Palestinian Walks

Raja Shehadeh takes the reader on some very relaxing walks through the central hills area of his homeland pointing out the history of the land and his family's connections to it. And all through his hikes he paints scenes of a changing landscape. And when you finish the book you feel that you know the places that he loves. And you also feel the pain of the occupied Palestinian people who are losing access to their land.It is very powerful writing.

The author captures the beauty and sadness of this little-known part of the world. I want to go back and explore now.

This is a beautiful book that gives you the sense of the frustration that reasonable and independent people in Palestine must have lived with all these years since the conflict started. It makes you realise that we operate with a one-dimensional and stereotypical picture of the region, its people and their past. All communities are imagined, and they struggle to become real by forgetting the past and inventing a new one. The author has witnessed that process and narrates it through a mosaic of several walks through both space and time of Palestinian nature and history.

This is a book on Palestinians and their right to exist. Palestinians have existed on the land of Palestine and continue to do so.Mr. Shehadeh has been practicing law in Ramallah since 1978. In 1979, he co-founded the pioneering human rights organisation Al-Haq, the Palestinian affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists which he co-directed until 1991.Mr. Shehadeh also wrote several books on the legal aspects of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories including Occupiers Law (Institute of Palestine Studies, 1985 revised 1988) and From Occupation to Interim Accords (Kluwer, 1997).His latest two published books were Strangers in the House (Penguin 2002), and When the Bulbul Stopped Singing (Profile 2004). The last was adapted to the theatre and performed in Edinburgh, Tehran and New York.If anyone knows the facts and the truth, it is someone who lives on the land of Palestine and endures the harsh reality of life there (unlike the person who wrote a review of this book here on Amazon).Like Mr. Shehadeh's other books, this is a book definitely worth reading.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It gives a sense of the landscape and the relationship of life-long Palestinians to the land on which they have lived for generations. This book made me also understand for the first time why Palestinians have rejected proposals, such as those made by former President Bill Clinton, to freeze the status quo. The way in which Israeli settlements intersect with everyday life is made plain without being preachy. This is a great book for anyone who has ever loved a wild landscape, even a damaged one.

I expected to read about nature, the landscape, and interesting walks through unusual terrain. Yes, some of that was there and well described, but mostly this is a political book with subjective guesses about Israeli motivations and actions. It was depressing and annoying to read what could have been a beautiful book, marred by feelings of hatred and helplessness.