| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
About the Author
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Aburish dedicates the first 8 chapters of the book to pre-1991, i.e. before the Madrid Conference. In those chapters he explains how Arafat, with his unique traits, managed to make the world address the Palestinian problem. Up till this point, Arafat is portrayed as the irreplaceable leader. In chapters 9 and 10, which stand alone and can be read without reverting to any of the previous 8, Arafat is portrayed as brutal dictator, always trying to appease his American and Israeli "counterparts". Those chapters are very brief and I would have liked to see more about the last ten years in Arafat's life.
I have to congratulate Aburish for his courage in writing this biography of a man that is mysterious to everyone who has dealt with him.
With or without Arafat, the amount of information acquired from his aides and from news reports makes the book fairly credible.
The book revolved around two main themes: First, Arafat has always put his leadership concerns over all other matters including vital Palestinian interests. Second, the Israelis never intended to recognize the Palestinian leadership as the representative of the Arabs residing in the occupied territories. Instead, it opted for trying to deal with the Jordanian leadership as the representative of these Palestinians and using a policy of an iron fist with them.
An articulate Aburish argues that the peace process was born dead for three main reasons. Arafat's tribal behavior and corruption made him impose his leadership on the Palestinians living in the territories whereas the real leadership was offered by the residents themselves such as Al-Shafi, Ashrawi and Husseini. Second, the Israeli never stopped creating new realities by constantly expanding their settlements in Palestinian territories and errecting new ones, a situation which made the Palestinians always doubtful of the Israeli true intentions toward a durable peace.
While Arafat believed that some Israeli concessions would beef up his leadership after he was ejected from Beirut in 1982 and lived since then in Tunisian exile, Israel thought that with minimum concessions it could force Arafat to police and supress the Palestinians living under occupation.
The end result (not in the book), was the collapse of the peace process and an increase in violence, which creates a bleak picture of the future of peace and makes both the Palestinians and the Israelis head into oblivion.
And much as the author strives to a journalistic book, full of information which he presents as factual, his tone is hardly non-partisan and one can hardly describe his portrait of Arafat as flattering. From the beginning, Aburish asserts QUOTE without doubt UNQUOTE that Arafat's birthplace, long shrouded in mystery, is Cairo, and that, notwithstanding the time he spent among Palestinians, Arafat still speaks Arabic like an Egyptian, to the point where QUOTE West Bankers did not like his Egyptian accent and ways and found them alien.UNQUOTE The book is full of other anecdotes of Arafat's personal life, including his uneasy relationship with a father whose funeral he did not attend.
These journalistic anecdotes belie the character of the book which is fundamentally a political commentary on the Middle East conflict. Aburish gives credit to Arafat for three strategic choices: fostering a Palestinian identity to counter Israel rather than relying on Arag governments to do the bidding for the Palestinians; choosing armed struggle which earned the Palestinians world recogntiion; and, later, pursuing (or attempting to pursue, perhaps) a peaceful settlement with Israel. But Aburish is also categorical in his judgment that Araft is unfit to serve as a modern leader of Palestinians, comparing him to QUOTE an uneducated wily Arab chief UNQUOTE and holding him responsible for dictatorial ways which he says has supressed the Palestinian people and created a corrupt entity in the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Not surprisingly, Aburish volunteers a proposed replacement for Arafat in the triumvarate of three well-known Palestinians who have been know as able negotiators in Washington.
With a proper filter to sort fact from opinion and a framework for contextualizing this book, a careful reader can find value in Aburish's otherwise well written biography.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Middle East
- Books > Biography > Political > Countries & Regions > Spain
- Books > Biography > Political > Political Leaders & Leadership
- Books > Biography > War & Espionage > Terrorism & Freedom Fighters
- Books > History > Political History > Politicians
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Civil Liberties & Political Activism > Political Violence > Terrorism & Freedom Fighters
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics > Political Science & Ideology > Political Science
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
