Palestine Twilight: The Murder of Dr Glock and the Archaeology of the Holy Land: The Murder of Dr.Albert Glock and the Archaeology of the Holy Land - Tapa blanda

Part travelogue, part true-thriller, Edward Fox’s brilliantly original book investigates the murder of a US archaeologist on the West Bank in 1992 and opens up the Palestinian world he served – a Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil of Palestine and the West Bank.

On 19 January 1992, Dr Albert Glock – US citizen, archaeologist and Director of Archaeology at Bir Zeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was murdered by an assassin. Two bullets to the heart. The witness statements were confused, the autopsy inadequate. The police took three hours to arrive at the scene, from their HQ ten minutes away.

Who killed Albert Glock? The Palestinians blamed the Israelis, the Israelis blamed an inter-departmental feud at the university, or extreme Palestinian groups. But those close to Bir Zeit, to the political situation on the West Bank, had a simple line of advice: 'Look to the archaeology,' they repeated. 'Look to the archaeology.'

For Albert Glock had started to uncover truths about the distant Palestinian past which Israel found uncomfortable. For Israel, Palestine was a country without a people – for a people without a country. Now Glock, through his archaeological finds, was showing that their version was flawed. He was publishing papers about the ancient traditions and settlements throughout Palestine, and discovering hugely significant facts about the ancient Palestinian way of life. Glock had given up a glittering career to teach at Palestine's beleaguered, besieged and underfunded university which faced closure at worst, and curfew at best – daily.

Edward Fox's extraordinary book weaves together the story of Glock's murder with the history of biblical archaeology and the brutal, Byzantine politics of the intifada. It is written as a true-life thriller which opens up the Palestine in which Glock lived and worked, the people he knew and the turbulent politics of the middle east. This is brilliantly original writing and compelling storytelling quite unlike any other work yet published on the Middle East.

On 19 January 1992, Dr Albert Glock, an American archaeologist, was murdered by two gunmen on the West Bank town of Bir Zeit. The questions quickly mounted. Was it a hit carried out by the Israeli secret services? Had a love affair gone wrong? Was a Palestinian terrorist group involved? Or could it even be the result of internecine academic feuding?

George Orwell wrote that 'He who controls the past controls the future,' and in his masterly investigation of Glock's death, Fox reveals how the struggle for mastery in this region has politicised archaeology, turning an academic subject into a potentially deadly pursuit."

" Anyone wanted to understand the trauma of occupied Palestine, historically, culturally and politically, should read this book."
ECONOMIST

" This book is, from start to finish, intensely readable, fresh, informative and illuminating."
CHARLES THOMAS, 'Sunday Telegraph'

"I heartily recommend this book. Fox's assured delving has laid bare many usually obscure strata in the complex structure of the Arab-Israel conflict. With his command of detail and pithy style, he strikes the right tone in a politically sensitive field."
ANDREW LYCETT,'Sunday Times'

" The investigation into the murder of a single individual had served Fox an Ariadne's thread that takes him and his readers deep into the maze of Israeli and Palestinian society. His narrative, which is eloquent, empathic and balanced, gives the reader a vivid sense of what it is like to be a Palestinian in the twenty-first century. 'Palestine Twilight' should be read by anyone interested in the Middle East today."
ROBERT IRWIN, 'Evening standard'