The idea of this book germinated in my Haifa University class entitled ‘The history of the Palestine conflict’. Very alert and eager Palestinian and Jewish students demanded again and again a narrative of their country's history that did not repeat the known versions of the two conflicting parties; one that respected the other, included those who are not part of the story, and above all was more hopeful about the future. I began writing the book in the twilight of the Oslo Agreement and found it difficult to comply with the last request. But then I realized that, by then, industrious researchers had already provided us with new perspectives on Palestine, but they were never presented in one narrative. What these novel approaches had in common was that they attempted to tell the story of the people and the land, and not just that of high politics, dogmatic ideologies or rehearsed national narratives.

The fact that the students, Palestinians and Jews, wanted to hear the story told from a humanist, and not nationalist, ethnic or religious, perspective was itself a hopeful sign for the future. It is this perspective that dictates the tone of this book, It is a narrative of those in Palestine who were brutalized and victimized by human follies well known from many other parts in the world. The abusive power used by people against other people in the name of one ideology or another is condemned in this book for being the source of much evil and few blessings.