Join us for the launch of Max Blumenthal’s new book The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Blumenthal will be in conversation with Sarah Colborne, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a member of the International Central Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem.

Beginning July 8, 2014, Israel launched air strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza that lasted fifty-one days, leaving over 2,000 people dead, the vast majority of whom were civilians. During the assault, at least 10,000 homes were destroyed and, according to the United Nations, nearly 300,000 Palestinians were displaced.

Max Blumenthal was on the ground during what he argues was an entirely avoidable catastrophe. In this explosive work of reportage, Blumenthal reveals the harrowing conditions and cynical deceptions that led to the ruinous war. Here, for the first time, Blumenthal unearths and presents shocking evidence of atrocities he gathered in the rubble of Gaza.

Blumenthal’s on-the-ground reportage uncovers and analyses details overlooked by mainstream media outlets—including regional political motives, war crimes, and US involvement in the eventual ceasefire agreement—an outcome showing that US & Egyptian-led diplomacy makes another war almost inevitable. ‘The 51 Day War’ presents unflinching accounts of: the use of civilians as human shields by Israeli forces; the arbitrary targeting of Palestinian civilians; and widespread incitement to genocide by Israeli military personnel, political leaders, and state-sponsored clerics. Eyewitness accounts from Gazan residents document potential war crimes committed by the Israeli armed forces. Blumenthal also details the battles that took place between Israeli forces and the armed guerrilla factions of the Gaza Strip, explaining their military and political significance with intimate proximity to the subject.

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and best-selling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in New York Times, Daily Beast, Guardian, Huffington Post, Salon, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. He is the author of Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel and Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered the Party.

FREE, rsvp@mosaicrooms.org