Resisting Erasure is a book I want to recommend many more times a day than I would want to admit. Much of the messaging on social media platforms is centered around Israel, its lobby, and, as of Spring 2026, the refusal of some US American military to die “for Israel”. This book offers the most concise arguments against these talking points, and makes a clear case for the capitalist nature of American imperialism, often going back to decades of US American politicians’ positions. It was Biden who claimed that they would have to invent an Israeli state if one didn’t already exist, to further US American interests in the region and protect the imperialist project of the settler colony that we know as the United States of America.

Hanieh, Knox and Ziadah bring together many important viewpoints to disrupt such ongoing myths around Palestine, many of which are the “helpful” kind, and do so in a strict, no-nonsense kind of way without losing sight of their message. Many of us are aware that the order of the world, its international structures, are not designed to protect us but struggle to articulate why.

Why is it so dangerous to rely only on legal frameworks, why wouldn’t we stress humanitarian principles amid genocide? Because, as the authors make it painfully clear, a highly developed, precise weapon is legal, but a less developed imprecise weapon is not. The book summarizes the history of the Israeli settler colony so well, and locate it in a much longer history of European expansion and capitalism. Do yourself a favor, and read this book or gift it to a comrade or someone you would like to be one. 

Thank you to Verso Books for providing a review copy of the book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.