Product Description

Over two decades of turmoil and change in the Middle East, steered via the history-soaked landscape of Palestine. This new edition includes a previously unpublished epigraph in the form of a walk. When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was travelling through a vanishing landscape. These hills would have seemed familiar to Christ, until the day concrete was poured over the flora and irreversible changes were brought about by those who claim a superior love of the land. Six walks span a period of twenty-six years, in the hills around Ramallah, in the Jerusalem wilderness and through the ravines by the Dead Sea. Each walk takes place at a different stage of Palestinian history since 1982, the first in the empty pristine hills and the last amongst the settlements and the wall. The reader senses the changing political atmosphere as well as the physical transformation of the landscape. By recording how the land felt and looked before these calamities, Raja Shehadeh attempts to preserve, at least in words, the Palestinian natural treasures that many Palestinians will never know.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22001 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"'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.'

About the Author
Raja Shehadeh is a Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah. He is the founder of a pioneering human rights organisation called Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. He has published several books about international law, human rights and the Middle East as well as the highly praised When the Bulbul Stopped Singing and Strangers in the House (both Profile).

Customer Reviews

Poignant, Lyrical, Elevating
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.

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. It shows how Israel completely ignored the Palestinian rights and land ownwership in the West Bank. The author who is a lawyer explains how biased the courts were towards Israel and the Palestinian cause was swept under the carpet.

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 Palestinians.This is worse than apartheid. Ps beautifully written book.