Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In 60 years of fighting, Israelis and Palestinians often seem to ignore the pernicious impact that decades of warfare have had on the contested land itself. Not so Palestinian human rights lawyer and avid walker Shehadeh (Strangers in the House), who has spent most of his adult life watching the West Bank—territory recognized internationally as part of a future Palestinian state—carved up by Israeli roads and settlements. The region's vistas have been a distant second consideration to the needs of Israeli nationalism and security concerns, perceived and real. Shehadeh's memoir is profoundly pained, his anguish over Israeli occupation policies palpable, as he lovingly sketches a landscape that is rapidly disappearing. Our land was being transformed before our eyes, he writes, and a new map was being drawn.... We had become temporary residents of Greater Israel. The son of Aziz Shehadeh, the first Palestinian to call publicly for a two-state solution, Shehadeh's anger isn't reserved only for Israeli occupation policies—he also rails against Palestinian negotiators he believes favor political expediency over territorial integrity or environmental concerns—and he searches genuinely for common ground with Israelis. Ultimately, though, Shehadeh is too honest to offer much hope, comforting himself only with the understanding that human realities come and go, but the land remains. (June)
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From The New Yorker

A work of passionate polemic, journeying, history, and autobiography, this highly original consideration of the Palestinian-Israeli issue is structured around a series of vigorous, attentive hikes through the occupied territories. Shehadeh, a lawyer and human-rights activist who lives in the West Bank city of Ramallah, gives the reader, accustomed to the point-counterpoint of daily journalism, a personal sense of one man’s attachment to his land and of a people’s feelings of loss and uncertainty as more settlements are constructed and reconciliation drifts farther from view. Shehadeh is firm in his views of Israeli policy, but he is also an open soul, and his final walk in the book is with an Israeli––a moving encounter in a volume that, in the Palestinian literature of hope and fortitude, ranks with Sari Nusseibeh’s memoir, "Once Upon a Country."
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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (June 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416569669
• ISBN-13: 978-1416569664
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #149,623 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a sad, sad book, July 19, 2008

By	missoulamissoula (Miami, FL) - See all my reviews

I've walked in Israel and the West Bank before the Intifadas, before the barriers, and subsequently tried to make some sense of the mistakes and the historical horror show that has occurred. I think that the Arabic term "al Naqba", the catastrophe, truly best states what has happened, and what continues for all those who live there.
For everyone who shares the author's love of the land or has any respect for human dignity, this book will make you despair over the tragedy of it all.
Some books on the subject have challenged me, all have upset me, but none have effected me as viscerally as these personal ruminations on the irretrievable loss of the landscape itself.
It's beautifully written. Read it and weep.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Palestinian Walks, October 15, 2008

By	Winchell M. Craig Jr. (Bend, OR, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An extraordinary book describing the desecration of Palestine by the Israeli government. It is a poignant memoir of a time past, beautifully written and pregnant with emotion.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep, captivating, personal look at the conflict in Palestine, May 18, 2009

By	Giant Panda (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

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None of the dozens of books I have read about Palestine approaches this in its depth and thoughtfulness. This is not a history of who did this, and who did that. Rather it is a personal story about the connection of one Palestinian man to the fast changing natural landscape of the land he inhabits. This could be read as a travel book documenting journeys into the Biblical landscape. What makes it deeper than that is the inner journeys the author is not afraid to share with us as he takes us on the walk. The book is informed by Shihadeh's decades of knowledge of the land, as well as his legal experience in defending it. It is a small book that is very heavy in content, thought, and feeling.