Synopses & Reviews
Nadine Gordimer once wrote, referring to Edward Said’s memoir Out of Place, “Said is in place among the truly important intellects in our century.” These forty-six eloquent and impassioned essays written by Said between December 2000 and July 2003 for the London-based Al-Hayat, Cairo’s Al-Ahram Weekly, and the London Review of Books underscore his tireless efforts for the Palestinian cause. They take us from the collapse of the Oslo Accords to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, focusing on three main themes, as Tony Judt points out in his introduction: the urgent need to reveal the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, the equally urgent need to get Palestinians and other Arabs to engage with the progressive elements in Israel, and the need to speak out about the failure of Arab leadership.
In From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map, Said writes about the second intifada and about the so-called peace process, which he terms a kind of “fast-food peace” underscored by “malevolent sloppiness.” He discusses the breach of democracy in the last American presidential election and describes the Bush administration as hopeless in its allegiance to the Christian right and to the big oil companies. He writes passionately against the war in Iraq and condemns the “road map” as a plan not for peace but for pacification of the Palestinians. He makes clear the ways in which the U.S. response to 9/11 has further destabilized the Middle East, but finds as well reasons for hope: the Palestinian National Initiative, an organization of grassroots activists who share a burgeoning idea of democracy “undreamed of by the [Palestinian] Authority.” What has always set Said apart is his ability to state the uncensored truth about the realities of the Palestinian experience, from land expropriation, and dispossession, to assassinations, roadblocks, and house demolitions.
In this book, Said reveals information that never finds its way into the American media, thus providing a real context for our understanding of the Middle East. Fiercely uncompromising, written with clarity and elegance, From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map gives us an essential and unique voice that is more important now than ever before.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Edward W. Said was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He was the author of more than twenty books, including
Orientalism and Culture and
Imperialism (both available in paperback from Vintage Books), and his essays and reviews appeared in newspapers and periodicals throughout the world. Said died in September 2003.
From the Hardcover edition.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Tony Judt PART ONE: The Second Intifada Begins, Clintons Failure
1 Palestinians Under Siege
2 The Tragedy Deepens
3 American Elections: System or Farce?
4 Trying Again and Again
5 Where Is Israel Going?
6 The Only Alternative
7 Freud, Zionism, and Vienna
8 Time to Turn to the Other Front
9 These Are the Realities
10 Thinking About Israel
11 Defiance, Dignity, and the Rule of Dogma
12 Enemies of the State
13 Sharpening the Axe
14 The Price of Camp David
15 Occupation Is the Atrocity
16 Propaganda and War
PART TWO: September 11, the War on Terror, the West Bank and Gaza Reinvaded
17 Collective Passion
18 Backlash, Backtrack
19 Adrift in Similarity
20 A Vision to Lift the Spirit
21 Suicidal Ignorance
22 Israels Dead End
23 Emerging Alternatives in Palestine
24 The Screw Turns, Again
25 Thoughts About America
26 What Price Oslo?
27 Thinking Ahead
28 What Has Israel Done?
29 Crisis for American Jews
30 Palestinian Elections Now
31 One-Way Street
32 Slow Death: Punishment by Detail
33 Arab Disunity and Factionalism
34 Low Point of Powerlessness
PART THREE: Israel, Iraq, and the United States
35 Israel, Iraq, and the United States
36 Europe Versus America
37 Misinformation About Iraq
38 Immediate Imperatives
39 An Unacceptable Helplessness
40 A Monument to Hypocrisy
41 Who Is in Charge?
42 A Stupid War
43 What Is Happening to the United States?
44 The Arab Condition
45 Archaeology of the Road Map
46 Dignity and Solidarity
Afterword by Wadie E. Said
Index