Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel
by Andre Ross
(Verso, £16.99)

THERE’S a millennial tradition of stonemasonry that evolved around the world’s best-quality dolomitic limestone and its Palestinian practitioners are renowned across the whole of the Middle East for their skills. They’ve built virtually every state in the region except, of course, their own.

[[{"fid":"12898","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]As the blurb to Andre Ross’s book points out, the stonemasons have been used to build the state of Israel and, in the process, construct “facts on the ground.”  There “they demolish our houses while we build theirs,” is how a Palestinian stonemason, waiting at a checkpoint in Jerusalem, describes his experience to Andrew Ross in this book.

The latter’s greatest achievement is that through elegant and sensitive  prose such unadulterated Palestinian voices are heard loud and clear. Also impressive is the precision of detailed historic data and apposite referencing  — particularly in relation to the labour movement — which contextualises the arguments put forward by the stonemasons.