Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine [Paperback]

The wall stands as a dreadful symbol of oppression. The spirit of resistance may be strong but Palestinians need international support. I hope this book makes that more likely. (Ken Loach )

This book will help eventually pull down the wall. (Damon Albarn )

A singular achievement – both a stunning photographic essay of how Israel’s concrete wall has cut into Palestinian land and strangled whole communities and a powerful visual record of how local and international graffiti artists have battered it with their only weapons, paint and spray cans. (Joe Sacco, Political cartoonist )

This is a remarkable and deeply human book documenting a vast and ultimately self-defeating act of injustice. It records a growing series of creative and flexible responses to that injustice – an international unity of intent which steps outside the sterile and appalling logic of asymmetric warfare. It is an angry, funny, determined reminder that “Nothing Lasts Forever. (A L Kennedy, writer and comedian )

Documents Israel’s monstrous wall both as a brute instrument of dispossession and as a bearer of resistance. The wall steals Palestinian land and threatens the viability of the lives lived in its shadow and it blooms with messages of solidarity from every corner of the earth. This is the largest protest banner the world has ever known. ...An outstanding example of cultural resistance. (Ahdaf Soueif )

A marvellous expose of Palestinian 'Wall Art', evocative and compelling. Those who admired Belfast's resistance wall paintings will revel in this Palestinian version. (Ghada Karmi, Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, and author of Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine )

This book is very beautiful and very ugly. The Wall is very ugly, much of the art on it is very beautiful. This book helps to expose the ugly tyranny of oppression. There is beauty in the resistance of the Palestinian people. The annexation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank is ugly. That many Israelis are joining the resistance against their own government's policies is brave and beautiful. The ugliness of the Wall outweighs the beauty of the rest. This book seeks to redress the balance. (Roger Waters )

William Parry is a London-based freelance journalist and photographer who has published in the Guardian, the Independent and elsewhere. He has worked and travelled extensively in the Middle East.