Cheap Blood Brothers (Book) (Elias Chacour) Price

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Customer Reviews of Blood Brothers

A fair account
This book is a very touching recount of the life of a Palestinian Arab and his memories of being expelled from his village when the Jews took over Israel and the hardships that took on his life after the fact. While Chacour does give these painful accounts of the life he has had to face, he in no way is bitter or hateful because of them. On the contrary, he offers possible solutions to the conflicts while explaining his side of the story and providing a great deal of history. Chacour tells his readers about the prejudices that were placed against him by the Jews in Israel and Europeans or all religions. He was made to leave the home he and his family had known for thousands of years and then had to read in history books that it never happened! He explains how these experiences led him to God. The story then moves on to explaining his struggles with the Israeli government to gain rights for his people.

I have had the extreme honor of meeting Elias Chacour after I read this book. I stayed with him in his village of Ibillin in Galilee. While there we spoke every evening, often late into the night about the struggles and hardships that both sides have faced in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is very committed to doing everything he can to better his people's situations while also defending the Jews and their claim to the land as well. He in no way is anti-Israel, or anti-Jew. As he says, we all come from the same God, from the same Mother and Father, and from the same land.

I saw the ruins of his village, which he is not allowed to move back to. I saw the graves of his mother and father. I saw the church that he describes so well as the place that saved him. But, more importantly, I saw a new side of this conflict. I no longer saw the Arabs as savages and terrorists that were trying to steal the land from the Jews, but rather as a race of people who is enduring the same oppression that the Jews faced for centuries.

Elias Chacour is a holy man who just wants peace between these two races. This book is telling a side of the story that so often is hidden from the Western World. If you a person who is interested in opening his/her eyes to the real issues that are stopping peace from becoming reality and not just an ideal - then you need to read this book.

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A Case Study in Hope
It seems that much has been written about the Middle East in terms of religion, culture, history, economics, geopolitical significance, etc. But it seems very little has been written about the region in terms of brotherhood. The notion almost rankles upon first utterance, yet Elias Chacour, a Christian Palestinian approaches the topic from this rather unique perspective. Having experienced the destruction of his home village of Biram by Israeli soldiers in 1951, one would expect him to have something to say. While portraying injustices honestly, he refuses to draw harsh generalizations. As Israeli soldiers or Zionist groups such as the Irgun destroy local villages, Chacour notes the sentiment of the native Jewish people in the area who were "shocked and disgusted" and who protested such activities via their religious leaders. Although the book is not enthralling in terms of literary quality, it is compelling in terms of ideas.

Showing promise as a young student, Chacour is given the rare privilege of attending seminary in Paris and becomes the first Palestinian Arab to earn a degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His educational exploits expose him not only to Jews with a genuine compassion for Palestinian suffering but to Christians with very little. Returning to Palestine, he accepts a position as a priest in the small, embittered Palestinian town of Ibillin. Ironically, it is through the malice of Ibillin's Christians that Chacour becomes intimately acquainted with his own propensity for violence. Having reached his limit of exposure to interfamilial strife in the town, Chacour emotes, "Silent, still, I lay there, aware for the first time that I was capable of vicious, killing hatred. Aware that all men everywhere - despite the thin, polite veneer of society - are capable of hideous violence against other men." At this point Chacour comes to more deeply understand the forgiveness offered by Jesus, who refused to hate while vicious hatred nailed him to a wooden cross. Chacour begins to understand that stopping the cycle of violence starts with an individual decision to retaliate, not with violence, but with forgiveness, with kindness, and an abiding commitment to emulate Jesus' act of self-sacrifice in the name of reconciliation.

Chacour notes that the land of Israel is not only promised to Abraham and his biological sons, but to those who had become Abraham's offspring by faith in Jesus, the promised savior of Jews and non-Jews alike. By faith or genealogy, both Jews and Christians trace their heritage to Abraham. "The Jews and the Palestinians are blood brothers," his father reminded him, "We must never forget that."

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A personal interaction with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
I would recommend this book to everybody. It gives us a fair, and much needed, insight into the Palestinian Christian perspective within the greater framework of the Middle East conflict. The personal testimony and example that Elias Chacour gives us is compelling and convicting. What if we all started to act with the faith, love and renconcilation Elias promotes in this inspiring account of his life.
This is a must for anyone wanting to learn about how a Christian (or anyone with a humanitarian worldview) should respond to conflict and crisis.