When dehumanisation and destruction become the norm, the cycle must be broken.

For over twenty years, Ittay Flescher has worked as an educator, journalist and peacebuilder in Melbourne and Jerusalem. When he woke up on the morning of October 7, 2023 to the sounds of rocket sirens over Jerusalem and later saw the devastation of Gaza in response, the grief and sadness that engulfed him - and so many others - compelled him to ask: how can we find a way forward?

Following years spent facilitating dialogue between Jews, Muslims and Christians, Ittay believes that peace can only be found if we are willing to empathise with the pain of others.

The Holy and the Broken challenges Palestinian and Israeli leaders, citizens and their supporters across the world to imagine a different reality; to look at history with a different eye; and to search for moments of engagement rather than resentment in the narratives of the past that each side tells about itself.

Ultimately, it is a story that aims to comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable.

Praise:

'Courageous and considered. Ittay nurtures the tender, fragile shoots of peace. The world could do with more people like him' Paul Kelly, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist

'A book of rare insight and compassion, The Holy and the Broken offers the one thing we thought we'd lost after October 7: a glimmer of hope for meaningful lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians' Bram Presser, author of The Book of Dirt

'At a moment when many are choosing sides, Ittay Flescher encourages us to choose humanity. He offers a vision of a shared future, grounded in his life's work of grassroots peacebuilding with Jewish, Muslim and Christian youth. This timely and extraordinary book offers something precious and much needed: hope' Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Central Synagogue, New York City

'A valuable primer for anyone wanting a fair-minded introduction to this desperately bleak conflict, and written by a man who is clearly big-hearted and brave' James Button, Jewish Independent

'What comes across consistently throughout the book is the author's sincerity and willingness to grapple with difficult issues and tough questions' Hannah Rozenblat, Jerusalem Post

'This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book, heartfelt and honest. You do not need to agree with everything Flesher has to say to find the book moving and challenging' Michael Gawenda, former editor in chief, The Age, Melbourne

'This ability to empathise with the suffering on both sides is a core value of Flescher's reconciliation work, and the underpinning to many of the options he outlines' Dr Anne Sarzin, Jwire

'As challenging and as contemporary as it is compassionate. In a world broken by war and polarisation, Ittay offers peaceful possibilities and nuanced perspectives' Rabbi Ralph Genende OAM, author of Living in an Upside-down World

'The Holy and the Broken breaks new ground. Yet what makes it truly singular is its consistent humanity, and its centring of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians' John Lyndon, executive director, Alliance for Middle East Peace

'This account of the writer's devotion to peacebuilding in our war-torn region is a shining testament to what can and should be done by those who can imagine a future peace. It lights a candle in an age of darkness!' Sari Nusseibeh, author of Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life

'When you finish it, you will not only know more about what's happening between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, but you will also know more about yourself' Maoz Inon, Israeli peacemaker and social entrepreneur

'A powerful testament to the possibilities of reconciliation and mutual empathy during conflict, what sets this book apart is its commitment to showcasing the experiences of the diverse individuals involved - especially the integral, yet frequently overlooked, stories of women. By highlighting the gender dynamics at play, Flescher enriches our understanding of the conflict and underscores the importance of supporting a world where more voices are heard and valued' Sheila Katz, CEO, National Council of Jewish Women

'When I picked this book up, I erroneously believed I already understood much about the ongoing, collective trauma of Palestinians and Israelis. But this thoughtful and deeply compassionate book shattered that illusion. By the time I put the book down, I was not the same person' Miriam Anzovin, creator of Daf Reactions and Jewish Lore Reactions

A twenty-plus-year study of former child soldiers offers far-reaching insight into mental health and resilience after extreme trauma.

During the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002, an estimated 20,000 children were forced to join the fighting. As villages were raided and youths rounded up, it was not uncommon for a child to be ordered to kill a friend, relative, or neighbor under threat of being killed themselves. The goal was to make it impossible for the captives to return home and be accepted back into their communities.

But when the conflict ended, many of the children did find their way home. Could they reintegrate after such extreme trauma? Theresa Betancourt and her collaborators in Sierra Leone launched a study of more than 500 boys and girls who had been pulled into the war, tracking them for over two decades. The results were surprising: despite everything they had suffered, this was not a lost generation. In fact, the most dominant trend over time was one of healing and increasing acceptance. The lives of the former child soldiers were shaped not just by their personal ordeals but also, crucially, by the responses of their families, peers, and broader communities. Filled with vivid personal stories, Shadows into Light describes heartbreak and despair but also remarkable triumphs made possible by layers of social support and encouragement.

Betancourt's study provides unparalleled insight into the long-term psychological and developmental effects of family separation, war, and exposure to violence. The lessons go far beyond Sierra Leone's tragedy, suggesting that we should, in general, think of children's risk and resilience more as products of the post-trauma environment than as individual traits.

Years before he was Secretary of State and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Henry Kissinger wrote A World Restored to understand and explain one of history's most important and dramatic periods-a time when Europe went from political chaos to a balanced peace that lasted for almost a hundred years.

After the fall of Napoleon, European diplomats gathered in a festive Vienna with the task of restoring stability following the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The central figures at the Congress of Vienna were the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Viscount Castlereagh and the Foreign Minister of Austria Klemens Wenzel von Mettern Metternich. Castlereagh was primarily concerned with maintaining balanced powers, while Metternich based his diplomacy on the idea of legitimacy-that is, establishing and working with governments that citizens accept without force. The peace they brokered lasted until the outbreak of World War I.

Through trenchant analysis of the history and forces that create stability, A World Restored gives insight into how to create long-lasting geopolitical peace-lessons that Kissinger saw as applicable to the period immediately following World War II, when he was writing this book.

But the lessons don't stop there. Like all good insights, the book's wisdom transcends any single political period. Kissinger's understanding of coalitions and balance of power can be applied to personal and professional situations, such as dealing with a tyrannical boss or coworker or formulating business or organizational tactics.

Regardless of his ideology, Henry Kissinger has had an important impact on modern politics and few would dispute his brilliance as a strategist. For anyone interested in Western history, the tactics of diplomacy, or political strategy, this volume will provide deep understanding of a pivotal time.

If you only read one book this year on America's unending 'War on Terror, ' it should be this persuasive and devastatingly damning account of how the United States created the original al Qaeda terrorism threat by its own actions and then increased that threat by orders of magnitude by its wanton killings in one country after another in the name of 'counter-terrorism.' Once I started reading it, I couldn't stop - Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

In times of collapse, we need a movement that recognizes injustice as a reflection of collective trauma and embraces its role as a catalyst for collective healing through transformative action.

We are living in a world where the depths of division, violence, and destruction can no longer be ignored. From political polarization leading to the erosion of the democratic process to the climate crisis continuing to perpetuate racial inequity, we need changes that heal harms at the personal and systemic levels.

Escalated forms of harm require an equally escalated response. Yet social movements often use tactics that have a tendency to escalate an us vs. them, right vs. wrong worldview not conducive to healing.

In Fierce Vulnerability, activist and author Kazu Haga argues this binary worldview is at the heart of what is destroying our relationships and our planet and offers a new way to create healing by combining the time-honored lineage of nonviolent action with the sciences of trauma healing and the promises of spiritual practice. Fierce Vulnerability realizes we can't shut down injustice any more than we can shut down trauma; if healing is our goal, we need social movements that center relationships and promote healing.

Falsehood in Wartime is a compelling exploration into the early days of war propaganda. Fake news and government lies, manufactured truths and distorted reporting are not modern inventions, but have been weapons in the arsenals of war for a long time.

The Great War was the first war that required broad public support. Using contemporary news articles, official statements and parliamentary records, Arthur Ponsonby meticulously dissects the techniques used to generate the desired public passion for war. These propaganda methods are still applied in our time - by governments, media pundits and military public relations departments - and Falsehood in Wartime provides a fascinating perspective for understanding both World War I and the wars and conflicts of the 21st century.

Years before he was Secretary of State and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Henry Kissinger wrote A World Restored to understand and explain one of history's most important and dramatic periods-a time when Europe went from political chaos to a balanced peace that lasted for almost a hundred years.

After the fall of Napoleon, European diplomats gathered in a festive Vienna with the task of restoring stability following the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The central figures at the Congress of Vienna were the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Viscount Castlereagh and the Foreign Minister of Austria Klemens Wenzel von Mettern Metternich. Castlereagh was primarily concerned with maintaining balanced powers, while Metternich based his diplomacy on the idea of legitimacy-that is, establishing and working with governments that citizens accept without force. The peace they brokered lasted until the outbreak of World War I.

Through trenchant analysis of the history and forces that create stability, A World Restored gives insight into how to create long-lasting geopolitical peace-lessons that Kissinger saw as applicable to the period immediately following World War II, when he was writing this book.

But the lessons don't stop there. Like all good insights, the book's wisdom transcends any single political period. Kissinger's understanding of coalitions and balance of power can be applied to personal and professional situations, such as dealing with a tyrannical boss or coworker or formulating business or organizational tactics.

Regardless of his ideology, Henry Kissinger has had an important impact on modern politics and few would dispute his brilliance as a strategist. For anyone interested in Western history, the tactics of diplomacy, or political strategy, this volume will provide deep understanding of a pivotal time.

Silwan is a Palestinian village located just outside the ancient walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Determined to Stay: Palestinian Youth Fight for Their Village is a moving story of a village and its people.

As Silwani youth and community members share their lives with us, their village becomes an easily accessible way to understand Palestinian history and current reality. Written with young people in mind, the richly illustrated text stresses connections between the lives of youth in the US and Palestine: criminalization of youth, forced relocation, the impact of colonialism on Indigenous communities, efforts to bury history, and inspiring examples of resistance and resilience.

In its second edition, this extended and revised volume brings together alternative and innovative approaches in conflict resolution. With traditional military intervention repeatedly contributing to instability and violence, the study of alternative approaches has become imperative. Can forgiveness help heal relationships in post-apartheid South Africa? How can art assist dealing with 'unrememberable' events such as the genocide in Rwanda? What transformational resources do women offer in contexts of massive human rights violations? The aim of this edited volume is twofold: to provide and encourage critical reflection of the approaches presented here and to explore concrete improvements in conflict resolution strategies. In its interdisciplinary and international outlook, this work combines the tried-and-tested approaches from conflict resolution experts in academia, NGOs and civil society, making it an invaluable tool for academics and practitioners alike.

This political satire that took the world by storm under the guise of a secret government report was a bestselling novel of the late 1960s. After journalists and scholars debated for years over its disturbing claims, the truth revealed that the perplexing, ingenious, and ceaselessly curious Report from Iron Mountain was not filled with contents of a top-secret document, but rather made up of writer/editor Leonard Lewis's own fictional predictions.

Lewis claims that the condition of permanent peace at the end of the Cold War would threaten the nation's economic and social stability, in addition to his controversial examination of how political leadership reflects on the nation's ability to go to war.

Though proven to be a false claim of nonfiction, Lewin and the consortium of peace movement intellectuals that conceived and launched the concept went on to publish a book that would take on a life of its own, far from what was intended.

This 292-page book is filled with hundreds of graphics, news headlines, photos, and many memes. The paperback is black-and-white, the ebook is color, and the hardcover is premium color, with printing costs to match - a great gift and keepsake of this amazing time.

The Q-Research boards have been a place where good-hearted people from many countries and all walks of life came together to investigate what has been happening behind-the-scenes of our world, to hone our skills of logic and discernment, to remember how to think for ourselves, and to keep real-life events from being memory holed from the public consciousness.

Mostly hidden from the general public on a rare uncensored corner of the web, Anons from the United States and countries around the world have been part of a magical journey of intel and research, gifts and fun, humor and disappointments, exhilaration and anguish, creativity and service, camaraderie, discovery, and more - with humanity shining forth in precious ways.

It's not surprising that the corrupt conglomerates some call cabals have made an absurdly widespread effort to misrepresent a powerful altruistic effort they erroneously call Qanon as being something scary and dangerous. Truth is only dangerous to the deceitful, who want to keep more people from discovering real information or gathering in places where rare opportunities for free thought and free speech still exist.

Marginalian Editions presents a trailblazing Quaker scientist's slender masterwork of moral courage, penned at the height of the Cold War, envisioning a transformation of the human spirit and our politics that might enable the triumph of peace.

Kathleen Lonsdale was a groundbreaking chemist who was instrumental in developing the science of crystallography. She was also a midlife convert to Quakerism who campaigned for peace and prison reform. Horrified by the dropping of the first atomic bombs, Lonsdale felt that the entire scientific community was now tainted by the violence it had enabled. Published in 1957, Is Peace Possible? was her attempt to make amends for this communal guilt by demonstrating that science can bring peace as well as war, and can address the big questions generally left to the humanities.

In crystalline language and logic honed from a lifetime of relying on the sharpness of her mind to cut through barriers of class and gender, and refusing to be bullied by received wisdom about war's inevitability, Kathleen Lonsdale's Is Peace Possible? is a work of quiet, elegant sanity. It is a snapshot of a particular moment in history, but its themes are eternally relevant, and perhaps even more necessary now than when it was written.

The real story of the disastrous U.S. war in Afghanistan must be written so that future generations may understand the folly of Washington's warmongers. Scott Horton's Afghan war history is an important contribution to this vital effort. - Ron Paul, M.D., former U.S. congressman and author of Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity

Scott Horton's, Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, is a definitive, authoritative and exceptionally well-resourced accounting of America's disastrous war in Afghanistan since 2001. Scott's book deserves not just to be read, but to be kept on your shelf, because as with David Halberstam's The Best and Brightest or Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie, I expect Horton's book to not just explain and interpret a current American war, but to explain and interpret the all too predictable future American wars, and the unavoidable waste and suffering that will accompany them. - Capt. Matthew Hoh, USMC (ret.), former senior State Department official, Zabul Province, Afghanistan, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy

Fool's Errand is a hidden history of America's forgotten war, laid bare in damning detail. Scott Horton masterfully retells the story of America's failed intervention, exposes how Obama's troop surge did not bring Afghanistan any closer to peace, and warns that the conflict could go on in perpetuity - unless America ends the war. As Trump threatens to send more troops to Afghanistan, Horton shows why the answer to a brutal civil war is not more war, which makes Fool's Errand a scintillating and sorely needed chronicle of the longest war in American history. - Anand Gopal, journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes

Scott Horton's new book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan has a title that tells you where it is going, but to think that is all it is about would be to sell short a comprehensive work that takes the reader on a long journey starting in the 1980s. Indeed, if there were a university course on what went wrong with Afghanistan, starting with Ronald Reagan's Holy Warriors and continuing with George W. Bush's ouster of the Taliban leading to 15 years of feckless nation building, this book could well serve as the textbook. Horton provides insights into key decision-making along the way as he meticulously documents the dreadful series of misadventures that have brought us to the latest surge, which will fail just like all the others. The book is highly recommended both for readers who already know a lot about Afghanistan as well as for those who want to learn the basics about America's longest war. - Philip Giraldi, former CIA and DIA officer, executive director of the Council for the National Interest

In The Peace, Roméo Dallaire shows us the past, present and future of war through the prism of his own life. Trained in classic warfare during the Cold War era of mutual deterrence, Dallaire in good faith commanded the UN's peacekeeping mission for Rwanda in 1994, only to see the country abandoned and descend into the hell of genocide. The battered, tortured warrior who emerged from that catastrophe grew determined to help repair the new world disorder--to prevent genocide, abolish the use of child soldiers, and find ways to intervene in, even prevent, conflicts in defence of humanity. And so Dallaire helped advance the doctrines of Responsibility to Protect and the Will to Intervene only to witness those initiatives falter because of the same old power politics, national self-interest and general indifference that had allowed the genocide in Rwanda to unfold unchecked.

In his final act, Dallaire has become a warrior working towards a better future in which those old paradigms are rejected and replaced. In The Peace he calls out the elements that undermine true security because they reinforce the dangerous, self-interested belief that balance of power and truces are the best we can do. Too often we say we are at peace because the bombs are falling elsewhere and we, ourselves, are not under attack. Dallaire shows us a path, instead, to what he calls the peace, a state where, above all else, humanity values the ties that bind us and the planet together--and acts accordingly. This book is the cri de coeur of a warrior who has been to hell and back and hopes to help guide us to a better place.

The Cultural Politics of Veterans' Narratives investigates the role of veterans' stories in our collective cultural and political life. Drawing on contemporary narrative theory, it offers a conceptual framework for studying veterans' narratives, followed by a series of unique empirical chapters dealing with different genres of veteran storytelling, including trauma, transition, culture and identity, and the Afghanistan war memoir. The book questions the British veteran as a political figure, exploring what their stories tell us about the morality and politics of war as well as military life. It also traces how social norms about militarism, nationalism, and patriotism pivot as a result. Caddick considers what the stakes are for veterans as their stories interact with wider cultural narratives, and for society in grappling with the 'militarist terms of reference' these stories impart to us.