Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape
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"'Shehadeh does a tremendous job... one of the most compelling things you will read this summer.' Scotland on Sunday 'He distils his pain and anger into eloquent prose, meticulously counting the ways he loves the land...Palestinian Walks is no trite exercise in myth-making or propaganda.' Sunday Tribune (Ireland) 'Continually grapples with misconceptions...Shehadeh is always engaging...delivering what many activists neglect to mention: the odd, slightly absurd details that really touch people; things that appear off camera, away from news reports.' Independent on Sunday"
Independent on Sunday
`Intensely political while avoiding the excesses of pure polemic, Shehadeh's account of six different Palestinian walks continually grapples with misconceptions and misinformation...Shehadeh is always engaging. There's such an eccentricity to his approach, commenting on dinosaur footprints in the rock one moment, challenging Israeli law the next... it's a remarkable way of going about things, delivering what many activists neglect to mention: the odd, slightly absurd details that really touch people; things that appear off-camera, away from news reports - things that seem real.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Winner of the Orwell Prize 2008. Raja Shehadeh's twenty seven years going on sarha's, wandering the hills of Ramallah and beyond, form the warp and the weft of a life rich with observations. The purpose of a sarha is to wander freely and aimlessly, to nourish the soul and rejuvenate. Each walk combines poignant, lyrical, reflections of a vanishing landscape with an ancient history. Along with that, eloquent stories of the people who cultivated the land with terraces of olive trees and grapevines. Poetic, political, and spiritual, this second edition has seven unique walks, each one embracing real people, past and present.
The hills are alive with the music of shepherds and their flocks, vibrant spring flowers, arid sunburnt wadis, transforming light, winter rain and snow, and Jewish settlers who claim a divine right to the land. One of the most captivating stories in the book is that of Abu Ameen, a poor stone mason. For all its poignancy, this is also an elevating story of human endurance, tested to extremes, in the harshness of a land with many restrictions.
Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer and writer living in Ramallah, a city in the Palestinian West Bank. He is also the author of the highly praised When the Bulbul Stopped Singing and Strangers in the House.
The hills are alive with the music of shepherds and their flocks, vibrant spring flowers, arid sunburnt wadis, transforming light, winter rain and snow, and Jewish settlers who claim a divine right to the land. One of the most captivating stories in the book is that of Abu Ameen, a poor stone mason. For all its poignancy, this is also an elevating story of human endurance, tested to extremes, in the harshness of a land with many restrictions.
Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer and writer living in Ramallah, a city in the Palestinian West Bank. He is also the author of the highly praised When the Bulbul Stopped Singing and Strangers in the House.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having not long returned from a visit to Israel and the West Bank I decided to read "Palestinian Walks" written by Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian human rights lawyer who has stayed living in the West Bank through all the troubles of the last 60 years. It was a far better book than I had anticipated with the brilliant way that Shehadeh was able to intertwine the experiences, beauty and destruction of the environment witnessed in his walks, with personal reflections and history and incidents of the region.
I agree completely with the quotes from reviews of the Independent on Sunday "Delivering what many activists neglect to mention: the odd, slightly absurd details that really touch people" and the NY Times "Few Palestinians have opened their minds and hearts with such frankness."
The sadness and frustration of Shehadeh come over, without any hatred or bigotedness, and also incredibly not giving the reader an utter sense of despair at the end. Obviously Shehadeh is critical of Israeli policy in the West Bank, but he also expresses his frustration and anger with the former PLO leadership in exile at their insistence on recognition at the expense of an adequate land solution in the Oslo Agreement, as well as corrupt practices when in control.
It was the small details that were so enlightening. In the last two walks encounters and conversations with a young Israeli settler (An Imagined Sarha) and two young, angry Muslim Palestinians (The Masked Shepherds) are recorded which are so sensitively done. The tradegy of how particularly Israeli policy, as well as fear, makes contact between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs so limited is brilliantly displayed in the conversation which makes up a large part of the chapter "An Imagined Sarha". The book is worth reading for that conversation alone.
Also the chapter "And How Did You Get Over It?" was fascinating, when a Palestinian doctor and politician with whom Raja is friends asks on a walk how Raja overcome his anger at the defeat incurred by the Oslo Agreement. Raja reflects that he has not had to suffer as much as his father had to and that when he could walk and reflect on the geography and think about previous generations and civilisations which the land barely reflects now he comments:
"For a long time my enjoyment of these hills has been impaired by a preoccupation with the changes in land law relating to them. But such man-made constructs can be diminished if looked at in a particular way. Viewed from the perspective of the land they hardly count...Stones are gathered to build houses but then they crumble and return to the land, however large and formidable they might once have been.
Thinking in the long term made it possible for me to separate "the present" from the rest of time and thereby realize that what Palestine and Israel are now would not necessarily be for ever. I was here on earth for a relatively short period and after that time passed, life would go on without my points of view, biases and fears." (p170-1)
I agree completely with the quotes from reviews of the Independent on Sunday "Delivering what many activists neglect to mention: the odd, slightly absurd details that really touch people" and the NY Times "Few Palestinians have opened their minds and hearts with such frankness."
The sadness and frustration of Shehadeh come over, without any hatred or bigotedness, and also incredibly not giving the reader an utter sense of despair at the end. Obviously Shehadeh is critical of Israeli policy in the West Bank, but he also expresses his frustration and anger with the former PLO leadership in exile at their insistence on recognition at the expense of an adequate land solution in the Oslo Agreement, as well as corrupt practices when in control.
It was the small details that were so enlightening. In the last two walks encounters and conversations with a young Israeli settler (An Imagined Sarha) and two young, angry Muslim Palestinians (The Masked Shepherds) are recorded which are so sensitively done. The tradegy of how particularly Israeli policy, as well as fear, makes contact between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs so limited is brilliantly displayed in the conversation which makes up a large part of the chapter "An Imagined Sarha". The book is worth reading for that conversation alone.
Also the chapter "And How Did You Get Over It?" was fascinating, when a Palestinian doctor and politician with whom Raja is friends asks on a walk how Raja overcome his anger at the defeat incurred by the Oslo Agreement. Raja reflects that he has not had to suffer as much as his father had to and that when he could walk and reflect on the geography and think about previous generations and civilisations which the land barely reflects now he comments:
"For a long time my enjoyment of these hills has been impaired by a preoccupation with the changes in land law relating to them. But such man-made constructs can be diminished if looked at in a particular way. Viewed from the perspective of the land they hardly count...Stones are gathered to build houses but then they crumble and return to the land, however large and formidable they might once have been.
Thinking in the long term made it possible for me to separate "the present" from the rest of time and thereby realize that what Palestine and Israel are now would not necessarily be for ever. I was here on earth for a relatively short period and after that time passed, life would go on without my points of view, biases and fears." (p170-1)
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian human rights lawyer living in Ramallah. He has been walking in the Palestinian countryside for over 25 years and appreciates its wild flowers, wildlife and history. He has subtitled his book "Notes on a Vanishing Landscape" - and herein lie the sadness and anger of a whole community. Israel has become more and more confident about building settlements on Palestine land and this has brought drastic changes to the West Bank. New roads have been constructed (often restricted to Israelis), water has been diverted to supply the new housing, a 700 km "security" wall is being erected and many modern apartments and houses have appeared - often completely changing life for the local villagers.
As well as describing the walks he tells of the many distressing events that occurred. Having missed the news that a curfew had been imposed, he tells of having to beg an Israeli soldier to let him re-enter his own town. While walking he has been threatened and shot at (sometimes even by Palestinians). On one particularly telling occasion he recalls passing a group of youngsters. "They spoke to each other in Russian. They must have been the sons and daughters of new immigrants brought to Israel to inhabit the settlements established on Palestinian soil. They looked and acted as though the world belonged to them, for theirs was the new life of victory in war; ours the sour grapes of defeat."
Shehadeh is particularly angry about the way in which the courts seem to favour Israeli wishes over Palestinian. In one case the court agreed that the rightful owner of some land was a Palestinian but said that the (illegal) contract to build a settlement there should stand. He is similarly angry about the Oslo accord. He points out how recognition of the PLO was preferred over proper long term planning rights - the Palestinian were out-manoeuvred at every turn.
The walks sound wonderful and I know there are now companies organising walking holidays in the West Bank. The map at the beginning is useful but I would also have liked sketch maps of the actual walks.
This is a beautifully written book - but it is hard to read it without becoming angry.
As well as describing the walks he tells of the many distressing events that occurred. Having missed the news that a curfew had been imposed, he tells of having to beg an Israeli soldier to let him re-enter his own town. While walking he has been threatened and shot at (sometimes even by Palestinians). On one particularly telling occasion he recalls passing a group of youngsters. "They spoke to each other in Russian. They must have been the sons and daughters of new immigrants brought to Israel to inhabit the settlements established on Palestinian soil. They looked and acted as though the world belonged to them, for theirs was the new life of victory in war; ours the sour grapes of defeat."
Shehadeh is particularly angry about the way in which the courts seem to favour Israeli wishes over Palestinian. In one case the court agreed that the rightful owner of some land was a Palestinian but said that the (illegal) contract to build a settlement there should stand. He is similarly angry about the Oslo accord. He points out how recognition of the PLO was preferred over proper long term planning rights - the Palestinian were out-manoeuvred at every turn.
The walks sound wonderful and I know there are now companies organising walking holidays in the West Bank. The map at the beginning is useful but I would also have liked sketch maps of the actual walks.
This is a beautifully written book - but it is hard to read it without becoming angry.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Walking in astrange country
Descriptions of the countryside are wonderfully clear and so unexpected. There is a real sadness about the stories told, and the walks that cannot be taken again by the writer. Read more
Published 9 months ago by blewburyfam
"When everything else has gone from my brain...
...what will be left, I believe, is topology: the dreaming memory of the land as it lay this way and that. Read more
Published 15 months ago by John P. Jones III
Immensely moving
The author is a Palestinian human rights activist & lawyer specialising in land law. He has been extensively involved in trying to prevent Israeli expropriation of land for... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Marand
Poignant meditation on a landscape (and people) destroyed
This is an intensely personal and political book by Raja Shehadeh, a human rights activist and a lawyer specialising in land laws. Read more
Published on 28 April 2010 by Specky Bob
A "Must Read"
I bought it for my Mother who insists that I borrow it after she has finished.
Published on 16 April 2010 by SM
A moving and fascinating book
I felt when reading this book I had walked on the hills so beloved by the author. I was lucky enough to hear him read extracts at the Edinburgh Book Festival and warmed at once to... Read more
Published on 24 Jan 2010 by S. Welham
Great Fiction.
If you're into fiction this a great read if you want facts on the ground look elsewhere.
Published on 15 Nov 2009 by G. P. Rasch
Palestinian Walks
An excellent well written book which gives a new insight in to the Palestinian way of life and hardships over the last sixty years. Read more
Published on 6 Mar 2009 by Hello
Psychogeography of a Peoples
This is a scarey book. Why read horrors books, the realities are truly fearful. Israel has become a mirror image of its own worst nightmare through its treatment of the... Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2008 by Ahmed
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