









































30

Libraries and Access to 
Information In Palestine
Impacts of Military Occupation
Deanna K. Roberts, Union Theological Seminary

ABSTR AC T Life under occupation, for over 70 years, has had a 
major impact on Palestinian libraries, their function within commu-
nities, and access to materials and resources that most libraries in 
other places around the world do not experience. This paper will 
give a brief overview of several libraries within Palestine, including a 
historical narrative about the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict. 
Also included are snapshots of a few libraries within Palestine, the 
experiences of a few librarians living and working in the West Bank 
and Gaza, and a summary overview of the documentary film The 
Great Book Robbery by Billy Brunner. This paper has previously been 
published as a chapter within an open access resource titled Inter-
national Libraries: An Open Textbook.

COUNTRY PROFILE

Since 1948, Palestine has been an occupied land under military 
control by the modern State of Israel. Palestine’s categorization as 
an independent nation-state is a complicated and contested issue 
because it is not a recognized country, nor a region—it is a territory 
comprising three cut-off locations, the West Bank, Gaza, and East 
Jerusalem (Lefebvre-Danset 2009, 322). For more than 70 years, the 
apartheid system of repression that Israel has inflicted on Palestin-
ians has caused their economic and social structures to collapse. 
Librarians in the occupied territories work endlessly to ensure that 
the once vibrant Palestinian culture remains active and does not 
become a distant memory. Collecting and curating materials that 
speak to the past presence and current living of Palestinians in the 
historic land of Palestine is, in itself, an act of resistance. However, 
this is increasingly difficult as the normalization of the seizure of 
books, confiscation of supplies, limited budgets, and “security” check-
points continues. With increased “security” measures by the State 



Papers and Presentations  31

of Israel, the daily lives of Palestinians become more confined each 
day. One reason why the Jewish state feels a need to protect itself is 
because of the decades-long narrative that Arabs are terrorists.

Much of Israeli media and academia have characterized the 
Palestinian resistance movement as a key factor in the global history 
of terrorism. The role of the academics to validate this depiction with 
‘scientific’ research that both recorded acts of Palestinian violence 
and proved the applicability of theoretical definitions of terrorism 
to these acts. Israeli politicians and the media fully accepted this 
portrayal, although during the period of the brief, failed Oslo 
Accords it was toned down. (Pappe 2014, 28)

These images of Palestinians as terrorists are deeply rooted in the 
Zionist agenda, as well as in the historical memory of many Jewish 
Israeli citizens.

The socio-political religious conflict between Palestine and Israel 
creates significant tension and disagreement; one thing that is agreed 
upon is that no one agrees. The situation in both the West Bank and 
Gaza is both dire and ambiguous and there is no clear, easily agree-
able solution about what can be done to bring a lasting peace to the 
region. While opinions differ on both the history and present real-
ity on the ground in both Israel proper and the occupied territories, 
the truth is that, since the Nakba, or catastrophe, of the Israeli war 
against the Palestinian people in 1948, Palestine has been shrinking.

HISTORY

In order to understand the present reality within Israel/Palestine, 
knowing the historical background is necessary. Before diving into 
this complicated web, a few terms must be clarified. Palestine refers 
to the historic land that exists in the region. Palestinians are the non-
Jewish, Arab community living inside both Israel proper and inside 
the West Bank and Gaza. The Occupied Territories are the lands 
within this geographic location that have been illegally seized and 
settled by the modern nation-state of Israel. For the purposes of this 
chapter, the State of Israel will refer to the current and modern coun-
try, not the ancient nation and biblical people. Additionally, there 
is a difference between Judaism and political Zionism that impacts 
how the politics of the region are understood. Judaism is a religious 
tradition that is based upon the Hebrew Bible scriptures and tradi-
tion. Zionism is a political movement to create a Jewish homeland. 
Theodor Herzl proposed that this political strategy would be the solu-



32  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

tion for both anti-Semitism and Jewish secular culture. “It is impos-
sible to discuss the realities of the West Bank situation and what this 
means for Palestinians without reference to Israel’s political ideology 
of Zionism . . . the objective of Zionism from the beginning has been 
to take control for the Jewish people, as much of the land of Palestine 
with as few non-Jewish natives there as possible” (Christison 2008, 
33). Political Zionism is the ideology at the center of the dehuman-
ization of the Palestinian people.

Zionism was European Jewry’s response to the devastating effects 
of anti-Semitism and, in particular, to the despair at the failure of the 
Enlightenment to confer rights and equality to the Jews of Europe. 
The Zionist national movement was driven as much by a fierce 
need for dignity and self-determination as by a feeling of physical 
vulnerability. Modern Israel is, more than anything, a source of pride 
for Jews: it is good to have survived, and Israel is the proof of our 
survival (Braverman 2010, 55). 

Zionism has been a tool that modern-day Israel uses as a way to 
ensure that the Jewish culture, faith, and religious story is kept alive. 
It is important to differentiate between the religion of Judaism and 

FIGURE 1: Image of shrinking Palestinian territory (Israel Palestine Mission Network, 
new.israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org/study-resources/maps).

http://new.israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org/study-resources/maps


Papers and Presentations  33

the political movement of Zionism when beginning to understand 
the current lived reality for the human beings that live on this land.

One popular narrative within the Zionist movement is that 
there were no people living in historic Palestine prior to the British 
mandate (Pappe 2014, 29). The case is often made that the Jewish 
people, migrating after horrific persecution in Europe, came to an 
uninhabited land. This popular story is utterly false. Historically, 
non-Jewish Arab peoples of multiple religious traditions and ethnic 
backgrounds have been calling Palestine home for centuries. The 
Arab population in Palestine is descended from people who lived in 
the area during the mandate period, and in many cases, for centu-
ries prior. The Arabs of Palestine have always overwhelmingly been 
opposed to a Jewish state, or to large-scale Jewish immigration, which 
has often led to their dispossession from their lands. Contrary to 
popular Zionist opinions, Palestinian culture existed in historic 
Palestine before the first wave of Holocaust-surviving Jews migrated 
to the region. 

While there was a small community of Jews living in historic 
Palestine, they were the minority. By the 1920s, Palestinian culture 
had experienced a renaissance of sorts and started to mass produce 
literature and cinema, and it boasted a wealthy aristocratic class. 
According to Jewish Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, many Palestinians 
were wealthy in terms of assets and education (Brunner 2011). By 
1840 Palestine had reverted back to a part of the Ottoman empire 
and was opened up to the British, Austrians, and Russians that came 
to the aid of the Ottomans. This increased international interest in 
Palestine led to the creation of consulates in Jerusalem and ports in 
Palestine’s coastal cities. The Ottoman Land Law of 1858 led to the 
development of private property, agricultural production for the 
world market, the decline of tribal social organization, growth of the 
population, and the enrichment of the noble families. The Ottomans 
extended their military, municipal, judicial, and educational systems 
to Palestine, which brought marked increases in foreign settlements. 
By 1919, the population of Palestine was majority Muslim at 535,000, 
with about 70,000 mostly Arab Christians and around 85,000 Jews.

Even though it was dissolved in 1934, the brief life of the Arab 
Executive Committee, born out of the December 1920 congress in 
Haifa, left a legacy that held Arabs in their deserved social standing 
until 1948. This basic policy, which set the position that Palestine 
was an autonomous Arab entity and rejected any rights of the Jews 



34  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

in Palestine to taking the land, was held in place until the Zionists 
moved for war in 1948. The Arab Revolt of 1936–39 was the first 
sustained act of violence by Arab Palestinians and caught the British 
off guard. Thousands of Arabs from all walks of life were mobilized 
with a sense of nationalism that was spread into the activities of liter-
ary circles, the press, and schools. Although it signaled the birth of 
national identity, the revolt was unsuccessful in many ways. Their 
traditional leaders were either killed, arrested, or deported, leaving 
the remaining population divided, dispirited, and disarmed.  

The period during the Second World War in Europe allowed for 
the building up of a Jewish contingency in the area that would even-
tually lead to the military takeover of Palestine. One final critical 
factor that is important is the influence that the Holocaust has had 
on the historical narrative and collective memories of the Jewish 
population in the modern State of Israel. Fleeing Europe after incred-
ible horror, death, and catastrophe, the Jewish people came to the 
British Mandate of Palestine after the war in hopes of finding solace 
in their traditional homeland. For many Jews, the Holocaust killed 
their faith. For others, the Holocaust killed their Jewish identity. Yet, 
for most, it sparked a deep desire to reclaim whatever identity and 
history they could in order to solidify their ethnic, cultural, and reli-
gious identity as Jews. 

Unlike much of the planet, the geographic space within the area 
of Israel and Palestine boasts a long and complicated history that is 
intrinsically connected to three different religious traditions. It is 
impossible to discuss and understand the current struggle in the Holy 
Land today if you are unaware of the biblical history of the land. It 
is also impossible to learn about the modern conflict if avoiding reli-
gious and political discourse is a primary objective. Religious narra-
tives are tied to places, people are tied to their religious narratives, 
and, as such, people become tied to the land in which these stories 
happened. It becomes complicated when there are three valid reli-
gious traditions that all have valid claims to space and place within 
Israel and Palestine. 

Three major world religions—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, 
are all tied to the historic land of Palestine. For Christians, Pales-
tine was the place where Jesus was born, lived, and walked out his 
ministry. Jewish people are connected to the land because the bibli-
cal narrative of the Israelite people in the Hebrew Bible occurs in 
the geographic region of what is now known as modern-day Israel, 



Papers and Presentations  35

Egypt, and Jordan. For both Christians and Jews, factually know-
ing whether or not the story of the Bible happened or not is of little 
importance. What is important is the belief in the story. For Muslims, 
Jerusalem is the site where Muhammad rose to heaven and was 
given, by Allah, the second pillar of Islam—to pray five times a day. 
Each of these traditions have a legitimate claim to the importance 
of this land to their faith. In a perfect world, these three communi-
ties would be able to live peacefully with one another. Yet, the world 
is not perfect and fighting for the right to both space and place has 
been at the core of how the modern conflict has developed. Beliefs 
are powerful. Beliefs mixed with ingrained prejudice are dangerous. 

“The ideology that enabled the depopulation of half of Palestine’s 
native people in 1948 is still alive and continues to drive the inexo-
rable, sometimes indiscernible, cleansing of those Palestinians who 
live there today” (Pappe 2006, 259). In 2019, the Zionist agenda to take 
over more land for the Jewish homeland, coupled with the idea that 
all Palestinians are terrorists, is still projecting its ugly voice into the 
lived lives of both Israeli Jews, non-Jewish Israelis, and those living 
in the occupied territories.   

For many Israeli Jews, the memory of the Holocaust is still a large 
part of the collective narrative. “The protection of the Holocaust 
memory in Israel from any critique is consensual and widespread” 
(Pappe 2014, 153). Still today, anyone who speaks out against the 
actions of the political state of Israel is, more often than not, slan-
dered with anti-Semitic rhetoric. To be critical of the Israeli govern-
ment equals anti-Semitic thoughts. According to Yehuda Elkana, 
an academic who was imprisoned in Auschwitz at the age of ten, 
Israelis harbor an exaggerated sense of themselves as victims and, 
in his view, it is this self-image that prevents them [Jewish Israel] 
from seeing the Palestinians in a “more reasonable light.” Elkana 
stated that Israel would use this image of perpetual victimhood to 

“justify the crudest behaviour to the Palestinians’’ and would end 
up “mimicking the behaviour of the worst of their enemies [Hitler]” 
(Pappe 2014, 157). While the world should never forget the atroci-
ties and violence against the Jews that occurred in Europe during 
World War II, it cannot be kept alive to justify cruelty against another 
community.



36  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

THE GREAT BOOK ROBBERY

During his postdoctoral studies, historian Gish Amit uncovered a 
story that had been hidden for decades. His larger doctoral disser-
tation, “The Jewish National and University Library 1945–1955: The 
Transfer to Israel of Holocaust Victims’ Books, the Appropriation of 
Books of Jewish Emigrants from the East, and the Collection of Pales-
tinian Books during the 1948 War” (2010), describes the process of 
how Israeli forces, both military and civil, worked together to destroy 
what Ilan Pappe describes as the “Palestinian narrative.” Amit’s writ-
ing suggests that the efforts of the early modern State of Israel were 
to both save the books which may not have been preserved and to 
simultaneously destroy any trace of Palestinian cultural heritage. He 
points to numerous primary source documents, mostly in Hebrew, 
that show a paper trail that indicates that the 1948–49 collecting 
of Palestinian books was unlikely to have been done out of pure 
good intentions. One of the former Jewish Israeli librarians that was 
interviewed in the film mentions that these books were taken to be 
safe-guarded with every intention of being returned to the owners. 
However, the reality is that even when the children and grandchil-
dren of the original owners come looking for their families’ precious 
items, it becomes clear that the Israeli National Library never had, 
and likely never will have, an intention of returning the stolen books.

During the period between May 1948 and February 1949, the staff 
of the Jewish National and University Library at Hebrew University 
collected approximately 30,000 volumes (books, manuscripts, jour-
nals, newspapers, etc.) that were left behind by Palestinians as they 
were forcibly removed from their homelands due to the ongoing 
war. Additionally, in the years following 1948, the newly developed 
Custodian of Absentee Property gathered around 40,000–50,000 
books from other Palestinian cities and lands—many of these books 
were textbooks originally belonging to British mandate schools that 
were later sold for profit to Arab schools. Some 26,000 books were 
deemed “unsuitable” for Arab schools inside the new State of Israel 
due to their content and were sold as paper waste. Amit (2008, 8) 
speaks to the important reality that occupation is not just about 
overtaking physical space; it is also about rendering the culture of 
the loser lifeless. “Palestinian books were placed within the shrine 
of Israeli libraries, fossilized on the shelves—accessible and at the 
same time completely lifeless.” Little research has been done on the 
effects of the war on Palestinian culture, and Amit’s contribution is 



Papers and Presentations  37

a good representation of what should and must be an ongoing effort 
in the future. 

The Great Book Robbery is a provocative film that should be 
widely watched. It brings light to a story that was kept away from 
the light in order to conceal the morally murky dealings of Israel as 
it began to be formed. As the film suggests, the operation of collect-
ing Palestinian libraries was both an effort to exclude Palestinians 
from the national collective, which was to be entirely and solely 
Jewish, and a realization of Zionism’s self-conceptualization as an 
active agent whose mission was moral—to bring enlightenment to 
the Middle East, making it an outpost of Europe. The notion that 
modern Israel is the only, and last standing, democratic society in the 
Middle East denies any responsibility that Israel should have over 
the atrocious and illegal actions it has taken towards the Palestinian 
people. This denial—this sentiment that Israel has not acted in any 
kind of problematic behavior—allows for the Israeli government 
to continue to break down the Palestinians’ sense of personhood, 
collective voice, and national identity. The thoughts and actions that 
surround Israel—that they are the victims, engulfed on all sides by 
Palestinian terrorists—is a distorted message that corrupts the way 
information reaches the occupied territories, access to information 
within the occupied territories, and the type of story that comes out 
of the occupied territories.

TYPES OF LIBRARIES

National
There is not a national library in Palestine, because Palestine has not 
been given de facto statehood. The only national library in the area 
is the Israeli National Library, which exists in Jerusalem at Hebrew 
University. The Israeli National Library contains a large collection of 
Palestinian materials that were acquired during the 1968–69 period 
of war. This collection includes manuscripts on subjects including 
the Islamic faith and law, Palestinian history, the history of the Arab 
world, fictional literary works, and non-fiction books. The staff of 
the National Library of Israel says that the collection of Palestinian 
manuscripts and books, “left” in 1948, numbers about 6,477 titles, 
and these items are cataloged in the library as “AP,” or abandoned 
property (Aderet 2015, 6). “The fact that the library didn’t bring to the 



38  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

public’s attention the affair of collecting or theft . . . and the fact that 
these manuscripts remained in the library’s storage rooms without any 
active effort by the library to return the books to their owners—these 
are the most disturbing and problematic sides of the affair” (Aderet 
2015, 3). Depending on the source, the acquisition of these resources 
was either done out of a desire to save and protect these items from 
damage or it was an intentional action to erase evidence of Palestin-
ian culture and to decimate the Palestinian narrative. 

During his research, Amit came across more records of gathering 
books between 1945–55 and states that the Zionist movement “denied 
the cultural heritage of other groups in Israel by taking possession of 
their intellectual treasurers” (Aderet 2015, 6). As Amit notes, “On the 
one hand, the books were collected and not burned or left in the aban-
doned houses in the Arab neighborhoods that had been emptied . . . 
had they not been collected their fate would have been sealed—not a 
trace of them would remain . . . The National Library . . . protected the 
books from the war . . .” (Aderet 2015, 4). Whether they were preserved 
or stolen, a large amount of Palestinian-owned titles remains locked 
away in the rare books area of the Israeli National Library with little 
to no access given to those of Palestinian heritage. “For example, the 
Israeli State Archives, located in Jerusalem, are not accessible to Pales-
tinians from the West Bank who may not be allowed to cross check-
points, and certainly not to those in the Gaza Strip to whom the border 
is closed entirely” (Kuntz 2013, 5). Restricting movement to Palestin-
ians in Israel and the occupied territories has become the norm. Even 
though Jerusalem and Bethlehem are separated by only four miles, the 
trip between the two can often take two to three hours. If a Palestinian 
residing in Jerusalem, or a Palestinian residing in the West Bank, do not 
have the appropriate paperwork and permits, they are denied access 
through the checkpoints. Even if someone possesses proof that they 
need a permit, Israel often denies these requests, which effectively 
traps Palestinians within the confinements of their neighborhood. 
The wall checkpoints that prohibit Palestinians from being able to 
access their historical narratives, memories that keep culture alive, 
is a violent form of apartheid practice. 

Not only has the Israeli National Library practiced the perpetual 
borrowing and “protection” of Palestinian abandoned property, it has 



Papers and Presentations  39

also acquired, without permission, titles from non-European Jews 
who immigrate to the country.

Rabbi Yehiel Umassi, a Yemenite spiritual leader who immigrated 
in 1950, told about one such incident. Before boarding the plane, he 
entrusted 10 of the community’s Torah scrolls to a man from the 
Jewish Agency. When he showed up to pick them up from the JA’s 
storehouses in Tel Aviv, they weren’t there. In a letter that year to the 
agency, he wrote: “Upon their arrival . . . the parcels were unwrapped, 
the crates broken, the sacks were torn and the books with valuable 
things were stolen” (Aderet 2015, 3).

To date, there are approximately 430 Yemenite manuscripts held 
in the National Library of Israel. For the owners of these precious 
and valuable items, of both Palestinian and Yemenite belonging, the 
items were taken while the owners were not present and without 
their permission. Prominent Christian Arab teacher Khalil Sakakini, 
who died in 1953, describes his sorrow with these words: “Farewell, 
my chosen, inestimable dear books. I do not know what your fate 
has been after we left. Were you plundered? Were you burned? Were 
you transferred, with precious respect, to a public or private library?” 
(Aderet 2015, 5). Until 1950, items in the abandoned property clas-
sification, particularly those seized from Palestinian homes and 
institutions, within the library were cataloged by owners’ surnames, 
making it easier to track original ownership. However, since the 
1960s they have been catalogued only with the “AP” designation 
and it seems that the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property and the 
National Library have no plans to return them to the descendants 
of their rightful owners.

Public

When you walk into a library or cultural center in the West Bank, you 
walk across tracks left by military tanks that crush street and sidewalk 
pavements, smash cars, and eat parts of fences and homes . . . as 
you step into one of these little heavens, you are surrounded by 
organized space, colored paintings on the walls, posters. And you 
appreciate the quiet, the quiet we amuse ourselves with here when 
we associate a librarian with “sssshhhhh.” – Ghada Elturk (2002)

Abu Salma Public Library in Nazareth originally opened in 1980 
or 1981 in an old house. Nazareth is the only majority-Palestinian 
city within Israel proper and the library serves over 100,000 patrons 



40  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

from the city, as well as the surrounding villages. The library collec-
tion here is mostly academic titles with some fiction and non-fiction 
works in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. As in other areas inside Israel 
proper, the West Bank, and Gaza, library funds are usually the first 
thing to get cut from budgets. Funding for building maintenance 
comes from the municipality in the form of taxes, yet the funding for 
books, computers, and programs comes from the Israeli government. 
Government funding is based on the amount of library staff on loca-
tion. In Nazareth there are currently four positions, filled by six staff 
members, who are doing the work of eleven (Librarians for Pales-
tine). This artificially low headcount results in low funding. Books 
are expensive and, due to the lack of funds, maintaining an updated 
collection is nearly impossible. Instead of being given cash for acqui-
sition purchases, the librarians are given credits that can only be 
used at certain government-approved vendors. However, in order 
to navigate around this official system and be able to purchase from 
other vendors, there is an unofficial system that is utilized. There 
is a chain of people that works to get these titles, however, by the 

FIGURE 2: Abu Salma Public Library (Librarians with Palestine, 
librarianswithpalestine.org/featured-projects-members/public-libraries/abu-salma-
public-library/).

http://librarianswithpalestine.org/featured-projects-members/public-libraries/abu-salma-public-library/
http://librarianswithpalestine.org/featured-projects-members/public-libraries/abu-salma-public-library/


Papers and Presentations  41

time the process is said and done, four to five people have handled 
the materials—all wanting a five to ten percent fee for their labors.  

In Palestine, the public libraries function as centers for political 
resistance to the occupation.

The Nablus Public Library first opened its doors in 1960 and is 
the largest public library in Palestine. According to Librarians with 
Palestine, the Nablus municipality provides a budget for the library, 
but there is not enough to support collections development. In order 
to develop the collection, they largely depend on donations from 
universities and they purchase books from local sellers. One major 
restriction placed on libraries within Palestine is the prohibition of 
books purchased from Lebanon. Lebanon is a central publishing hub 
within the Arab world and the ban on books from this country stunts 
the availability of Arabic voices within the collections’ holdings. One 
of the major contributions that the Nablus Public Library gives to the 
local and global community is its section on the experiences of Pales-
tinian political prisoners of Israel. This section is an archive made 
up, and used, by Palestinians that have been imprisoned in Israeli 
jails. The collection boasts 8,000 volumes of published books as well 
as 870 notebooks covering the years of 1975–95. So many Palestin-

FIGURE 3: The Nablus Municipality Library (www.mahmiyat.ps/en/ecoTourism/215).

http://www.mahmiyat.ps/en/ecoTourism/215


42  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

ians have been held as political prisoners by Israeli that the prison 
system has turned into a center of active learning. 

When Israel was forced to close the Nablus-area prisons after 
the Oslo Accords, the books that were formerly held in the small 
library at the Nablus prison found their way into the hands of the 
Nablus Municipal Library. This collection is heavily used to recon-
struct the story of the Palestinian struggle of the 1970s, 80s, and 
90s. The pages of these well-loved and well-read books oftentimes 
contain notes and other marginalia that were written by prisoners 
who read them (Librarians for Palestine). In addition to the special 
collection of materials from prisoners, the Nablus Library also has 
a Children’s Centre.

The Nablus Children’s Centre Library was a priority for the 
community. The library serves as an entry point for all users and 
has a collection of materials for children ages six to sixteen. There 
is one librarian on staff with other trained personnel that assist as 
needed. The collection of 6,000 items does not circulate, in an effort 
to keep the materials in good condition. The center holds a weekly 
event where mothers can read to their children aged three to five (too 
young for kindergarten) and become more familiar with the library. 
The mission of this children’s library is to continue pursuits that will 
foster learning about Palestinian culture and center the importance 
of education. Unfortunately, since the second Intifada (2000–05), the 
library has been unable to add any new materials to their collection 
due to tightened restrictions.

The Al-Bireh Public Library near Ramallah is a vibrant and 
important center of culture and learning inside the West Bank. After 
the library was bombed by the Israeli invasion, just after its opening 
in 1967, the library has become a space for popular education, folk-
lore, transmission of Palestinian culture, and politicization (Natara-
jan and Mermelstein 2014, 250–4). The library offers access seven 
days a week and has a collection of around 50,000 volumes. Al-Bireh 
Public Library was first founded in an apartment with warplanes 
circling overhead, as one librarian recalls, and is intrinsically tied 
with the resistance movement (Librarians for Palestine). In addition 
to providing access to books, the staff provide field trips to help assist 
in olive harvesting and planting as part of its initiative for youth 
library service. Like other libraries within Palestine, it is increasingly 
difficult for Al-Bireh to develop their collections. By 1993, over 5,000 
titles were banned by Israel and the strict ban on items coming from 



Papers and Presentations  43

ians have been held as political prisoners by Israeli that the prison 
system has turned into a center of active learning. 

When Israel was forced to close the Nablus-area prisons after 
the Oslo Accords, the books that were formerly held in the small 
library at the Nablus prison found their way into the hands of the 
Nablus Municipal Library. This collection is heavily used to recon-
struct the story of the Palestinian struggle of the 1970s, 80s, and 
90s. The pages of these well-loved and well-read books oftentimes 
contain notes and other marginalia that were written by prisoners 
who read them (Librarians for Palestine). In addition to the special 
collection of materials from prisoners, the Nablus Library also has 
a Children’s Centre.

The Nablus Children’s Centre Library was a priority for the 
community. The library serves as an entry point for all users and 
has a collection of materials for children ages six to sixteen. There 
is one librarian on staff with other trained personnel that assist as 
needed. The collection of 6,000 items does not circulate, in an effort 
to keep the materials in good condition. The center holds a weekly 
event where mothers can read to their children aged three to five (too 
young for kindergarten) and become more familiar with the library. 
The mission of this children’s library is to continue pursuits that will 
foster learning about Palestinian culture and center the importance 
of education. Unfortunately, since the second Intifada (2000–05), the 
library has been unable to add any new materials to their collection 
due to tightened restrictions.

The Al-Bireh Public Library near Ramallah is a vibrant and 
important center of culture and learning inside the West Bank. After 
the library was bombed by the Israeli invasion, just after its opening 
in 1967, the library has become a space for popular education, folk-
lore, transmission of Palestinian culture, and politicization (Natara-
jan and Mermelstein 2014, 250–4). The library offers access seven 
days a week and has a collection of around 50,000 volumes. Al-Bireh 
Public Library was first founded in an apartment with warplanes 
circling overhead, as one librarian recalls, and is intrinsically tied 
with the resistance movement (Librarians for Palestine). In addition 
to providing access to books, the staff provide field trips to help assist 
in olive harvesting and planting as part of its initiative for youth 
library service. Like other libraries within Palestine, it is increasingly 
difficult for Al-Bireh to develop their collections. By 1993, over 5,000 
titles were banned by Israel and the strict ban on items coming from 

Lebanon means that most of the collection that they do hold is of 
lower quality. In a 2013 interview, librarian Hamsa el-Said recalled 
that being a librarian within the setting of an occupation means to 
struggle daily with colonialism and oppression. To him, the role of 
the librarian is to work to preserve the Palestinian national identity 
and culture and to de-colonize the feelings that Palestinians have 
about themselves. He encourages the users of his library to be both 
active agents of change and engaged readers. He says that people 
should never trust a book and he encourages them to be critical of 
what they read. In addition to working towards library literacy, he 
works to create cultural 
activities that foster 
community building and a 
sense of identity among the 
Palestinians within his 
community. In addition to 
reaching the community 
outside the doors of the 
library, the library works 
with those confined in the 
walls of Israeli prisons. 
They donate items to pris-
ons even though the Israeli 
authorities confiscate 
many materials in their 
efforts to keep prisoners 
uninformed and unedu-
cated. However, this does 
not stop Al-Bireh Library 
from doing what it can to 
open the minds of the 
people being held captive 
by the Israeli military.

On Thursday, August 9, 2018 the Al-Meshal Cultural Center in 
Gaza was bombed by Israeli forces. This five-story building housed 
a theatre for arts and dabke, an Egyptian community center, vari-
ous cultural association offices, and a library. For residents of Gaza, 
this establishment was more than just a building. The center was a 
cultural landmark and was where memories were kept. The center 
was a place where life and connection could exist within an already 

FIGURE 4: A photo of a book cover in the 
collection at Al-Bireh Public Library (Librarians 
with Palestine. librarianswithpalestine.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/al-birah-book.jpg).

http://librarianswithpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/al-birah-book.jpg
http://librarianswithpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/al-birah-book.jpg


44  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

isolated and cut-off community. Even though the Israeli Defense 
Force (IDF) noted that they were aware that the center was used for 
civilian affairs, because of reports about Hamas activity within the 
building they targeted it nonetheless. Due to construction restric-
tions, permit issues, and lack of money and supplies, the center has 
not been able to be rebuilt. Much of Gaza lies in rubble, as re-build-
ing is thwarted on all sides by Israel. Violence is nothing new for 
Arab communities living within the walls of the occupied territo-
ries, and it unfortunately does not look like there is an end in sight. 
Yet libraries and librarians within Palestine do the best they can to 
keep hope alive.

Academic
Al-Quds University is a Palestinian University with several campuses 
located in Jerusalem, Al-Bireh, and Abu Dis. Like all Palestinian 
libraries within the occupied territories and inside Israel proper, 
procuring funding for books and resources is a constant challenge. 
In addition to the financial strains, the Israeli government controls 
materials moving across the Israeli border. While donations are 
sometimes helpful, they are also a detriment to the collection devel-
opment process. In one instance, Al-Quds received a charitable dona-
tion of 30,000 volumes and, after sorting through them, it was 
decided that only three to four hundred titles would be beneficial to 
the collection (Librarians for Palestine).

FIGURE 5: Damage to Al Quds campus in the Abu Deis suburb of Jerusalem 
following an October raid (theconversation.com/education-under-occupation-
everyday-disruption-at-a-palestinian-university-49035).

http://theconversation.com/education-under-occupation-everyday-disruption-at-a-palestinian-university-49035
http://theconversation.com/education-under-occupation-everyday-disruption-at-a-palestinian-university-49035


Papers and Presentations  45

In addition to funding and collections issues, the Al-Quds 
campuses have been a hot spot for Israeli military aggression. With 
routine attacks from 2012–14, 2016, and most recently in 2018, the 
university closed multiple times, affecting students’ learning and 
access to the libraries on campus. One of the goals of the military 
occupation is to relentlessly attack institutions of higher learning, 
and Al-Quds is at the center of these acts of violence. Universities 
in the West Bank and Gaza are key incubators of the resistance and 
major channels of Palestinians’ aspirations for freedom and justice 
(Reimer 2018, 1). Students are at the front lines of the Palestinian 
resistance and are often held at checkpoints for several hours while 
trying to travel from home to class and vice versa. Movement is heav-
ily restricted for Palestinian students living in the West Bank and for 
those in Gaza, they are living in an open-air prison. During Israel’s 
2014 war on Gaza, 66% of students at Al-Quds University lost their 
homes. “The scars left on Gazan students are a graphic illustration of 
the deeper reality of Palestine as a whole: the progressive amputa-
tion of universities is central to Israel’s intentions” (Reimer 2018, 1–2). 
Yet, despite all of Israel’s attempts to destroy education for Palestin-
ians, it is one among a few things that the populations of Gaza and 
the West Bank have left. Given Israel’s continued blockade of Pales-
tinian universities, it is no surprise that Palestine, by international 
standards, has a high rate of participation on tertiary education.

Birzeit University Library is currently facing collections devel-
opment issues due to the continued confiscation of books and other 
materials by Israeli customs and border control. As Diana Sayej-
Naser said in an interview during the 2016 American Library Asso-
ciation conference in Orlando, “we have issues with getting books 
from outside the country, especially from the Arab world.  A few are 
confiscated due to their titles. Sometimes the title is a key to confiscat-
ing the book.” In addition to books being held by customs, students 
are often held at the interior checkpoints for carrying books that 
belong to the university. Sayej-Naser notes that many of the library’s 
books have been lost to the Israeli military as students attempt to 
pass through checkpoints.

Like Al-Quds, Birzeit is no stranger to military violence. On March 
8, 2018, armed Israeli soldiers disguised as students made a violent 
intrusion onto the Birzeit campus—the fifth such incident in just two 
years—and kidnapped the head of the student council. During the 
struggle, live rounds were fired (Reimer 2018, 3). Sadly, the violence 



46  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

does not end with physical assaults on campuses, students, faculty, 
and staff at Palestinian universities. The universities are structurally 
undermined as the crippled economies of the West Bank and Gaza 
cannot produce the tuition fees necessary to fund university budgets. 

Furthermore, tightening Israeli regulations on foreign work visas 
and the near impossibility of academic freedom makes it hard for 
these universities to attract international faculty and staff. Between 
the high rates of visa denials and the increased violence on higher 
education centers, Palestine is an unpopular destination for academ-
ics and library professionals. This leaves many Palestinian univer-
sities siloed in local enclaves, desperate for international contacts 
and resources. While university staff, faculty, and students have it 
difficult, it is far harder for primary and secondary schools to acquire 
the necessary supplies to allow for adequate libraries and learning 
for students.

School
Unfortunately, there are no studies or objective data to inform judge-
ment about the quality of education or skills imparted on children 
living under the occupation (Abu-Duhou 1996, 3). However, both 
government- and humanitarian-run schools inside the West Bank 
and Gaza do not have the funds or resources to have libraries for 
their students. While the West Bank generally fares better than Gaza, 
each location has problems. In Gaza, there are not enough books for 
Gazans in general. The entire holdings of all open and functional 
libraries is 70,000 volumes for over 1.8 million people. In many 
instances, just having a building to learn, read, and teach in is a 
hard-enough reality. In 2014, 258 schools were damaged when Israel 

FIGURE 6: A student in the 
stacks at Birzeit University 
Library (https://www.birzeit.
edu/en/bzu-library).

https://www.birzeit.edu/en/bzu-library
https://www.birzeit.edu/en/bzu-library


Papers and Presentations  47

waged war against Gaza. Making things more difficult, the current 
US Administration has blocked funding for several US-based funding 
projects to restore schools, water, and sewer systems in Gaza. With 
severely high unemployment rates, utterly damaged spaces that are 
unable to be rebuilt, and a broken economy, the possibility of librar-
ies in Gaza for school-aged children is a dream.

However, not all hope is lost. Mosab Abu Toha, a young Gazan 
with a degree in English literature, has been unable to travel the 
world except through books. He and his friend Shafi Salem have 
collected hundreds of books (currently housed in Mosab’s apart-
ment) with the dream of opening a library, with a bookshop and café, 
in a building of its own (Pollit 2017, 2). Among donors to this growing 
collection is Noam Chomsky, who says that, “It has been amazing, and 
inspiring, to see how people surviving in the Gaza prison, subject to 
constant and vicious attacks and living under conditions of brutal 
deprivation, continue to maintain their dignity and commitment to 
a better life” (Polit 2017, 3). Amidst the harsh conditions imposed by 
Israel on Gaza, the Palestinian people living here still maintain and 
keep hope alive.

In the West Bank, the stories of school libraries are reflected in 
the few anecdotes shared by librarians in a video edited by Rachel 
Mattson  (2016). They each discuss the various struggles facing their 
schools. One librarian, who works in a school for seventh through 
twelfth grades, discusses how her library was burned three years 
earlier and they have yet to rebuild. Another librarian speaks to the 
importance of working as best she can with various colleagues to 
turn libraries into cultural centers, available to everyone. The last 
librarian in this video discusses how the school library functions 
not just as a space for school children, but also as a center of learn-
ing and education for adults and families in the wider community.      

In addition to the lack of adequate libraries for schools in the West 
Bank and in Gaza, the seventy Arab schools within the 1948 borders 
of Israel have to adhere to specific policies and regulations regard-
ing education and access to information. Books on several topics 
are prohibited in the schools, including information regarding the 
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and any subject dealing 
with Palestinian culture and history is not allowed to be taught in 
the school system (Kuntz 2013, 8). The Israeli curriculum is a form 
of propaganda and has strict regulations about what can be taught 
and how it can be taught. Working against the set curriculum can 



48  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

be dangerous for schools, yet almost all non-Jewish Israeli schools 
do what they can to challenge the dominant, pro-Zionist, narrative 
that Israel constructs. 

You can even make beauty from stones that put a bump in your way. 
    – Johann von Goethe

The Carmelite School is a private religious school located in Haifa, 
inside the borders of the modern Israeli state. The school serves 
the first through twelfth grades and has a collection of about 6,000 
volumes. Each year the school has a book march, or book club, where 
the librarian chooses texts of good quality and high appeal for the 
students to read and discuss. At the end of the term, there is a cele-
bration that includes writing, art, and theatre. This yearly event 
encourages students to read individually and collectively, and at 
the end they choose their favorite book from that year’s selections. 
The school is now managed by a Franciscan friar and sits near the 
foot of Mount Carmel. Haifa is a unique place within the borders of 
modern Israel. It is known for its peacefulness, religious tolerance, 
and apolitical nature (Librarians for Palestine). This may be because 
the city is diverse and most of the Jewish residents are immigrants 
from the former Soviet Union. While the school is run by Christians 
and has a high percentage of students that identify as Christian, there 
are also students who identify as Druze and Muslim. The school 
hopes to create a clear path and sense of urgency for the place of 
Christians within Israel.

Within Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, Christians are in the 
minority. As of 2013, about 2% of the population within the borders 
of Israel proper identified as practicing Christians. Within the occu-
pied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, there are approximately 
50,000 Christians, most of whom self-identify as Palestinian Arabs 
and live within the West Bank. The world often forgets that Chris-
tians exist within Israel and Palestine, and theologian scholar writ-
ers like Mitri Raheb and Naim Ateek invest their energies in making 
sure that the world remembers. A discussion of schools and institu-
tions working to keep the Palestinian spirit alive would be incom-
plete without the mention of the Diyar Consortium in Bethlehem. 
Diyar began in 1995 and was founded as the International Center in 
Bethlehem, aiming to assist people living under occupation to be 
able to creatively resist. Today it functions as a consortium of 
Lutheran-based, ecumenically focused institutions that serves all 



Papers and Presentations  49

Palestinians from “the womb to the tomb.” Diyar’s mission is to 
“build a country, stone by stone; to empower a community, person 
by person; to create institutions that give life in abundance.” Provided 
programs support the formation, development, and reinforcement 
of Palestinian culture and identity through the arts, music, theatre, 
dance, sports, book publishing, and media productions. Now retired, 
the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, who served as the president of Diyar, the 
Dar al-Kalima University College in Bethlehem, and the senior pastor 
at Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, was also the chief editor 
of one of the initiatives of Diyar Publishing. Through their publish-
ing arm, the central purpose of Diyar is to make sure that Palestine 
and Palestinians remain alive in an environment that is perpetually 
trying to crush the spirit of the people.

Special
Al-Budeiri Family Library is a small private 
library and archives located in the Old City 
of Jerusalem. Its collection includes about 
900 manuscripts dating back to the 12th 
century C.E. The library’s collection sprung 
out of the personal holdings of Sufi scholar 
Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Budair, known as 
Ibn al-Hubaysh. He was a prolific writer and 
authored a number of literary works, most 
notably a poem written about the defeat of 
Napoleon before the walls of ‘Akka in 1799. 
According to the Palestinian American 
Research Center, roughly half of the library’s 
manuscripts are well-preserved, with 
another quarter needing only rebinding (by 
Islamic experts), and the remainder in total or partial disrepair.  The 
library is still run by the family out of the home of al-Hubaysh, as 
noted in his will. It is open to the public by appointment only.

Khalidi Family Library is perhaps the largest manuscript collec-
tion within Palestine, with more than 2,000 titles. The collection has 
developed over the years through a series of gifts and it includes 
thousands of titles in Arabic, English, French, and Turkish. While a 
majority of the holdings are on the subject of the history of the 
Islamic religion, there is a sizable holding of manuscripts that are 
on the topic of the history of Palestine. There are also a number of 

FIGURE 7: The sign at 
Al-Budeiri Family Library 
(wikivisually.com/wiki/Al-
Budeiri_Library).

https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Al-Budeiri_Library
https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Al-Budeiri_Library


50  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

rare manuscripts that are considered originals, with 112 manu-
scripts written in the handwriting 
of the author. While the Khalidi 
Library is open to the public, the 
demographic that it serves most 
frequently is researchers.

The Issaf Nashashibi Center for 
Culture and Literature holds some 
of the best-preserved manuscripts. 
In addition to the holdings of books 
and manuscripts, there is a collec-
tion of newspapers that date back to 
1967. The collection is housed in the 
home of the late Palestinian literary 
figure Is’af al-Nashashibi. Owner-

ship of the property was officially transferred to the Dar Al-Tifl 
al-’Arabi Institution, founded by Hind al-Husayni, who knew the 
importance of maintaining manuscripts for the survival of Palestin-
ian heritage. Like many Palestinian libraries within Jerusalem, the 
West Bank, and Gaza, the Nashashibi Center is in need of an online 
computer cataloging system. However, this does not stop the library 
from serving 50–100 patrons each week (Palestinian American 
Research Center).

FIGURE 8: Khalidi Family Library 
(Wikipedia).

FIGURE 9: Issaf Nashashibi Center.



Papers and Presentations  51

Library and Information Science Education
There are no library school programs or training opportunities avail-
able to Palestinians in Palestine. Due to budget issues and travel 
bans, it is incredibly hard for librarians to receive proper training 
in Palestine. It is equally difficult for international librarians to get 
to both the West Bank and Gaza. In general, Gaza has many profes-
sionally trained librarians with no access to jobs, and the West Bank 
has many job openings but no librarians to staff them. Neither loca-
tion is particularly desirable to live in, and even when international 
librarians try to come work in Palestine their visa applications are 
often denied by Israel. “Librarians with MLS degrees are uncommon 
due to the political unrest in the area, the financial limitations, and 
the lack of standards for professional employment . . . the profession 
of librarianship is neither recognized nor well-understood in the 
region” (Eberhart 2016, 1). Librarians at both Birzeit and Al-Quds 
Universities remark on how difficult it is to establish librarianship 
as a profession in the West Bank. “There are no post-undergraduate 
library schools in the West Bank and it is very difficult to find profes-
sional librarians and archivists” (Kuntz 2013, 9). In addition to a lack 
of library professionals, there is no shared catalog for the libraries 
within the occupied territories. There is no unified Palestinian union 
library catalog due to the exorbitant expense, and each university 
must pay to maintain its own catalog. Because of a lack of union cata-
log and the presence of the apartheid wall, interlibrary loan does not 
exist. The Israeli checkpoints make movement difficult for Palestin-
ian librarians to attend meetings, so while the Palestinian Library 
Association exists in theory, in practice it is not allowed to flourish. 

Another problem that faces librarians and librarianship within 
the occupied territories is the “tepid” international response. The 
International Federation of Libraries and Archives (IFLA) tends to 
side with US politics and compares Israeli and Palestinian librar-
ies and archives as if they existed on equal footing (Kuntz 2013, 9). 
This practice denies the continued Israeli destruction and contin-
ued harassment of Palestinian libraries and archives. The effects of 
colonialism and occupation on libraries, archives, and Palestinian 
society are tangible and should not be ignored by the international 
community. 

While there are no programs for library science in the West Bank 
and Gaza, there is one program that assists school principals within 
the West Bank to gain library skills. The Center for Applied Research 



52  AT L A 2020 PROCEEDINGS

in Education, Occupied Palestinian Territories (CARE Palestine)’s 
Library Development Programme provides training to equip princi-
pals with the necessary skills to run and maintain libraries for their 
schools. However, as with many internationally funded programs, 
information on this project is not well maintained, and what infor-
mation is available is limited and dated.

Library Organizations within Palestine and International 
Organizations working with Palestine

In 1994, the Palestine Library Association saw the light of day, but, 
being subject to restrictions on assembly and movement imposed 
by the occupying power, it is difficult for it to play a major role in the 
development of libraries. (Lefebvre-Danset 2009, 2)

Because of the tightened restrictions on movement, the Palestinian 
Library Association (PLA), and the Palestinian Librarian and Infor-
mation Consortium (PALICO), the shift of these two associations are 
to establish academic libraries as educational centers and to advance 
the professional status of librarians in the area. Mandatory retire-
ment for librarians in Palestine is 65 and, as of 2016, 80% of the 82 
librarians in Palestine are close to this age. In order to advance librar-
ianship, librarians in Palestine mention items that the international 
community can help promote. These are:

• freely available e-resources (particularly in Arabic),
• funding for local digitization projects,
• training in librarianship,
• scholarships for Palestinian librarians to attend international 

conferences,
• partnerships with library organizations,
• new books donated directly from publishers,
• for international librarians to travel to Palestine for work, train-

ing, and experience.

Randa Kamal makes the comparison between hospitals and libraries, 
“Just as hospitals treat patients with good medicine, libraries need 
the best information to serve their communities” (Eberhart 2016, 2). 
The international community must help Palestinian librarians get 
the access to information that they need so that the communities 
of Palestinians, living in illegal occupation, have the best chance of 
survival. In order to connect with librarians around the world that 



Papers and Presentations  53

are working in solidarity with Palestine, the following international 
organizations are a good place to begin:

• Librarians and Archivists for Palestine (LAP)
• American Library Association (ALA) — Social Responsibilities 

Round Table (SRRT), International Responsibilities Task Force 
(IRTF)

• The International Federation of Library Associations and Insti-
tutions (IFLA) Freedom of Access to Information Freedom of 
Expression Advisory Committee (FAIFE)

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