Customer Reviews

Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was at first taken aback by the way Palestinian lawyer and writer Raja Shehadeh chose to begin this book, his memoir. Knowing that he is a very important figure in Palestine, I expected (even half-dreaded) a right-on plunge in the middle of Israeli/Middle-Eastern politics. I was wrong.

Although he begins by mentioning the 1948 war as a fact that explains his having been born in Ramallah and not Jaffa, where his family was very important, that's just about it.....in the beginning. We are treated then to a delicately rendered description of the writer's childhood: to a vision of the almost sad figure of a fragile child whose life seems always measured against the looming and powerful figure of his father (a very important Palestinian lawyer), and the impossible to reach lights and colours of neverland-Jaffa, the way of life that the family had lost forever.

It is the relationship with the father, however, what soon becomes the focus of this memoir. And here we must admire one of the most important aspects of the book: an honest-to-God account of how this boy, then young man, then adult, managed his growing, changing relationship with a strong and powerful father. I was swept from my feet at having such a first hand description of a never-easy son/father relationship. I must confess I was astounded that this incredibly sincere testimony was rendered by an Arab man since, as the same author acknowledges, his is a culture where the son/father bond tends to be quite distant, formal and formidable.

We, readers, see how having such an important father proves to be a load, but also a challenge for the author. And as he begins to be more sure about what his place in the world is, and what his mission is, the world of politics (which had never quite disappeared from the background) returns with force, but in such a way that provokes a fatal crisis in this already difficult son/father relationship. And just as the situation appears to be unbearable, just as the breach seems impossible to mend......Raja's father is murdered.

Here the book takes an abrupt turn. Raja decides to help as much as he can to find the murderer, whom he believes to be someone involved in a land dispute his father was working on. He is good. The pace and tempo of the narrative change so that we begin to feel the urge to know who this murderer is, for we are much pretty sure of why the murder took place......and I won't spoil the ending for you. I'll just say that it is important. Very important. For Raja and for all of us.

Just as this seemingly humble book is terribly important: as the personal memoir of a man who has always been politically moderate, a fighter for human rights, one of the few Palestinians who has ever dared to criticise the politics of the Palestinian leaders and of the Arab leaders; one of the few who was always convinced that Arabs had to negotiate with Israeli, that Israel was there to stay; as a honest, moving homage to a father who was a powerful force in the author's life (and who taught him to see politics and the Middle-East the way he saw it);..... as a way to know more about that rarely-found-in-the-news-and-media specimen: the Arab, Palestinian moderate, and the way he fares.

As an American, I have grown up to believe that Israel is a close friend to us. I would imagine that an ally of the United States would be a country that follows human rights guidelines. However, I was mistaken. "Strangers in the House" is a brilliantly written piece which provides personal experiences in an occupied Palestine. With all of the conflict in the Middle East currently, it is a must-read, to understand the viewpoint from all angles. Raja Shehadeh thinks way past his time, as his father had. He has written this book for the world to know what daily life is like under occupation and that it is a constant struggle. Mr. Shehadeh is admirable in his open-mindedness. If you would like to see the viewpoint from the other side, this book is perfect. It will help you open your mind and see the truth.

This book was assigned reading for a class of mine, but I am extremely glad that I read it. At first, it seems to be merely Raja's autobiography, but it is much more than that. Strangers in the House is described in the foreward as being "not a political book," but at the same time "in a hundred different ways it is political." A strong message about what should be done to solve and end the Palestine-Israeli conflict is presented through Raja's story of his life.

Since his views on what should happen contrast so sharply with those of his father, Aziz, it was difficult for him to grow up and not argue incessantly with his parents. Somehow me managed to look at his situation logically, and has maintained his individuality in the world. By fighting for human rights and trying to enfore the real estate laws which are broken by the Israelis, Raja is trying his hardest to change the world and better everyone's lives in the Middle East.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone with any desire to learn about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as to anyone who tries to keep one eye open to the state of our world today.

The author effectively tells the Palestinian-Israeli story from a civilian's perspective. Too often in war we forget about the innocent bystanders in a conflict. Most of the time the vast majority of people living in an area, caught up in a war, are just trying to live and raise a family. Shehadeh helps us understand that the vast majority of Palestinians are trying to do just that, but they can't since they have been displaced. Heart-wrenching.

A great book showing the struggles that the Palestinians go through in their every day life in Palestine. How Israel was able to find herself a home out of no where, claim it and get all the support to stay.

The book tells how things even got worse by the arabs who kept on waiting to get involved, how all the dreams were only on paper, and how only talking about solutions and victory has to be followed by actions.

It also demonstrates how the Palestinains themselves did not have a great vision from the beginning, and how with time they have lost everything they believed they will get back. Now they find themselves in a worse situation than they were almost 40 years ago, when they only wanted to fight back against an enemy who is much more prepared, and recognized in the world.

One more aspect the book shows is how emotional people can be, not wanting to hear what is the truth, and how that can lead to a very sad and unjustified crime.

Beautifully written, not another history book, Shahadeh takes you through his daily struggle in the area, with his father, society, and himself to give you the best and cleares picture.

Two stories interwoven into one poetic narrative. The story of the author's relationship with his father is enmeshed in the greater story of his people falling under Israeli occupation. There is much tension in this book: the tension of defending political prisoners subjected to torture in Israeli jails; the tension resulting from the author's choice not to follow in his father's footsteps and concentrate on human rights work rather than law practice; the tension from the destruction of land by the occupation and the erection of settlements. In the end, the two narratives unite as the the author's efforts to find his father's murderer are frustrated because of the occupation. A sad and moving human story, has much to tell for people everywhere.

An amazing reflection of the author's life in occupied Palestine. A non-bios and educational book of the daily life of Palestinians, and the oppression they face due to the Israeli occupation. A must read if you want to get the real picture about what goes on in that region, away from the propaganda of the media. The book also describes the personal life of the author, especially his relationship with his father. The author blends the two subjects very well making the book both entertaining and educational

Shehadeh's book is perhaps the only one to lay out the multi-faceted nature of the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict. Or, as Shehadeh, puts it so eloquently a conflict between Palestinians, Israelis, the "inside" and the "outside".

For me, the most touching moment of the book came when the young Shehadeh heard the PLO radio denounce his father for daring to work for a two-state solution. "A.S.," it declared, "you are a traitor, a despicable collaborator. You want to surrender and sell your birthright. We know how to deal with the likes of you. A. S. you shall pay for your treason. We shall eliminate you. Silence you forever. Traitor. Collaborator. Quisling."

The PLO quite simply could not afford to lose the funding it received from the surrounding Arab states to create a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians and also to ensure that Israel would no longer "be the subject of fiery speeches in which the people's rage could be articulated and released-they would be distracted from dealing with all that was wrong at home."

The PLO simply could not afford peace because it wasn't being paid to bring about either peace or an independent Palestinian State; it was being paid to keep the Palestinians miserable and angry. To ensure that the Palestinian plight remained a distraction for the Arabs earning for democracy.

Shehadeh's father dared to stand up to the PLO and its backers. He was murdered.

And now, his son is carrying on his father's work.

It is our job to make sure that Raja's life lasts longer than his father's.

Raja Shehadeh is from a once-affluent Palestinian family that in 1948 fled from its principal house in Jaffa to its summer home in Ramallah in the West Bank. They thought the move would be temporary, but with the collapse of Palestinian and Arab military forces, it became permanent. Raja was born in Ramallah, and, with the exception of schooling abroad, has lived his life as a stateless Palestinian, since 1967 in the occupied West Bank.

Raja's father Aziz was a distinguished Palestinian lawyer, who early on advocated a political resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli schism, specifically a division into two states. He was scorned by both Arabs and Israelis. Raja eventually became a lawyer also. He was one of the founders of Al Haq, which was associated with the International Commission of Jurists, and documented and publicized human rights violations and attempted to establish the rule of law in the occupied West Bank.

STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE consists of three interrelated stories. First, there is the plight of the Palestinians: the "Nakbeh" ("the catastrophe" or the events of 1948), the stateless life in the West Bank, followed by occupation by the Israelis after 1967, followed by the continuing encroachment of Israeli settlements and alteration of millennia-old terrain. Second is Raja's story of the friction, even hostility, between him and his father, which is curious given Raja's relative success and his choice of his father's career. The two never reconciled before Aziz was murdered, most probably on the behest of the party on the opposite side of a legal case he was handling. (The book strongly implies that the Israelis never brought the murderer to justice because, on other matters, he had acted as a secret agent for the Israelis.) The third and least interesting aspect of the book is a sort of personal memoir of Raja, extending beyond the events of occupied Palestine and his relationship with his father -- including, for example, his relationship with an American girl and his years as a student in London.

The book jumps around quite a bit; it is a little scattershot in nature. The writing at times is formulaic; at other times, it is overly emotional. I sense that Raja Shehadeh is not sufficiently disciplined intellectually. Upon embarking on his legal career, he vowed to practice law during the day and spend evenings on his written work. My guess is that he was not as polished in either endeavor as he could (and probably would) have been had he devoted his attention to just one of those careers.

STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE is not a political screed, and I believe it is relatively objective (allowing for the fact that Shehadeh was a Palestinian living through and coping with the Occupation). It is not shrilly condemnatory in nature, and fault for the eventual muddle is ascribed to Palestinian/Arab leaders as well as to the Israeli government. Still, I have nagging reservations concerning Shehadeh's political analysis because I fear he is not sufficiently hard-headed, that he is too emotional. (That said, I recognize that few, in the same circumstances, could be expected to conduct themselves more nobly than he has.) STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE is one of many books well worth reading on the Israeli/Palestinian dilemma, but standing alone it is neither definitive nor great.

One nice passage, about the day-to-day stolid determination and endurance of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, something which Shehadeh finds difficult to communicate to Palestinians or Arabs living abroad and who are fired with romantic notions of violent resistance:
"How could I tell them that we were heroic not because of the great risks that we were taking but because of our perserverance in the face of small, daily, persistent harassments and obstructions to our life, none of which on their own amounted to much? Just bureaucratic hassles that everyone, even in the best of democracies, encounters sometimes. But in our case they were not random, occasional, or intermittent. They were persistent and constant, part of a policy to make the life of Palestinians so difficult that it would seem better to leave than to stay and suffer. In out determination to stay put lay our heroism, not in our acts of daring or even in military operations taken in resistance to the occupation. These were carried out by the smallest minority. The majority was resisting through staying put." (Surely this is a brand of heroism and resistance that many Jews should be able to identify with.)

This is an excellent look into occupation and the way it affects those under occupation. The Palestinian voice is one seldom heard by the West which is why this work is so very important. To often it seems as if the Israeli/Palestinian narrative is simply scripted for us by those outside of the conflict so that we form conclusions without actually knowing the story from those who are living it.

One of the things I really liked about this book is that it is not a one sided harangue about the horrible Israelis and how bad the occupation is and how the Palestinians are simply victims, but is instead a telling indictment of both sides. The author sees the plethora of missed opportunities that have plagued the Palestinians since the creation of the state of Israel. The Palestinians so often seemed content to simply play the role of victims rather than actually take responsibility for their own lives and move forward to build a functioning society. Many times they waited to be saved by neighboring states, the UN and others without realizing that they are the only ones who can save themselves. They have allowed themselves, under terrible circumstances granted, to stagnate instead pushing forward.

The Israeli occupation and government shoulders a heavy burden of blame for the situation also. They have made Palestinian life so difficult that it was almost impossible for a positive, healthy society to erect itself in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel had a choice between taking more land and helping to create a stable neighbor or expanding their territory. They chose the latter and so chose perpetual strife. The animosity runs so deep now that even if a solution could be found it will be generations before the hate and anger can be healed.

Neither side is innocent in this conflict, and both sides are guilty for the current situation. This book shows how even a moderate can be pushed into becoming radical. I think one of the most poignant aspects of this book is that from the beginning there is always this hope. Hope that one day the land will be restored to the Palestinians. Hope that there will be peace. Hope that a decent life will be able to be lived. There is always this hope until the end of the book when the author finally backs the intifada. I felt as though the author had lost hope in moderate, peaceful solution. The whole book seemed to be a moderate man attempting to find a compromise solution to the problem. He fought both sides for the middle and end the end recognized the futility. Both sides have done so much to create futility out of hope.