Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine (edition 2003)

This is a memoir by a Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist, about what formed him - and in particular, his often difficult relationship with his father. Born in Ramallah, as a child Shehadeh heard constantly about the glories of his family's life in Jaffa. Though his father was politically active, Shehadeh was not interested in the student activism around him, preferring to write poetry and read philosophy. Later, he decided to follow in part in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer, with a dream to be "an example of a new sort of Palestinian professional", Western-educated but living in and supporting the community. His lack of political awareness, however, meant that he had not recognised the difficulties, given that most Palestinian lawyers were boycotting the courts so as not to give recognition to the occupation (this despite the fact that his father had been disbarred from the Bar Association for challenging the boycott). However, in some ways this apparent naivety was also a strength, as Shehadeh continues to pursue his aims in defiance of the prevailing reality, whether that is to use judicial activism to promote human rights, to manage his dual life as lawyer and writer, or to insist that others saw Palestinian society as a complex and full society in its own right, not just one half of a struggle.

After we all ate heartily and drank a considerable amount of alcohol they wanted to know about the situation back home. What could I tell this intoxicated group? How could anything of that life come back to me now in this Texas living room? Even after a brief absence the reality of life under occupation seemed so bizarre and distant. ... I knew what was expected of me: an inflamed passionate denunciation of the Zionist enemy as the source of all our troubles. Yet I somehow could not oblige. Why, I wondered?

Only later did I realize that to do so would have been a betrayal of my own existence. To simplify my life and paint it in black-and-white terms was to deny my own reality, which I mainly experienced in tones of grey. If my countrymen really cared about me they had to see me as a human being, one who did not exist only in those heroic moments of struggle against the occupation as they liked to imagine. ( )