A damning account of how Israel and the US manufactured the case for genocide in Gaza and a devastating regional war in the Middle East, from Tel Aviv to Tehran.
In Twelve Days That Shook the Middle East, scholar and Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara offers a clear-eyed account of what happened after October 7, 2023, why it happened, and why it matters. Bishara argues that this conflict has always been an asymmetric, anticolonial struggle. The genocide was not a misstep; it was a blueprint unfolding before the world’s eyes.
Although he covers the entire war, Bishara contends that the first twelve days were enough to expose the core logic of the conflict, to understand the strategic design behind it, and to bear witness to how modern warfare, wrapped in the language of “security,” “self-defense,” and “civilization,” becomes a weapon of dehumanization and destruction.
What followed those twelve days—mass killing, mass displacement, famine, and the collapse of humanitarian possibility—was not the fog of war. It was the eerily cold execution of a premeditated strategy.
Dr. Marwan Bishara has been the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera English for the past two decades. He has authored three book and written for publications such as The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, Newsweek, Jerusalem Post, and Al-Hayat. He was a visiting academic at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and was a lecturer of international relations at the American University of Paris. He splits his time between New York, London, Paris, and Doha.
ISBN: 9798903931453
Publication date: October 6, 2026
Part One The Beautiful Lie and the Ugly Truth
Chapter 1 Singapore on the Mediterranean
Chapter 2 The Masterminds
Chapter 3 The Twelve Hours That Shook Israel
Part Two Hell Unleashed
Chapter 4 Manufacturing the Case for Genocide
Chapter 5 Israel’s Tragedy, Netanyahu’s Opportunity
Chapter 6 Leave it to the Generals
Chapter 7 The Quiet War
Part Three A Special Liaison
Chapter 8 Biden’s Bear Hug
Chapter 9 The Imperial Speech
Part Four Nakba 2.0
Chapter 10 The Nakba Continues
Chapter 11 The Children
Chapter 12 The Hospitals
Chapter 13 Dying to Learn
Chapter 14 Famine by Design
Part Five A Crisis of Humanity
Chapter 15 The Arab Abandonment of Palestine
Chapter 16 Europe’s Crisis of Conscience
Chapter 17 Paralysis at the Pinnacle
Part Six People Power
Chapter 18 Surging Global Solidarity
Chapter 19 Antisemitism and Islamophobia
Part Seven Three Twelve-Day Wars
Chapter 20 Dragging Iran to War
Chapter 21 Israel devastates Hezbollah
Chapter 22 Syria: The Collapse
Chapter 23 The Twelve-Day Israel-Iran War
Reflections: The Delusion of Power and The Power of Delusion
“An alarming and informative read.” —Booklist, Starred Review
“A brilliant book by an outstanding veteran journalist who has followed and reported on Israeli politics for decades. Marwan Bishara shows that the path to genocide was not built accidentally but was paved by decades of intentional dehumanization and supremist indoctrination. More than any other book, it expertly probes the political arrogance, structural racism and cultivated cruelty that set the stage for October 7.”
—Raja Shehadeh, author of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I
“Hard-hitting, compelling, honest. A tragic portrait of the violence that has overtaken the Middle East since 7 October 2023, from genocide in Gaza to wars in Lebanon and Iran, as Israel and the United States combine forces to reshape the region. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the world today.”
—Eugene Rogan, author of The Arabs: A History and The Fall of the Ottomans
“Marwan Bishara has written an essential work of contemporary history. He powerfully and meticulously illuminates how decisions made over twelve days in October 2023 set the stage for Israel's genocide in Gaza, as well as the wars against Iran and Lebanon that followed. Twelve Days That Shook the Middle East exposes not only a 'fortress of complicity' between Israel and its allies in the West, above all the United States, but a catastrophic moral failure, rooted in the logic of colonial violence and imperial patronage, that has led to unimaginable destruction and horror. Yet Bishara, one of the region's most astute commentators, is driven less by anger than by the dream of 'a day when Palestinians and Jews are united by the hope of a shared future, not divided by the hate of fanatic leaders.' The result is an indispensable contribution to understanding the genocide, to the remembrance of its victims, and to ensuring that it never happens again—to anyone.”
—Adam Shatz, US Editor, London Review of Books and author of The Rebel’s Clinic: the Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon
“Marwan Bishara has spent most of his distinguished career writing with depth, nuance, and empathy on the United States, the Middle East, and especially the plight of Palestine and Palestinians. In this brilliant book, he explores in detail the twelve days in October 2023 in which Israel set in motion the machinery of genocide against Gaza, unleashing one of the most destructive military campaigns targeting civilians in modern times. Bishara’s work shows us that it’s both possible and essential to produce politically engaged journalism and analysis that truly matters, without fear or compromise. In this book, he expertly weaves together journalism, deep historical context, and geopolitical analysis to explain how Israel’s genocide reshaped the Middle East and our entire world. Bishara reminds us that the best journalism is fearless and uncompromising—and deeply compassionate.”
—Mohamad Bazzi, director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies and journalism professor at New York University
"Marwan Bishara’s Twelve Days that Shook the Middle East is one of those rare documents you cannot stop reading and yet one minute into reading you need to stop and catch your breath. It is human to want to forget Israel's acts of barefaced savagery, but Marwan Bishara insists that we keep reading, thinking, and witnessing. Genocidal Zionism cannot evade the justice Palestinians demand, and Bishara's words will hold the whole world accountable, until the final reckoning."
—Hamid Dabashi, author of After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization
“From wherever you sit, the story is masked by propaganda and lies. Palestine and Israel at the center. The US, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, the countries of the Arabian peninsula, European nations, China, Russia, all spinning around that conflict like sci-fi planets loosed around a double sun. Marwan Bishara's Twelve Days That Shook the Middle East cuts through the fog. It shows how decades of conflict came to be concentrated in these critical moments. It is objective, detailed, and accurate.”
—Larry Beinhart, novelist and author of Wag the Dog
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