I just finished giving The Hundred Years' War on Palestine a quick first read via audiobook and it was helpful for me, especially as my first indirect exposure to some of the foundational works of Zionism and framing the emergence of Arab national identities as well as Israeli identity in a coherent modern context.
Last night, I started reading An Army Like No Other, which was so immediately striking that I read some 20 pages aloud to a family member this morning. That book is incredibly direct and insightful about the interrelared roles of ideology and the military-industrial complex in Israeli society. (This one is a Verso book and appears on their reading list.) Of the three books I've recently started on related topics, this one has the most polemical style, and its prose is razor sharp.
I'm very curious to hear what others are reading, as well was what you all find has been most vital for you on this topic, either in educating yourself or in explaining the topic to others! If anyone has trouble getting hold of a text (on these reading lists or otherwise) please let me know and I'll try to help.
Israel is in fact among the most dangerous places, if not the most dangerous place, in the world to be Jewish, precisely because of the violence inherent in settler colonialism.
The idea that Israel serves as a safe haven for Jews has always played a justificatory role in Zionism but it has never been true.