On one of my early visits to Palestine my educational tour guide told me : Some people interpret ‘never again’ as this should not happen to ‘us’ ever again.

That statement has stayed with me ever since.

I was never more pained by a book. Richard Forer in Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion – A New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine Conflict documents with legitimate sources the savagery of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. With interviews he gives readers a glimpse into the mindsets of Palestinians, activists and even an Israeli settler woman who is now building bridges with the Arab community.

I would recommend this book to everyone, especially to Israel sympathisers. Because this book is not merely a series of chapters on the cruelty of the Occupation but about the transformation of an Israel sympathiser to a man of compassion.

While I read this book I kept wondering about only one thing: How could people who suffered the worst kind of discrimination inflict unreasonable and unwarranted injustices upon another community? How could they wipe out entire villages? How could they think it was okay to build walls around villages preventing people from accessing their own farms? Wouldn’t they have wanted to make sure that they did not become the monsters they so feared?

A vicious cycle of fear mongering has given rise to people who not only justify Israel’s military occupation but also think that the military occupation is the only solution. Forer says about his mindset prior to the transformation: “Fear prevented me from empathising with the pain of the Palestinians and it blinded me to the possibility that a country in which I had invested so much faith could administer such brutal and deadly policies.” When he decided to examine his beliefs, he was left with real compassion and clarity.

Read the book without prejudice and bias and draw your own conclusions.

You will see in the end that there is only one narrative. As an Israeli friend once said: there is no dual narrative here. There is one oppressor and one victim.