Customer Reviews

The Wound of Dispossession: Telling the Palestinian Story

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I imagine that most Americans, asked for a modifying noun for "Palestinian", would immediately answer, "terrorist". We wouldn't necessarily think, Palestinian housewife, Palestinian poet or publisher, Palestinian professor, Palestinian student, etc. And certainly I hadn't been aware of the Palestinian-American community before I read this book. Ms Christison interviews over a hundred Palestinian Americans of varying ages and backgrounds, and, as I read, I grew more and more impressed, both by the strength of family and community the interviewees displayed, and by their thoughtful, nuanced attitudes towards Palestine and Israel. Please read this book! It is quite literally an eye opener. <P...

The book discusses the Palestitian problem from a Palestinian point of view. Even discounting some of it as too anti-Israeli, there's no doubt that the Zionist movement and later Israel dispossessed the Palestinians of their land. Israel continues a policy of denying Palestitians basic freedoms. We go to war to bring freedom to the Iraqis, yet we support Israeli policies that retrict the freedom of the Palestinians. Is there no oil in the West Bank perhaps?

Christison is annoyed by those who think that Arab demands to acquire Israeli land are a swindle, based upon artificial claims of a specific Arab subnationalism that can be satisfied only by Jewish land. She argues, in effect, that people have a right to invent their own bogus histories and demand whatever they please. But she goes too far when she dismisses those who disagree with her as engaging in dangerous mythology "at their own peril."

Christison has argued for years that the key to peace is for Israel to negotiate with Arafat. Well, Israel tried her recommendation. It didn't work. There is a connection between Christison's poor logic and her unreliable conclusions.