Jean-Pierre Filiu

Nothing could prepare historian Jean-Pierre Filiu for what he encountered in Gaza.   Noted historian of Gaza, Jean-Pierre Filiu, spent a month there between December and January 2025. This is his up-close, immersive documentary of reality inside the Palestinian enclave.Filiu is a historian who specialises in Gazan history, and has travelled there regularly since 1980. He also knows the Arabic...

The Middle East, often referred to as the cradle of the three monotheisms, is saturated with symbolism. Situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, it is a land marked by the rich confluence of religions and peoples. It has also been the focal point of endemic tensions and conflicts, many of which stretch back into the mists of...

Through its millennium-long existence, Gaza has often been bitterly disputed, yet enduringly neglected. Squeezed between the Negev and Sinai deserts and the Mediterranean Sea, Gaza was contested by everyone from the Pharaohs, Persians, Greeks and Romans to the Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans and British. And, since 1948, Gaza has been at the heart of Palestinian nationalism and history.Filiu's book was the...

Best of Enemies is surely destined to stand alongside Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis as a graphic history of the Middle East. A must-read for anyone interested in learning, or teaching, about the region. - Mark Levine, professor of history at UC-Irvine and author of Heavy Metal Islam In the third volume of their graphic history of US and Middle East relations,...