Loss of Palestinian land to Israel, 1948 - 2000
Justice First!
in US Policies
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Palestine-Israel
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Loss of Palestinian land to Israel, 1948 - 2000
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Justice First! in US Policies for Palestine-Israel and the Middle East |
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Recommended Reading Lists and Book Reviews
Justice First! welcomes recommended reading lists and book reviews. If you would like
to contribute or comment, please write to info@justicefirstcommunity.org.
Featured book review by Miriam Adams, March 2007
Perhaps more than any of the thousands of books written and published in the past 50 years concerning the Middle East, there are few writers who have resonated with their readers more than David Hirst, who has been a freelance journalist for the UK Guardian for decades. Hirst reported on the turbulent history of the region for a half century after living in the Middle East as part of his national service in the 1950s followed by studies in journalism at Oxford and then the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, where he’s resided ever since. Despite the fact that this title was published in 1977 and 1984 in England and in the United States, it was a ‘disappeared’ book. When I began searching for this title in late 2001, at the direction of a wise mentor, she warned it would not be easy search. Two years of online searching at online bookstores, academic and public libraries and book dealers a used paperback edition -- priced at $275 was finally located. However, as a retired librarian and information researcher it was evident that something was terribly wrong when such a key publication seemingly vanished. That was when I initiated my search for the author. Fortunately it didn’t take much time or effort to find him. Within days he responded by sharing his plan for an updated version and concluded by offering to send his last Xeroxed earlier edition “to end my years long search” as the update he was writing would not be available to readers until that summer (2003). He was in the midst of writing a 50,000 word forward which could stand as a small volume on its own. That newest version combines the 2 previous ‘lost’editions with his 130 page Forward and its 251 annotations thus joining the past histories to the imminent US war on Iraq. The book is a brilliant resource and reference tool. It is concisely written and carefully researched enriched with abundant footnotes, references and citations to deepen one’s knowledge base. Hirst made extensive use of regional archives in Lebanon and Israel to glean in-depth older reports,documents and news analyses. His observations and conclusions infuse the normally absent contextual relationships of news and history for American readers, who have been routinely subjected to a ‘perspective’ without context or (unbiased) historical background. Fellow journalists like his neighbor Robert Fisk referred to Hirst as the “dean” of Middle Eastern history due to his extremely precise and rigorous presentation of historical events, relationships balanced with political insight. His opus takes a reader from late 19th century European Zionist origins and underpinnings to a deeper understanding of failed ‘peace plans’. Analysis of US and Israeli players and partnerships combine with issues long hidden within regional archival documents/reports to produce penetrating examinations of obscure history. In the words of the late respected scholar, Edward Said, “Hirst is a first-rate reporter who devoted his life to living in and writing about the Arab world.”
Recommended Reading List provided by retired librarian Miriam Adams, March 2007
This Amazon reader list also contains many favorites. |
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