati Roy's words, use my art to fight," she says.
Haddad's family has been engaged in the campaign for Palestinian liberation since the Six-Day War in 1967 – also the year Haddad was born – when Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"I grew up learning about Palestine … [and] having discussions of Palestine around the dinner table," she says.
"The Lebanese and Palestinian peoples are inextricably intertwined, both in their Levantine culture [and] through language, food, the arts, history."
Haddad says she wrote The Sunbird in simple language to make it accessible to readers of all ages. (Supplied: UQP )
The power of literature
Like Lyons, Haddad was delighted her book – which sold out its first run after she self-published it in May and has since been picked up by UQP – was included in the campaign.
"As a writer, I obviously value highly the role of literature and writing to inform and to educate and to also encourage empathy," she says.
Of the MPs and senators who may read her book, she says: "I hope that they come away with more understanding of and greater empathy for Palestinians and their struggle and their history, and if they're not already versed in the story of Palestine, I hope The Sunbird is successful in giving them an accessible introduction to the last 125 years.
"But where MPs differ from other readers, though, is they are our elected representatives, and they're able to speak on behalf of us and on behalf of Australia.
"Given this, I believe it's important to be as informed as possible on any issue, and I hope that The Sunbird will help MPs to find their voice, to speak up for human rights and justice for Palestinians."
Tuffield says many parliamentarians – such as Helen Haines, the independent member for Indi in regional Victoria – told her the war in Gaza was the most raised issue by constituents in their electorates.
However, many MPs reported feeling unable to discuss the issue in political and public arenas. "If they raise it, it just gets shut down," Tuffield says.
"Everyone thinks it's too fraught or too politicised."
Tuffield and her fellow organisers hope the campaign triggers a more nuanced debate about Australia's stance on the conflict, and, ideally, an end to the fighting.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-22/israel-gaza-war-summer-reading-list-for-mps/104630224
