A review by notoriousesr
Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape by Raja Shehadeh

adventurous informative sad slow-paced

4.0

Palestinian lawyer and activist Raja Shehadeh has always loved hill-walking. In Palestinian Walks, he takes the reader on a series of walks through Palestine, showing how the violence of the Israeli occupation has forever changed his homeland.

I listened to most of this book while walking (through cities, not the hills unfortunately, but still), and I was pretty angry most of the time. Shehadeh writes with clarity and force about the injustice of the Israeli occupation--an injustice performed not only on the Palestinian people, but on the land itself, which is (of course) inextricably entwined with Palestinian life. Also, out of everything I’ve read from Palestinian authors, I think Palestinian Walks best shows the frustration and futility of trying to work within a legal system set up to disenfranchise you, particularly in the chapter entitled “The Albina Case.” Man, that was infuriating, even if the procedural aspects got a bit dry. I also loved the closing chapter, where he happens upon a settler and, while the encounter is tense, it’s ultimately fruitful for both his and the settler’s understanding of their relationship to the land and each other. 4 out of 5 sarhat.