Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine - Softcover

Shehadeh, Raja

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142002933 ISBN 13: 9780142002933

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2003

Synopsis

"This is not a political book," Anthony Lewis asserts in his foreword to this revealing memoir of a father-son relationship set against the backdrop of more than thirty years of life under military occupation. "Yet in a hundred different ways it is political. . . . Shehadeh shatters the stereotype many Americans have of Palestinians."

Three years after his family was driven from the city of Jaffa in 1948, Raja Shehadeh was born in Ramallah. His early childhood was marked by his family's sense of loss and impermanence, vividly evoked by the glittering lights "on the other side of the hill." He witnessed the numerous arrests of his father, Aziz, who, in 1967, was the first Palestinian to advocate a peaceful, two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He predicted that if peace were not achieved, what remained of the Palestinian homeland would be taken away bit by bit. Ostracized by his fellow Arabs and disillusioned by the failure of either side to recognize his prophetic vision, Aziz retreated from politics. He was murdered in 1985.

The first memoir of its kind by a Palestinian living in the occupied territories, Strangers in the House offers a moving description of daily life for those who have chosen to remain on their land. It is also the family drama of a difficult relationship between an idealistic son and his politically active father, complicated by the arbitrary humiliation of the "occupier's law."

About this title

From the Publisher:

A timely and personal perspective on subject matter of current international interest. Raja Shehadeh was born in, and still lives and practices law in, Ramallah on the West Bank. STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE reveals the personal experience of daily life for the Palestinians who have chosen to stay in the occupied territories. It allows a human face to appear in the midst of the barrage of violent reports we hear daily on the radio and read in the newspaper.

From the Author:

In terms of the current situation, I approach it from my own experience with no pretence of being a Palestinian spokesman. I had an on-going debate with my father that I write about in the book regarding the value of the human rights struggle. He believed in political action as the only effective action that can lead to any real results. I argued the importance of the human rights struggle. In 1985 I toured the US talking about the violations of human rights in the Occupied Territories and the illegal building of settlements. Now sixteen years later I will be coming back to the US to speak about a much-changed reality. The human rights voices have been muted—mine and others. Now violence speaks. Has the human rights struggle been futile or ineffective, as father had predicted? Is the violence espoused by the young a response to the failure of the human rights struggle—violence as opposed to non-violence? Had the supporters of human rights been more determined in ! their struggle to stop Israeli violations and the building of Israeli settlements would we in the Middle East—would the world—be where it is now? Would the voice of those committing violent actions be as prominent as it is today? I hope that this book will help bring these issues and questions to the forefront of the international dialogue.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0142002933
• ISBN 13: 9780142002933
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272