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From Oslo
to Iraq and the Road Map - Essays
by Edward Said
Nadine Gordimer
once wrote, referring to Edward Said’s
memoir Out of Place, “Said is in place
among the truly important intellects in
our century.” These forty-six eloquent
and impassioned essays written by Said between
December 2000 and July 2003 for the London-based
Al-Hayat, Cairo’s Al-Ahram Weekly,
and the London Review of Books underscore
his tireless efforts for the Palestinian
cause. They take us from the collapse of
the Oslo Accords to the U.S. invasion of
Iraq, focusing on three main themes, as
Tony Judt points out in his introduction:
the urgent need to reveal the truth about
Israel’s treatment of Palestinians,
the equally urgent need to get Palestinians
and other Arabs to engage with the progressive
elements in Israel, and the need to speak
out about the failure of Arab leadership.
In From
Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map, Said
writes about the second intifada and about
the so-called peace process, which he terms
a kind of “fast-food peace” underscored
by “malevolent sloppiness.” He
discusses the breach of democracy in the
last American presidential election and
describes the Bush administration as hopeless
in its allegiance to the Christian right
and to the big oil companies. He writes
passionately against the war in Iraq and
condemns the “road map” as a plan
not for peace but for pacification of the
Palestinians. He makes clear the ways in
which the U.S. response to 9/11 has further
destabilized the Middle East, but finds
as well reasons for hope: the Palestinian
National Initiative, an organization of
grassroots activists who share a burgeoning
idea of democracy “undreamed of by
the [Palestinian] Authority.” What
has always set Said apart is his ability
to state the uncensored truth about the
realities of the Palestinian experience,
from land expropriation, and dispossession,
to assassinations, roadblocks, and house
demolitions.
In this book,
Said reveals information that never finds
its way into the American media, thus providing
a real context for our understanding of
the Middle East. Fiercely uncompromising,
written with clarity and elegance, From
Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map gives
us an essential and unique voice that is
more important now than ever before.
About the
Author
Edward Said,
who recently died at age 67, was a
widely respected writer, scholar, and activist.
Dr. Said was a professor of literature at
Columbia University, and his book Orientalism
revolutionized the literary field. He was
one of the leading literary critics of the
last quarter of the 20th century, and he
was widely regarded as the outstanding representative
of the post-structuralist left in America.
Above all, he was the most articulate and
visible advocate of the Palestinian cause
in the United States.
Reviews
In the three years before he died of
leukemia in September 2003, noted critic
and commentator Said (Culture and Imperialism,
etc.) observed with sputtering rage some
of the grimmest moments in the tragic history
of the Middle East conflict. The commentaries
collected here, written mostly for two Arabic-language
publications, are caustic and heartbroken,
heaping scorn on the "demonic"
Ariel Sharon, but reserving plenty of contempt
for the "ruinous regime" of Yasir
Arafat. Said has few allies in his call
for Palestinians and Israelis to unite in
a single binational state, but his critique
of Oslo's approach to a two-state solution
has come to seem prescient. He denounces
suicide bombing, advising Palestinians instead
to "seize the moral high ground"
and build a civil society, but he insists
that Israel's occupation, settlements and
counterterrorist reprisals are primarily
responsible for the conflict. After September
11, Said worries about the "Israelization
of U.S. policy."
- Publishers Weekly
Related Links
The
Palestinian National Initiative - Al Mubadara
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