When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege [Paperback]

Raja Shehadeh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2003

In April 2002, the Israeli army reoccupied Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters. A tank blocked Raja Shehadeh's road; Israeli soldiers seized his brother’s home and used him as a human shield during a search, as his frightened wife and children watched. When the Birds Stopped Singing reveals the rage and terror of daily life in these dire circumstances, showing how time passes for people imprisoned in their own homes, how they cope with being forbidden to cross the neighborhood to help a sick relative or dying friend. A chronicle of lives that somehow endure under impossible circumstances, Shehadeh's diary is a compelling and important document of a problem that seems increasingly beyond solution.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This short, powerful book should be required reading for anyone who has ever wondered what it's like to be an ordinary citizen living in a war zone. Shehadeh's view of the volatile Israeli-Palestinian conflict is certainly not neutral, dealing with his emotions and experiences during Israel's incursion into his West Bank city during the spring of 2002. It is, however, remarkably balanced for a man in his situation. Under curfew and trapped in his home, Shehadeh, a lawyer, writer and human rights activist (Strangers in the House), concentrates on conserving his food supply, distracting himself with his legal work, trying not to wonder when his wife, who is out of the country, will be able to get home, and trying not to be angry. "I've learned how to create small spaces of my own in which to live," he writes. "I'm continuing to exercise for half an hour by vigorously walking around the courtyard with appropriate music blasting. Today it was Shostakovich quintets." Intermingled with his rage at Israel's right-wing government and at the Arab world, which expresses sympathy with the Palestinian plight while treating it as little more than a reality TV show, is the realization that something has to change. "The Israelis are being hit and have casualties and our life has been brought to a standstill. We are killing each other. We have to stop. This is what is important, not what the outside world thinks."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

A quiet but angry commentator on Israeli military actions, Shehadeh describes daily life during one stanza in the deadly antiphony: the bombing of a seder meal in March 2002 and Israel's invasion of West Bank cities. In this journal of one month, the author does not rationalize terrorist acts against Israelis, and his underlying integrity lends force to his protest against Israel's incursions into Palestinian areas. Shehadeh gave a general presentation of the Palestinian Arab plight in his memoir Strangers in the House (2002); here he provides an intimate view of living under curfew, listening to gunfire and explosions, detouring around troops and roadblocks, and having one's home searched or damaged. Amid these vignettes, Shehadeh expounds on the immediate context--the collapse of the Oslo Accord--up to the present stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is indignantly critical of Israel and does not much praise Palestinian leadership. Tragically jammed between the two are the aspirations and humiliations of nonmilitant Palestinians, which the author ably expresses. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Steerforth; Us edition (August 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586420690
• ISBN-13: 978-1586420697
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.4 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #711,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars life goes on, December 14, 2003

By 

MissionPk (Cupertino, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege (Paperback)

This book is about the siege of Ramallah and Shehadeh tells a heartbreaking story, with plenty of villians to go around. I expected that. To my surprise, what makes the book worth reading are the heroes. Not the Isreali soldiers. Not the PLO. Not Islamic Jihad or Hamas. The heroes of this book are the everyday people who actually try to live a normal life in the West Bank.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding and very powerful book, October 26, 2005

By 

Jane Chesterman (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege (Paperback)

This book left me horrified at what is going on in the Middle East. It is even worse than I thought - and I thought I knew a lot about the situation already. Raja's day to day account, written in the form of a diary, gives a first hand account of what it is like to live under Occupation.
This is hell on earth; and we in America are financing it all, with our 3 billion dollars a year that we send to Israel in military aid.
The greatest threat to World Peace lies here, and we are paying for it.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Powerful Account of Palestinian Ordinary Citizens, October 4, 2006

By 

varcsix "varcsix" (Waco, Tx) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege (Paperback)

This book should be read by all of the Western world to gain a perspective on the ordinary citizen living in the Occupied territory of Palestine. So often, I don't think we actually realize what "Occupation" means and how much power remains in Israel's hands even when there is not an actual occupation of a specific city. The author helped me understand the Oslo Accord and how it failed to bring justice to the region.
This account ( using a diary format) really brings home what curfew means to daily life and the fear which comes when soldiers invade without regard to human feelings. Although written in 2003, I'm sure this holds true in 2006, and certainly makes me more attentive to news coming out of their continued struggle.