Companions in Conflict: Animals in Occupied Palestine

Palestinian Book Award-winning author explores the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a unique lens: the animals who try to survive and flourish in a fragmented land

In August of 2016 Israeli police officers arrested a Palestinian donkey in the Jordan Valley for not carrying the correct paperwork. It’s an image as sad (and strangely common) as it is symbolic: no creature great or small is free from the absurdities of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Companions in Conflict is a surprising investigation into how deeply intertwined the fates of the region’s human and animal populations really are. In it, we encounter a herd of eighteen ＂illegal＂ Palestinian cows hunted down by Israeli soldiers as a security threat. We meet some of the region’s last remaining donkeys who, along with their owners, have been swept up in a massive economic shift. We learn the tragic case of the now-taxidermied inhabitants of ＂the worst zoo in the world,＂ who were frightened to death by Israeli explosive devices, or left to starve during draconian curfews.

Through the stories of these animals, and many others like them, the book asks: what do their lives tell us about the histories and futures of Palestinians and Israelis? And how can the pursuit of environmental justice lead the way to establishing human rights?