Raja Shehadeh is the author of Palestinian Walks. An expanded version of his two Edward Said Lectures – the other one was given in New York – will be published next year.
The Palestinians who were forced out of their homes in 1948 were not regarded by Israel as refugees. That would have implied that Palestine was their country, to which they would have the right to return. This was not the way the Israeli authorities saw it, and they did their best to make sure the return would never happen. It was therefore in some sense logical, or at least consistent,...
My first book of diaries covered 1980, a few years after I returned from studying law in England and began practising as a lawyer in the occupied West Bank. I was fascinated then by the notion of sumoud – ‘perseverance’. I saw the perseverance of ordinary Palestinians who were determined to remain on their land as the best antidote to Israeli policies aimed at ridding the...
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