Fast Times in Palestine [Paperback]

Pamela J. Olson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 20, 2011

Pamela Olson, a small town girl from eastern Oklahoma, had what she always wanted: a physics degree from Stanford University. But instead of feeling excited for what came next, she felt consumed by dread and confusion. This irresistible memoir chronicles her journey from aimless ex-bartender to Ramallah-based journalist and foreign press coordinator for a Palestinian presidential candidate.

With dizzying speed she finds herself attending Yasser Arafat's funeral, sharing a holiday dinner with a suicide bomber's family, tour-guiding Israeli friends around the West Bank, dating a Palestinian from a conservative Muslim village, being held at gunpoint and injured by a stun grenade, and witnessing the 2005 Disengagement from inside the Gaza Strip.

The gripping narrative focuses not only on violence, terror, and social and political upheavals but also on the daily rounds of house parties, concerts, barbecues, weddings, jokes, harvests, and romantic drama that happen in between. Its seamless blend of travelogue, memoir, and narrative journalism ramps the average American up to a sophisticated, multi-faceted understanding of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Funny, gorgeous, shocking, and galvanizing, Fast Times in Palestine challenges the way we think not only about the Middle East but albout human nature and our place in the world.

REVIEWS

"A moving, inspiring account of life in Palestine that's enormously informative yet reads like a novel!"

-- Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace

"It's love in the time of occupation as Pamela Olson... takes us on the emotional roller-coaster of her very personal experience of life in Ramallah... A charming book brimming with tension and tragedy, but also with the humor, warmth, everyday foibles and irrepressible hopes of a people determined to live free."

-- Tony Karon, Senior Editor, TIME Magazine

"Part adventure story, part searing reportage, part love story, and wholly absorbing."

-- Dr. Kenneth Ring, co-author, Letters from Palestine

"Pamela Olson leads the reader on an exciting, funny, at times heart-wrenching journey, carefully deciphering complex political and historical issues. Olson is a talented writer, intelligent and exceptional in her ability to convey both tragedy and hope, remaining morally grounded and refreshingly honest."

-- Ramzy Baroud, Author, My Father was a Freedom Fighter

"As an Israeli whose life was shaped by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I found Fast Times in Palestine moving and refreshing. Pamela Olson comes to the Middle East with a blank slate and is therefore able to hold up an undistorted mirror to the reality she encounters."

-- Miko Peled, Author, The General's Son

For more information, visit pamolson.org

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Pamela Olson grew up in small-town Oklahoma and studied physics and political science at Stanford University. She lived in Ramallah, Palestine for two years, during which she served as head writer and editor for the Palestine Monitor and foreign press coordinator for Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi’s 2005 presidential campaign. Her writing has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, CounterPunch, Israel’s Occupation Magazine, Mondoweiss, and The Stanford Magazine among other publications. Fast Times in Palestine is her first book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 382 pages
• Publisher: Mason Hill Press; 2 edition (May 20, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615456243
• ISBN-13: 978-0615456249
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pamela Olson grew up in small town Oklahoma and studied physics and political science at Stanford University. After graduating, she realized to her surprise that she didn't want to be a scientist after all and instead began bartending, saved money to travel, and landed unexpectedly in Palestine, where she became a journalist and foreign press coordinator for a Palestinian presidential candidate.

Her website is pamolson.org.

After returning to the US, she worked at a think tank in Washington, DC, trying to bring what she had learned to the halls of power. Eventually she became disillusioned, dropped out of the Beltway crowd, and began writing a book called Fast Times in Palestine, a chronicle of her searing education in the Holy Land and the incredible adventures she had along the way. It will be published by Seal Press in March 2013.

Her writing has also been featured in the International Herald Tribune, CounterPunch, Israel's Occupation Magazine, Mondoweiss, and The Stanford Magazine among other publications.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should read this book July 26, 2011

By Adara

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Before I read this book, I didn't have a stance on the conflict because I didn't know enough. My family is Jewish and very pro-Israel, but I am agnostic and I try not to form opinions without facts, so I have always taken everything they say with a grain of salt. "The Palestinians don't want a state. They don't want peace. They won't be happy until every Jew on the face of the Earth is dead." This is what I grew up with.

But this book opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed: the world of occupied Palestine. I consider myself very aware politically, so it's hard to believe the truth has eluded me for so many years. Never underestimate the power of the media, I guess. I get my information from a decent variety of sources, but when all those sources are deliberately hiding so much information, how is a person supposed to know any better? The media portrays Palestine as the aggressor in the conflict, and speaks of the government as if it represents the feelings of the general population.

What I really appreciate about this book is not just that the author tells the other side of the story, but that she makes a point of separating the government and the people. It is too easy to generalize, and I could see a person reading this book and turning their hatred toward Israel as a whole if the author had not taken such extreme care to depict every person she encountered as a human being. Yes, Israel is the oppressor and Palestine is the oppressed, but to leave it at that is black-and-white thinking. Citizens of Israel aren't anymore aware of the treatment of Palestinians than American citizens are of the treatment of Iraqis. I especially appreciated this author's reference to Dr. Philip Zimbardo's prison experiment, and the "power of the situation." Even the soldiers committing atrocities at checkpoints are real people. It is only through the dehumanization of people that mass acts of evil are possible.

I bought this book with the hope of learning about Palestinian culture and writing a good paper for school, and what I got out of it was so much more. I believe it should be required reading in schools, and I'm encouraging everyone I know to read it.

51 of 58 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A new view... May 16, 2011

By H. Starr

Format:Kindle Edition

This is a deeply personal story about a decent and intelligent, if initially uninformed and sheltered, American who gets swept off her feet by the beauty and wonder of Palestine and the people who live there. Her love for the people and the place shine on every page. And when you love someone, it hurts to see them bullied, humiliated and marginalized. It hurts to see a land you love carved into unnatural pieces by a concrete wall or lives you treasure ripped apart by machine gun fire or a suicide bomber. This book isn't about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it's an intense, first person narrative about the beauty and danger of life in Palestine.

But what I think most readers will come away with is the belief that underneath the ugliness of the occupation and the intifada there is something that is beautiful and absolutely worth protecting. And in the small acts where Israelis and Palestinians work together, the author shows you a future that we must insist upon: where Palestinians and Israelis have equal measures of peace, freedom, political power, and access to resources. If the world fails to make this a reality, this book shows you just how very much we all have to lose.

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, Moving, and Above All Educational June 13, 2011

By V. Olson

Format:Paperback

I mentioned this book to a friend of mine, and their response was they would give it a read, "to see how balanced it was." I don't know about balanced; the author was living in Palestine. Fair, however, it is. It is what she experienced, the good, the bad, the ugly. She walked in with the same ideas most Westerners have, but was willing to learn and realize that much of what gets reported is at best an exaggeration and at worst blatantly false. This book simply reports the truth as she experienced it, with reports and articles and citations from sources in Israel and from around the world to back up her claims.

She doesn't hate Israel or Jews or Palestine or Muslims, but she sure didn't like being hit in the leg with a grenade at a peaceful protest or almost getting shot by a 19-year-old with a machine gun because she was in a car at night with Arabs. Nor did she like being afraid of suicide bombers at cafes in Israel or how the corrupt Palestinian government cared about nothing besides cronyism and lining their own pockets or how the political fragmentation creates problem upon problem for the peace process.

It's not about talking points or winning points for either side. It's about the people she met and the experiences she had, the good in all people and what it all means. The Palestinians get painted as religious nut jobs in the media over here, nothing but Hamas blowing people up with suicide bombers and home-made rockets, but that's like the rest of the world only seeing Americans as belonging to the Westborough Baptist Church.

I've been hearing stories about Palestine for years, and this book still touched a deep nerve. I thought I had grown a little numb, blase, sure, sure, there's an occupation. People are dying all over the world, that sucks. But this puts a human face on a really terrible situation that is perpetuated by a few crazies in power but severely and negatively affects millions in both nations. Unfortunately, only one nation ever gets its story told. This gives a voice to the other side of the occupation, the voice that until now has had a strangle hold over its mouth and a master ventriloquist in control.