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Reviews tagging 'Violence'
Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question by Edward W. Said, Christopher Hitchens
1 review
bookishmillennial's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
This reads as quite academic (which the title says "Spurious Scholarship," so it's kind of my fault for being surprised), and is a bit dense to get through. It sometimes felt like a chore to finish each essay because some of the paragraphs were so long (I *need* frequent indent breaks, it's a me problem, I know!), there were tables or charts that were not the easiest to read in my digital copy of the book(but I got it for free from Verso Books, so thank yall for continuing to provide so many amazing resources!) and provides a LOT of historical context.
I wouldn't recommend this to someone who is just beginning to learn about the oppression and apartheid treatment of Palestine, but maybe to someone who wants an additional reference to Palestinian history to complement their other reading from Palestinian voices. What was really illuminating about this book was the sheer amount of data the contributors provided as far as numbers of Palestinian refugees in surrounding countries, where the Palestinian diaspora ended up, socioeconomic methods of control over Palestinians, and more.
What's most saddening though, is that this book was written in the 80s, and it's eerie how some contributors predicted the future regarding Israel's goal of forcing all Palestinians out of Palestine, and pushing forward continued mass exodus. It's devastating to read, as we are now past 100+ days of targeted Palestinian genocide in Gaza.
This reads as quite academic (which the title says "Spurious Scholarship," so it's kind of my fault for being surprised), and is a bit dense to get through. It sometimes felt like a chore to finish each essay because some of the paragraphs were so long (I *need* frequent indent breaks, it's a me problem, I know!), there were tables or charts that were not the easiest to read in my digital copy of the book(but I got it for free from Verso Books, so thank yall for continuing to provide so many amazing resources!) and provides a LOT of historical context.
I wouldn't recommend this to someone who is just beginning to learn about the oppression and apartheid treatment of Palestine, but maybe to someone who wants an additional reference to Palestinian history to complement their other reading from Palestinian voices. What was really illuminating about this book was the sheer amount of data the contributors provided as far as numbers of Palestinian refugees in surrounding countries, where the Palestinian diaspora ended up, socioeconomic methods of control over Palestinians, and more.
What's most saddening though, is that this book was written in the 80s, and it's eerie how some contributors predicted the future regarding Israel's goal of forcing all Palestinians out of Palestine, and pushing forward continued mass exodus. It's devastating to read, as we are now past 100+ days of targeted Palestinian genocide in Gaza.
"We can therefore expect continued attrition of the Palestinian population in Palestine, a steady drain occasionally accelerated by violent events. If Israel finds this process too slow, it will undoubtedly redouble its combined pressures of economic strangulation and violent suppression to speed the exodus of Palestinians."
"This evoked a huge protest over alleged atrocity-mongering and fabrication in a 'broad-scale mass psychological war' waged against pitiful little Israel, another sign of the inveterate anti-Semitism of world opinion; Israel became the victim, not the aggressor."
"These sufferings consequently imposed upon people in its dispersions and political difficulties are legion. All these sufferings derive, however, from the complete inability of every Palestinian man, woman, and child to exercise a fundamental set of inalienable rights. No Palestinian has a Palestinian passport, no Palestinian has Palestinian nationality, no Palestinian can vote in a national election as a Palestinian, no Palestinian can voluntarily return to Palestine and take up residence there. In most places, the very word 'Palestine; is either denied or in some way made the object of particular (usually injurious) juridical, political, social, and cultural discrimination."
"How many more Palestinians must die, be incarcerated, or expelled from their land before this people's identity is acknowledged and its national purpose consummated in an independent and sovereign state?"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Genocide, War, Xenophobia, Violence, Colonisation, Gaslighting, and Death
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