Growing Up Palestinian: Israeli Occupation and the Intifada Generation (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics) [Paperback]

Laetitia Bucaille (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2004 | Series: Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics

This remarkable book tells the inside story of three young men caught up in the Palestinian intifada. Through their stories, the tangled and tragic web of the past twenty years of the most enduring conflict in the Middle East unfolds before us. For over a decade, Laetitia Bucaille lived in the Occupied Territories for months at a time, gaining rare access to the three militants she calls Sami, Najy, and Bassam and many other Palestinians they crossed paths with--those who grew up during the first intifada and whose lives became bound up with the second, which erupted in 2000. The result is an intimate yet unsentimental portrait of daily life in the West Bank and Gaza from the mid-1980s to today.

Raised in squalid refugee camps, and veterans of Israeli prisons and forced exile, Sami, Najy, and Bassam are torn between the struggle against Israel and a desire for a stable family life. Shooting a suspected informer at point blank range turns out to be easier than learning job skills for a globalized economy. For many young Palestinians, collective political failure mirrors their shipwrecked lives.

A riveting blend of social and political analysis, Growing Up Palestinian shows us Palestinian society as it unfolds in camps, prisons, homes, and the street. This is a society divided by class, age, politics, and religion, and consumed by corruption--a society that must somehow integrate its underprivileged and brutalized youth into nonviolent and productive activity if it is ever to meet the daunting challenges ahead.

In a new afterword, the author examines the social and political developments in the Occupied Territories since the book's publication in 2004, including the implications of Yasser Arafat's death and the challenges and opportunities presented to his elected successor, Mahmood Abbas.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

French political scientist Bucaille faces a daunting task—humanizing the Palestinian fighters who are involved in almost-daily violence against Israel— and to her credit, she mostly succeeds, tracing the lives of several of the young men known as the shebab, who are on-the ground fighters in the three-and-a-half-year-old second intifada. In interviews and vivid descriptions, Bucaille brings to light their worldview—one in which hopelessness has fueled violence, and the violence fuels hopelessness. The Palestinian fighters she interviews tell her that they do not oppose the state of Israel. But the lives of the fighters are only part of Bucaille's investigation. Along the way, she traces the recent history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the failed Oslo peace process. She sees that process as having been doomed from the beginning. The accords "gave the Palestinians nothing but the bastard status of autonomy over most of Gaza and a small area of the West Bank." It did, however, create a new set of dynamics in Palestinian society, as the return of Yasser Arafat and his coterie created a new wealthy class and, after initial euphoria, led to resentment among those Palestinians who had fought in the first uprising, from 1987 to 1993. The author is frank in depicting these fault lines in Palestinian society, although she generally leans somewhat to a pro-Palestinian stance. While those who are strongly pro-Israel will be put off by this, readers wanting a look at the lives of young Palestinians and their society will be hard-pressed to find a better book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

A must for all those concerned with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the great value of this contemporary history is that it brings you close-up to the Palestinian people and their politics, revealing the differences among them, differences across generations but also of class, religion, politics, and place. This entry in the Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics series, translated from French and covering events up to spring 2003, shows how the civil disobedience of the 1980s has given way to today's repression-revenge cycle. Most powerful is the focus on the day-to-day experience of particular young people who have never left the camps. At 18, Mansur would like to study, "maybe computers, maybe chemistry"; he'd like to reclaim his family house; and he'd like to travel. He's no supporter of Hammas, but his sense of futility makes him increasingly sympathetic to the suicide-bomber hero-martyr as a model for Palestinian struggle. Neither simplistic nor sentimental, Bucaille shows that the conflict with the Israelis is inseparable from the Palestinians' conflict within their own community. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691116709
• ISBN-13: 978-0691116709
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,626,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worthwhile, May 3, 2006

By 

J. parlock "Where is She" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Growing Up Palestinian: Israeli Occupation and the Intifada Generation (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics) (Paperback)

First off, there is no anti-Israeli propaganda in this book. Instead, it does an incredible job of detailing the complixities of the situation. One of these is that many of the Palestinian militants that the author interviews do not hate Jews and want them expelled from the land; they want an end to the Israeli occupation. In a conflict, it is important to know both sides; by profiling the lives of young Palestinian militants, this book gives insights into aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rarely seen in mass media, without condemning either side. My only complaint is that the translation is slightly strained at times, but I highly recommend this book.

3 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Could have been much better, February 18, 2005

By 

Jill Malter ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Growing Up Palestinian: Israeli Occupation and the Intifada Generation (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics) (Paperback)

Well, let's start with what is wrong with this book. First of all, it begins with a false assumption, namely that Israel's problem is Greed. With a capital G. Yes, that must be it. After all, the Israelis (well, a few of them, anyway) want a vast Empire of over 10,000 square miles! The author fails to detect the fact that there are over 5 million Jews in Israel. And even more in the Jewish Diaspora. That means that Israel can indeed be both a democracy and have a solid Jewish majority, just as Hungary can have a Hungarian majority and the Netherlands can have a Dutch majority. In short, she fails to notice that Israelis are trying for maybe a quarter or less of what they would have if the world were color-blind, let people buy land, and acknowledged property rights. And she fails to notice that the Arabs, with millions of square miles, are just a teensy bit on the greedy side in this respect.

Next, she seems to imply that the Arabs who are fighting Israel have a positive cause, maybe freedom and human rights. But if they truly had that as a cause, this war would have been over long ago. The cause has been, for a century or so, anything but freedom and human rights for Arabs. It has been the denial of freedom and human rights to the Jews.

Bucaille does say that both sides want victory. But she does not exactly explain what a victory might mean. Suppose the Israelis did win? Suppose they got the Big Apology from the Arabs for all the slanders, lies, and aggression? Suppose they got the Arabs to give up all the incitement, aggression and slander. Suppose they got the Arabs to live in peace with them. That's the Big Victory. Would that be so awful for the Arabs?

On the other hand, what if the Arabs get the Big Victory? Suppose they do get all the Jews in Asia to leave for other continents. There will be plenty of Jewish survivors. They'll probably put their lives back together eventually. Meanwhile, the Arabs will be left with nothing to show for their big crime. Israel is small. It has few natural resources. The only thing of much value is its people. But all the Jews will leave, and many Arabs may do so as well. Worse, the Arabs may then try more military adventures. And just as Germany eventually lost World War Two, the Arabs will lose if they keep fighting their neighbors. Would this be good for anyone?

The book does have some interesting things to say about Gaza. It's just that it is permeated with anti-Israeli propaganda.

Well, what does the author conclude? She says that real reconciliation between the Arabs and Jews is necessary, unavoidable, and the only rational outcome. That is an exaggeration, of course. But only a mild one. I would say real reconciliation is desirable, likely, and reasonable. But the problem is that Bucaille does not take her own advice. She never dreams of a solution in which there is actually Truth and Reconciliation. Or equal Rights for Jews and Arabs to buy land throughout the Middle East (which might mean that Jews could finally buy land just over the border in Petra and Arabs could buy land in Beersheba). She does not talk about Jews being allowed to live in Arab lands. She does not talk about Jews living in Arab nations but voting in Israel or Arabs living in Israel but voting in Arab nations. She does not talk of having loyalty be a requirement for residents who wish to be citizens with voting rights.

I do not recommend this book.