Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel

The story of Palestine’s stonemasons and the building of Israel

Winner of the 2019 Palestine Book Awards

“They demolish our houses while we build theirs.”

This is how a Palestinian stonemason, in line at a checkpoint outside a Jerusalem suburb, described his life to Andrew Ross. Palestinian “stone men,” using some of the best-quality limestone deposits in the world and drawing on generations of artisanal knowledge, have built almost every state in the Middle East except one of their own. Today the business of quarrying, cutting, fabricating, and dressing is the Occupied Territories’ largest private employer and generator of revenue, and supplies the construction industry in Israel, along with other...