Pastoral in Palestine (Paradigm, 43) - Softcover

For decades, Israel and Palestine have been locked in ongoing conflict over land that each claims as its own. The conflict is often considered a calculated landgrab, but this characterization does little to take into account the myriad motivations that have shaped it in ways that make it seem intractable, from powerful nationalist and theological ideologies to the more practical concerns of the people who live there and just want to carry out their lives without the constant threat of war. In 2011, Neil Hertz lived in Ramallah in Palestine's occupied West Bank and taught in nearby Jerusalem. With "Pastoral in Palestine", he offers a personal take on the conflict. Though the situation has resulted in the erosion of both societies, Hertz could find no one in either Israel or Palestine who expressed much hope for a solution. Instead, they are resigned to find ways to live with the situation. Illustrated throughout with full-color photographs captured by Hertz, "Pastoral in Palestine" puts a human face to politics in the Middle East.

Neil Hertz is a literary critic, photographer, and professor emeritus in the Department of English at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The End of the Line: Essays on Psychoanalysis and the Sublime and George Eliot's Pulse.