It’s Easier to Reach Heaven than the End
of the Street: A Jerusalem Memoir

Emma Williams
Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2010. 415 pages.

Emma Williams is a British doctor who studied history at Oxford and
medicine at London. This book, which was first published in Britain in
2006, records her experiences and assessments of what she saw when she

Book Reviews 109



accompanied her husband, a senior UN official, to Israel during 2000-03.
The family lived in Jerusalem’s “Forest of Peace,” an area south of the old
city, which remained undeveloped because it had been no man’s land
patrolled by the UN between 1948 and 1967. Emma and her husband went
with three children and had a fourth, born out of choice in a Palestinian
hospital in Bethlehem, while they were there. Her husband spent much of
his time in Gaza; Emma worked in Jerusalem and, when possible, in the
West Bank.

The outcome is a harrowing presentation of the actions and attitudes
of “two extraordinary peoples.” We are told of the fear generated by sui-
cide bombers – the head of one landed in the playground of the school
attended by Emma’s children as the school day began; the regular deaths
of Palestinian civilians at the hands of the Israel Defence Force, “the
purest army in the world”; the “silent war,” the relentless theft by one
means or another of Palestinian land; the sickening problem, from
Emma’s point of view, of Israeli self-deception; the open talk of “trans-
fer,” a.k.a. ethnic cleansing as a solution to Israel’s Palestinian problem;
how western journalists find their reports censored by editors intimidated
by Israel’s attack machine; the oppression and misery heaped upon the
Palestinians at the checkpoints throughout their territories, where
teenaged Israeli soldiers wield absolute power; the wall, or “barrier” as it
is supposed to be called, illegal under international law, which wends its
ways through the West Bank, annexing further Palestinian territory to
Israel and thereby dividing community from community and farmers
from their fields; the settlements on the West Bank, also illegal under
international law, which not only rob the Palestinians of further land but
also often prevent them from working what remains; the breathtaking
injustices piled upon the Palestinians; the Palestinian quality of sumud, of
remaining steadfast in the face of all difficulty; and the double standards
of the United States and, indeed, of most western countries in dealing
with the two sides. 

Emma Williams allows us to hear many voices: Palestinian doctors,
Israeli politicians, mothers of all kinds who join the school run, children who
are responding to “the situation” as they grow up, Israeli settlers who believe
that God has given them all of the land, and Israeli activists who take their
lives in their hands to protect Palestinian farmers from Israeli settlers. She
quotes several powerful statements from leading Israelis concerned at how
far Israel had gone down the wrong track. Take this from a member of the
Knesset:

110 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 27:4



Israel – the government – is not yet willing to recognize that the
Palestinians are here to stay... It’s carrying out a policy of ethnic cleans-
ing, and is unwilling to look within, to realize there is a problem inside
Israeli society. As long as the US supports this, it is, ironically, giving sup-
port for the destruction of Israel – and the Israel Lobby is certainly not to
the benefit of Israel. The Palestinians gave up so much already and even
that is not good enough. They at least have learned, painfully, that Israel
wants land not peace. (p. 367)

The epilogue of this first American edition covers the ground from 2006
through Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza and the election of President
Obama. Her message now is that Israel is still moving in a self-destructive
direction and that it requires American political will and courage, such as has
not been shown before, to achieve a two-state solution of a kind while it is
still possible.

This is a first-class book, honest and fair-minded, although such are the
passions and distortions in matters relating to Israel/Palestine that some will
not see it so. It should be read by everyone concerned with the issue both as
a powerful witness statement and as a warning of the complexities involved.
Historical background is woven into the text. This book is ideal for con-
fronting students with some of the realities of the modern Middle East.

Francis Robinson (F.Robinson@rhul.ac.uk)
Sultan of Oman Fellow, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies

Professor of the History of South Asia, Royal Holloway, University of London

Book Reviews 111