Review: Salman Abu Sitta’s autobiography
The Electronic Intifada, 27th September 2016 Unlike Jawhariyyeh, al-Hout or Sayigh, Galilean hills, Lebanon and Jerusalem do not loom large in Abu Sitta’s account. Instead, his life story is rooted … Continue reading
Interfaith Lurve…
It’s not often I leave an academic conference having had a genuinely fun, stimulating, thoughtful three days. By the end of a three-dayer I – and I know this stands … Continue reading
Gribetz, “Defining Neighbours”
A few fascinating and thought-provoking excerpts from Jonathan Gribetz’s excellent exploration of intellectual life and perceptions of faith in Late Ottoman and early inter-war Palestine (Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and … Continue reading
New review: ‘Men of Capital’
Electronic Intifada, 14th January 2016 Defying stereotypes of Mandate-period Palestinians as divided between a distant, dislocated upper class of “notables” and a majority of uneducated, rebellious peasants, Seikaly charts the … Continue reading
New review: Lanterns of the King of Galilee by Ibrahim Nasrallah
Electronic Intifada, 11th February 2015 Daher al-Umar, born around 1690 near Tiberias in the Galilee, was the son of a multazim or tax-gatherer for the Ottoman Empire. His family had … Continue reading
New review: music and Palestine
Electronic Intifada, 22nd December 2014 In Beckles Willson’s case, however, a few important points stand out. One is her careful, sophisticated, but nevertheless uncompromising articulation of the deep-seated difference between … Continue reading
New review: Jean-Pierre Filiu’s history of Gaza
Electronic Intifada, 28th October 2014 Gaza was a key strategic point, the last source of water before the Sinai, from the perspective of armies and merchants heading from the Levant … Continue reading
New review: Radwa Ashour’s ‘The Woman from Tantoura’
Electronic Intifada, 8th July 2014 Ruqayya’s story — told partly by her in old age — is the tale of one young girl, her loves, family, marriage, work, children and … Continue reading
New review: ‘It’s better to jump’
Electronic Intifada, 16th April 2014 That attachment stems from the everyday experience of growing up and living in a town — its people, its alleyways, the ways that people make … Continue reading
New review: ‘Traces & Revelations’ at Durham’s Oriental Museum
Electronic Intifada, 10th April 2014 But in hosting Traces and Revelations, a viscerally exciting new show of paintings by Hazem Harb and Mohammed Joha, the Oriental Museum at the University … Continue reading
New review: The Storyteller of Jerusalem
Electronic Intifada, 25th February 2014 The descriptions of his childhood center around a large house shared with tenants, situated around a courtyard and with communal facilities. “If you entered the … Continue reading
New article: Dor Guez at The Mosaic Rooms reviewed
Electronic Intifada, 18th April 2013 “We are a minority within a minority,” says one of the speakers in Watermelons about Christians in the Middle East. “Nobody would think twice if … Continue reading
Palestine’s lost villages
Zochrot is an Israeli organisation which tries to educate people about the ignored Palestinian history which underlies every Israeli city, town, village, national park… one of the ways it does … Continue reading
Nablus: an architectural history
It’s been very exciting to get my first look at the real, in-the-flesh version of my good friend Naseer Arafat’s architectural history of Nablus. It’s a huge and beautiful book, … Continue reading
Shafiq al-Hout – My Life in the PLO
Shafiq al-Hout My Life in the PLO: The Inside Story of the Palestinian Struggle Pluto Press 2011 As I had depressingly reinforced to me earlier this year in Melbourne, some … Continue reading
New article: Shalom/Salaam reviewed
From Friends of Al-Aqsa, 20th April 2011: The core thesis of Shalom/Salaam is that during the medieval period, the tolerance of Muslim authorities in Iraq, Egypt and Al-Andalus towards their … Continue reading
Sarah Irving 