Reviews

Review: Erasing the borders in "A Map of Home"

Robin Yassin-Kassab 31 August 2009


Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home is a beautifully achieved coming of age novel which follows a clever girl through a war, a domestic battlefield, and repeated forced migrations. For our heroine, these events are aspects of normal everyday life (because everything’s normal when it happens to you), like school, friends, family and shopping. Robin Yassin-Kassab reviews for The Electronic Intifada. 

Book review: "Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide"

Raymond Deane 27 July 2009


In pondering “a different kind of future,” author Ben White in his new book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide stresses that there is no point in “trying to ‘undo’ things that cannot be undone.” He castigates rhetoric about a “two-state solution” or demands that Palestinians should “compromise,” as if the solution could bypass the dissolution of Israeli apartheid. Raymond Deane reviews for The Electronic Intifada. 

Book review: Lebanon's political posters as sites of struggle

Hicham Safieddine 6 July 2009


The power of posters, as not merely symbolic weapons but also sites of hegemonic struggle during Lebanon’s civil war, is a central theme of Zeina Maasri’s new book Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War. A mix of text and image, the book is a rich and visually engaging work that tackles a dimension of war long-neglected by Lebanese historians. Hicham Safieddine reviews for The Electronic Intifada. 

Book review: Resurrecting "America's Defense Line"

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad 1 May 2009


In his new book, America’s Defense Line: the Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government, tenacious analyst Grant F. Smith focuses on an important aspect of the Israel lobby’s origins that has implications for how it operates today. Muhammad Idrees Ahmad reviews for The Electronic Intifada. 

Film review: Kindness as vengeance in "Heart of Jenin"

Maureen Clare Murphy 23 April 2009


After his young son Ahmad was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the Jenin refugee camp in 2005, Ismail Khatib was propositioned by the Israeli doctor treating his son: would Ismail wish that his son Ahmad’s organs be donated to children (in Israel) who needed them? The Electronic Intifada’s Maureen Clare Murphy reviews Heart of Jenin, a documentary about the Khatib family’s experience. 

Film review: Musical resistance in "Telling Strings"

Maymanah Farhat 20 April 2009


Swiss filmmaker Anne-Marie Haller’s 60-minute documentary Telling Strings provides a rare look into the profound workings of a Palestinian family of musicians. Initially, the film appears unassuming yet its powerful content, stunning cinematography and informing moments make it a welcomed addition to a long list of documentaries on Palestine. Maymanah Farhat reviews for The Electronic Intifada. 

Book review: Avraham Burg and the denying of denial

Raymond Deane 23 February 2009


The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes claims that the Shoah (the Nazi holocaust) has been “nationalized” and “privatized” and seeks to reclaim its memory for a universalist vision. Only thus, claims author Avraham Burg, can Israelis be rescued from their obsession with spurious victimhood, and Hitler finally be defeated. Raymond Deane reviews for The Electronic Intifada 

Film review: "Waltz with Bashir"

Naira Antoun 19 February 2009


To say that Palestinians are absent in Waltz with Bashir, to say that it is a film that deals not with Palestinians but with Israelis who served in Lebanon, only barely begins to describe the violence that this film commits against Palestinians. There is nothing interesting or new in the depiction of Palestinians — they have no names, they don’t speak, they are anonymous. But they are not simply faceless victims. Instead, the victims in the story that Waltz with Bashir tells are Israeli soldiers. Naira Antoun reviews the film for The Electronic Intifada. 

Book review: Un-erasing the erasure of Palestine

Gabriel Ash 11 February 2009


I read Jonathan Cook’s new book Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s experiments in human despair before Israel committed its most recent massacres in Gaza. Israel’s massive disregard for Palestinian life and the clearly deliberate destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure shocked many poorly informed observers, but few of those acquainted with the knowledge contained in this book would have been taken by surprise. Gabriel Ash reviews for The Electronic Intifada.