Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book compares Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Jim Crow South

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the public intellectual whose writing has sparked national conversations about reparations and race in the United States, has written a book indicting Israel for its mistreatment of Palestinians and occupation of their territory. “The Message,” which comes out Tuesday, is Coates’ first nonfiction book in nearly a decade. It is a collection of three essays, the longest of which is about a 10-day trip Coates took to Israel and the West Bank last year, prior to the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct 7. Passages of the book that have been reprinted in reviews and articles — as well as Coates’ own reflections on the essay — have sparked praise and criticism of the analysis offered by Coates, who identifies as a “relative latecomer” to studying the conflict. Written by a National Book Award winner frequently compared to James Baldwin, the influential Black intellectual of the Civil Rights era, the book also aims to influence the way the conflict is discussed ahead of the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023 and at a time when the Israel-Hamas war has dominated American politics and discourse. In the essay, titled “The Gigantic Dream,” and in interviews prior to the...