The Politics of Dispossession: The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination, 1969-1994

I've been interested in the history of Palestine for a long time, and this year I started to really become obsessed. It started when I stumbled upon a book in Philadelphia, and has been quite the journey. But lately I realized that all the words I have read have been written by Jews. It was time for a Palestinian voice, and just about every other author I read mentioned Edward Said.
I like a lot about The Politics of Dispossession but what I liked the most was that Said focused not only on Palestine, but on the whole region and the people who inhabit it. I hadn't thought about it until I read this book, but of course that makes sense; Palestinians have been scattered all over the world (but especially the area immediately surrounding show more historic Palestine), and have been for a while, so in order to learn about them we need to learn about the different countries they now reside in.
In addition to history and facts about many areas—Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt—he also wrote about current events. Since these essays are from 1969-94, wrote a bit about the (first) Iraq war. I was only a child at the time, but I remember the buildup, all the ribbons tied around trees, and hearing about how evil Saddam was. I remember “us” kicking ass and destroying the opposition. I also remember hearing that US troops shot at the backs of the retreating Iraqi army, but I didn't really have the intelligence to fully grasp what that meant. Obviously I've since learned that the war had nothing to do with freeing anyone, that the US military is full of cowards who are too dumb to think for themselves, and that things aren't always what they seem. I wish I would have read (and been able to comprehend) Said's essays back then.
Said writes about Iraq being a cultural hub for all of the Arab world; how they had some fantastic universities and how women were freer than they were in a lot of other countries in the region. Comparing that to the Iraq of 2025, after another, longer war and way too many sanctions, makes me physically sick.
Martin Buber harped a lot about how the Jews moving to Palestine, first and foremost, need to learn the culture of those around them. Learn what makes their neighbors tick, how to speak the language, and the history and norms of the area. Said agrees, and takes it a step further: He points out how, in addition the US not having any solid Arab studies programs and the lack of books translated to English from Arabic, most Arabs hardly know anything about western culture. It seems so obvious, but knowing your neighbors makes for a lot less tumultuous life.
That said, I did get frustrated with Said's writing at times. It felt like (and I have at least a dozen examples circled in the book) that Said confuses Jews, zionists, and Israelis, and uses all the interchangeably. Not all Jews are zionist, not all zionists are Jews, not all Jews are Israeli, etc It freaks me out when people don't know that, especially when one of the people is an intellectual who wrote a lot about Palestine and Israel. There's also a weirdness around Said not saying anything about how the vast, vast, vast majority of zionists are Christian (perhaps because he is a Christian). He talks about how all the politicans in the US “scramble for Jewish votes,” which to me seems crazy. Less than two and a half percent of the US population is Jewish (that's around 7.5 million people); some of them can't or don't vote and some aren't zionist. It seems like what he meant to say is that politicians scramble to get the zionist—largely Christian—vote. Said also claims that zionism benefits Jews; I would argue that zionism benefits zionists, the majority of whom are not Jewish. Finally, his repeated use of the term “Judeo-Christian” shows us what he really thinks.
Despite the most recent essay in this book being thirty-one years old, almost everything he talks about is relevant today. Starting in the 1970s, politicians referred to any Palestinian who even criticized Israel as terrorists; this is still going on, and has only gotten worse. Golda Meir, one of the first prime ministers of Israel, said that Palestinians don't exist; this is something we still hear from just about every zionist. Said was freaked out that (I don't remember the exact number) the US giving Israel over $50 billion in a few year span; now Israel gets ten times that every year. It feels like more people are talking about this stuff now, but reading about how much nothing has changed for the better sure makes me feel hopeless.
If you're interested in learning more about Palestine, but have only read books from non-Palestinians, Edward Said will fill that gap. This book is very educational, and not only has he written tons more, but this book is also filled with other recommended reading. It has flaws, sure, but it's a necessary read for anyone who cares that children are being starved to death simply because they happened to be born Palestinian. show less

In this forceful, challenging collection of 37 political essays from the past 25 years, Said, University Professor at Columbia, emphasises that the Palestinians are a people with their own history, society and right to self-determination. He is highly critical of Yasir Arafat's dominance of the PLO, which he calls undemocratic, corrupt and incompetent. He also forthrightly condemns the political right wing that dominates virtually every Arab government, enforcing repression, censorship and "intellectual thought control." A recurrent theme is the West's longstanding prejudice against the Arabs and Islam, manifested in media coverage of the Persian Gulf War, nonrecognition of Arab literature and racist stereotypes of Arabs. Highlights of show more this collection include a critique of U.S. policy in the Middle East, an analysis of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and a discussion of Palestinian identity with writer Salman Rushdie. Tracing his own direct involvement in the Palestinian national movement, Said deems the recent Israeli-PLO accord a sellout by Arafat, an instrument of Palestinian surrender that suspends most of the Palestinian people's rights and consigns diaspora Palestinians (those living in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) to permanent exile or refugee status.

In this volume Columbia professor Said, for some an enfant terrible while for others the most articulate English-language spokesperson for organized Palestinian efforts to achieve political recognition, has collected 37 of his previously published political essays. There will be no disappointments here for readers familiar with the author's work (e.g., Culture and Imperialism, LJ 3/1/93) or for those reading him for the first time. Said deals with the hotly debated concept of a geopolitical Palestine and its people; the Arab world in general, with which he is not always entirely pleased; and the intriguing relationship of the intellectual to politics and the impact of that relationship on events surrounding the "Palestine Question." Recommended for its style and potency as well as for its alternative viewpoint to the mainstream perspective, Said's book should be acquired by academic and larger public libraries.
--Sanford R. Silverburg show less