Verwandte Artikel zu Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life

Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life - Hardcover

Nusseibeh, Sari; David, Anthony

 
9780374299507: Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0374299501 ISBN 13: 9780374299507
Verlag: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

A prominent Palestinian's searching, anguished, deeply affecting autobiography, in which his life story comes to be the story of the recent history of his country.
Sari Nusseibeh’s autobiography is a remarkable book—one in which his dramatic life story and that of his embattled country converge in a work of great passion, depth, and emotional power.
 
Nusseibeh was raised to represent his country. His family’s roots in Palestine traced back to the Middle Ages, and his father was the governor of Jerusalem. Educated at Oxford, he was trained to build upon his father’s support for coexistence and a negotiated solution to the problems of the region.

But the wars of 1967 and 1973 spelled the beginning of the end for the vision of a unified Palestine—and Nusseibeh’s response to these events, and to those that followed, gives us the recent history from a Palestinian point of view as no book has done. From his time teaching side by side with Israelis at Hebrew University through his appointment by Yassir Arafat to administer Arab Jerusalem, he holds fast to a two-state solution, even as the powers around him insist that it is impossible. As Palestine is torn apart by settlements and barricades, corruption and violence, Nusseibeh remains true to the ideals of his youth, determined to keep hold of some faint hope for the life of his country.

Once Upon a Country is a book with the scope and vitality of an old-fashioned novel—one whose ending is still uncertain.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sari Nusseibeh, a philosopher, was the Palestine Liberation Organization’s chief representative in Jerusalem from 2001 to 2002, in which role he advocated a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is the president of and a professor at Al-Quds University, the Arab University of Jerusalem. Nusseibeh was educated at Oxford and Harvard, and was a Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard for 2004–05. He is the author of two previous books.

Rezensionen

Starred Review. Philosophy professor and political leader Nusseibeh, as the Oxford and Harvard-educated descendant of an ancient and influential Jerusalem family, draws on deep roots in his account of a dramatically displaced life. That's one reason why, despite his relative privilege, his autobiography dovetails persuasively with the larger story of Palestinian dispossession and struggle in the 20th century. Nusseibeh, as a former PLO representative, also has the vantage of a political insider. Equally instructive are his differences from his fellow Palestinians, many of whom he encountered as his students in the classrooms and cafes at Birzeit University in the West Bank, and later as president of Al Quds University in Jerusalem. These interactions, among others, give shape to the story of this curious but reticent loner's immersion into national politics, which is overshadowed by the memory of his father (a fiercely independent former Jordanian minister and governor of Jerusalem). In relating the Palestinian perspective on the expulsions, expropriations and deprivations during and after the wars of 1948, 1967 and beyond, Nusseibeh convincingly interweaves personal experience and tectonic historical shifts, while charting his own political evolution and eventual and resolute insistence on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reviewed by Robert Malley

In 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian uprising and amid harsh Israeli military offensives, two prominent individuals unveiled a courageous peace plan. The Israeli author was Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, his country's internal security agency. Plunging headfirst into the public debate was, for him, a relatively novel exercise.

Not so for his Palestinian partner. Sari Nusseibeh, the author of the captivating Once Upon a Country, is a repeat offender. This Oxford-trained philosopher was an unlikely recruit to politics, which probably explains why he practices such an unlikely brand of it. Born into an illustrious Palestinian family, he sought early on to escape the life of influence and authority for which he appeared to be destined. He ended up deeply involved in aspects of Israeli-Palestinian relations and dealt with virtually every major Palestinian leader. But philosophy was his true calling, and, even as the draw of politics ultimately proved too hard to resist, he always had intellectual pursuits on which to fall back. And so he maintained a distant, insouciant relationship to the perks and privileges of power as well as an affectionate, abiding one to controversy. It shows.

Nusseibeh, now the president of al-Quds University in Jerusalem, was a believer in Israeli-Palestinian dialogue long before it was in favor, an advocate of nonviolence when other Palestinians were glorifying suicide bombers, an embodiment of secularism as the Islamist Hamas movement was conquering new ground in Palestinian politics. In the late 1960s, when so many of his compatriots still dreamed of ridding the land of those it considered intruders, he argued for coexistence among Arabs and Jews in a secular, binational state. When he later came around to the idea of a two-state solution, with Israel living in peace alongside Palestine, many Palestinians were clamoring for a single state. Even now, one senses that his commitment to splitting the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean may not be everlasting. If a two-state solution is not reached soon, he writes, Palestinians will fight for "one man, one vote" in a unified Arab-Israeli state -- a comment one can take as warning or wish. Not a few Palestinians consider his moderation traitorous; a respectable number of Israelis consider it their most potent threat.

Nusseibeh's new memoir, Once Upon a Country, is a remarkable chronicle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seen through this improbable pair of eyes. His Palestinian colleagues come in for abundant criticism -- for negotiating without a clear vision or sufficient expert knowledge and, above all, for becoming intoxicated with their own deadly delusions about violence. Nusseibeh's message is clear: that the two sides are divided by ignorance, not malice; that the burden is on the Palestinians to win over their Israeli counterparts; that this can be done only through dialogue and nonviolent resistance; that Palestinians should not insist on the right of their refugees to return to what is now Israel proper; that Palestinian negotiators need not be intransigent to be tough and need not surrender their principles to reach a deal with Israel.

Nusseibeh's eloquent and compassionate book no doubt will stir yet another round of polemics; his actions usually do. Like Nusseibeh, most Palestinians have concluded that the ways of the past need rethinking. A decade of peace-processing, they feel, has led to more misery and less security without getting them any closer to their goals of sovereignty and independence. Unlike Nusseibeh, however, many Palestinians are not at all convinced that the answer is more dialogue and less violence, let alone conceding up front on the refugees' right of return. These are familiar Palestinian dilemmas: If you regularize discussions with Israelis, do you render routine the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip? If you abandon armed struggle, do you retain leverage over a militarily superior opponent? If you compromise in advance, do you weaken your hand?

The humane worldview of Once Upon a Country is one answer to this Palestinian conundrum. Hamas is another, and Nusseibeh -- who quickly dismisses the radical Islamists as sloganeering, inauthentic fanatics -- does not quite do it justice. To be sure, as he writes, Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 discredited the concept of land-for-peace negotiations and so gave a boost to the Islamists, who crowed that their bombs and rockets had driven Israel out. But the roots of their January 2006 election victory run far deeper. Hamas is a response to the Palestinians' material and psychological condition, a reaction to years of lost dignity, an affirmation (however troubling) of a yearning for self-respect.

A Hamas leader recently explained to me that dealing with Israel required retaining Palestinian leverage and displaying patience. Palestinians who had opted for the route of compromise "cannot prevail, because they have defeat in their hearts." He was not referring to Nusseibeh specifically, but one gets the point. Once Upon a Country is a magnificent study of hope under siege. Nusseibeh offers a possible means of escape. Far more will be needed to convince his fellow Palestinians it is the best one.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.



Sari Nusseibeh is the ultimate insider, and he draws on that vast experience to shed light on the prospects for peace in the Middle East. He patiently examines complex issues and offers enough nuances to please readers who want to understand the ongoing conflict on a deeper level. The author's relatively evenhanded stance (despite a less-than-flattering portrayal of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as well as some contested historical details) distinguishes Once Upon a Country from other, more agenda-driven efforts, as does its call for nonviolent resolution and compromise. Nusseibeh, echoing Voltaire's notion that "the wisest course of action is surely to tend to your own garden," casts a critical eye on both sides. The result is "a deeply admirable book by a deeply admirable man" (New York Times Book Review).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.



Nusseibeh is head of the only Arab university in Jerusalem. His ancient family roots in Palestine go back 1,300 years. Without histrionics, this detailed insider's account blends Nusseibeh's personal experience as son, husband, father, intellectual, and activist leader with the raging politics of his homeland over the last 40 years. Striving for a two-state solution, he calls for civil disobedience against the Israeli Occupation, never for violence. He is close to the Israeli Peace Now movement, always believing that Palestinians and Jews are natural allies: "Hamas and the Wall both slam the door shut on dialogue." He is unflinching, however, in detailing instances of Israeli torture and children shot dead, and he quotes Sharon's references to creating apartheid-type Bantustan barriers. His campaign against arrests, torture, and expulsions of his people eventually landed him in prison. He recounts his experiences there with sorrow and anger, but also with the bitter humor of the privileged activist under arrest who welcomes the peace of solitary confinement. Anyone concerned with the Middle East will want to read this important and sure-to-be-controversial book. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Prologue
 
A Fairy Tale
 
Almost forty years ago the Israeli army conquered Jerusalem, a city my family had lived in since the days of Omar the Great, and soon afterward I fell in love with Lucy. Everyone agreed at the time, including the two of us, that it was an odd match. We were both students at Oxford, which at least on the surface was where our similarities ended. Lucy was the daughter of John Austin, one of England’s mightiest modern philosophers, and I was the nineteen-year-old son of a man who had spent the last twenty years serving a Jordanian-administered Palestine, an entity recently wiped off the map in six brief days. Lucy was expected to marry into the British intelligentsia and to pursue a dazzling academic career of her own. By contrast, I no longer had a country, and the old ruling class my father represented had been plunged into a crisis from which it would never recover. The children of the privileged and educated, including all five of my siblings, began heading for the exits.
 
 Had I intended to stay in exile, the love that Lucy and I shared perhaps would have raised fewer eyebrows. But I wanted to return, and I wanted her to go with me. But how do you ask the daughter of a famous Oxford don to follow you to the war-scarred, embattled, poor, and occupied city of Jerusalem? How do you break the news that your fate will be tied to one of the most volatile corners on the planet, with two major wars in its recent history and the Arab leaders worldwide calling for another? It seemed too preposterous even to try, so I wrote a fairy tale instead.
 
 It was second nature for me to use myth to get across something so important. At the time I was, as I remain, under the thrall of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for in it I saw how a children’s yarn could say more than a dozen philosophical treatises.
 
 Fairy tales are also in my blood, and how could it be otherwise, with my having been raised surrounded by such a timeless and magical landscape? When my ancestors arrived in Jerusalem from Arabia thirteen centuries ago, the city’s history was already so hallowed by time—and of course by the ancient Jewish prophets who once roamed its streets—that it left the newcomers from the desert in awe. That awe was so strong that as a child 1,300 years later, I couldn’t walk to the corner market without feeling it all the way to my fingertips. Sometimes, when I watched my uncle’s camels graze among ruins of Suq al-Khawajat, or Goldsmith’s Souk, which had belonged to the Nusseibehs from time immemorial, the sensation of being a character in an ancient story swept through me—as it did when I watched a different uncle, the doorkeeper of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, take a foot-long skeleton key and, as in the story that my Christian friends told me of St. Peter and the Pearly Gates, unlock a door thick enough to withstand a battering ram. In a city whose lanes were too narrow and crooked for a tank, this massive oak door still gave off a sense of impenetrability.
 
 After snatching the city away from the Byzantine Empire in the seventh century, Omar the Great made our family’s ancestor High Judge of Jerusalem, and from that point on my family has served the Holy City as judges, teachers, Sufi sages, politicians, and as doorkeepers to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
 
 With all this in my background, my fairy tale’s first line was as truthful as it was unsubtle: “Oh how I wish I could go to the Holy Land.” The rest of the story is about an angel on a flying donkey who takes an English girl named Louise on a ride to Jerusalem. The model for my story was Mohammed’s Night Journey to Jerusalem, my favorite childhood fable. One evening the Prophet mounted a winged steed named al-Burak, Arabic for “lightning,” and took a magical trip that over time would inspire the tales of flying carpets. Apart from the revelation of the Koran, in the only miracle ever associated with the Muslim prophet, Mohammed flew on al-Burak’s back over the endless dunes and rock deserts of Arabia to a land described in the Koran as holy and blessed.
 
 The destination of the Night Journey was the site of Solomon’s ancient temple in Jerusalem and the place, according to Jewish tradition, of Abraham’s sacrifice. To be more precise, he and his steed landed on the rock where some say Adam was created, and where he first set foot on earth after his expulsion from Paradise. (They’ll also tell you that if you look closely enough, you’ll see his footprints.) It is from that rock that the Prophet then ascended to heaven to receive instructions for the Abrahamic message of Islam, or faith in the one God.
 
 In the yarn I wrote for Lucy, after an angel wearing a turban and riding the magical donkey whisks Louise away to Jerusalem, she meets a variety of characters, including Mr. Seems, who is never what he seems to be. Another figure she encounters stands guard at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Since the time of the Crusades, this knight of the Holy Sepulcher has been asleep at the same spot, as rigid as the tin man in The Wizard of Oz, and just as teary eyed, because a thousand years ago he vowed not to budge until there was peace in the Holy Land.
 
 While at Oxford, I never finished the tale. I got Louise as far as Jerusalem, but I couldn’t figure out what to do with her once she arrived. Would she help awaken the Crusader knight outside the Holy Sepulcher? Would she help bring peace to the Holy Land? I was stumped.
 
 Anyway, Lucy didn’t need a fairy tale to fall in love with Jerusalem: before I wrote the story she had already spent time in the Holy Land, while on tour with an Oxford choir, and had begun to identify with the landscape, history, language, and people with as much avidity as a native.
 
 And so for more than thirty-five years my tale sat in a drawer, untitled and unfinished, and the knight remained very much asleep. More pressing matters—academic work, family life, and three decades of war and upheaval—got in the way. It was only last year, as I was preparing for my upcoming fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, that I picked up the tale again. I asked my twelve-year-old daughter, Nuzha, bedridden with the flu at the time, for her opinion on its merits. An avid and critical reader of stories and an aspiring writer herself, she gave me the thumbs-up, and I packed the tale along with the rest of my things to take to America. So as the institute’s distinguished mathematicians, historians, and biologists pursued their academic and scientific endeavors, I worked on my fairy tale.
 
 The aim, of course, was no longer to persuade Lucy to run off with me to Jerusalem. Now other motives had surfaced. Lucy and I now had our own children, who had to make their own decision as to whether to stay in a land far more mired in tragedy and seething with resentment than it was after the Six-Day War. Could I so easily say to my children, as I said to Lucy back then, that a life in Palestine would be an adventure? Even if I tried, they would never respond as Louise does in the tale. (“It would be so exciting . . . Just think,” she pleaded, with her palms pressed together as if in prayer.) The only way to convince them about the possibility of a future in Palestine was to make a good case that our conflict with Israel could be solved. Somehow I had to wake up the sleeping knight in front of the Holy Sepulcher.
 
 Weeks of toil resulted in some new characters and a couple of mystical Sufi riddles. But I still didn’t know how to awaken the sleeping knight. No wonder, for after decades of effort, the magical formula for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seemed more elusive than ever. The Goldsmith’s Souk, my favorite haunt as a child, had been taken over by a sect of messianic Israeli settlers, who had turned the ruins into a flourishing colony—but also a strategic dagger thrust into the center of the Muslim Quarter. More seriously, the country had been ruined by armed conflict. Suicide bombers had invaded Israeli cities, and the Israeli army had responded by reoccupying the West Bank. The Oslo Agreement was in shambles, and whatever was left of Arafat’s rule in the Occupied Territories was being challenged by Islamic extremism. Meanwhile, the Israelis were using terrorism as a pretext for erecting the “Security Fence,” a twenty-foot-high concrete wall that began to weave its way through the West Bank like some malevolent snake. Each time I returned to Jerusalem for important meetings at Al-Quds University, where I work, I had to be shadowed by my two bodyguards, ubiquitous, like characters in Kafka’s The Castle. Far from peaceful New England, my bodyguards reminded me just how asleep my fictional knight remained.
 
 
 
The solution to the riddle came to me on a plane returning to Boston after Chairman Arafat’s funeral.
 
 A few days earlier, I had been at the Skidmore College lodge preparing for a lecture I was to deliver the following day when an urgent message came from Jerusalem. Chairman Arafat, enfeebled and holed up in his destroyed compound encircled by Israeli tanks, had succumbed to a mysterious illness. Chairman Arafat hadn’t been a well man for some years. The last time I met with him, before leaving for my sabbatical, he had looked gaunt and frail. When he fell ill this last time, he was flown to Paris, where a few days later he died. The Old Man, as he was known, was gone. That evening I cut short my stay in beauti...

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Verlag
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0374299501
ISBN 13 
9780374299507
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
560
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Klondyke B.V.
info@klondyke.nl

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