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ePALESTINE NOTES
ePalestine.ps - Sam Bahour

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News & opinions from a Palestinian-American
living & working in Ramallah/Al-Bireh, Palestine

Writings


An American Evangelical Christian Man’s Awakening to Palestine [Book Review]

An American Evangelical Christian Man’s Awakening to Palestine [Book Review]

by | July 6, 2022 | Books, Writings

The author of this memoir, Glory to God in the Lowest: Journey to an Unholy Land, Rev. Don Wagner, is a longtime friend. Back in the day, Rev. Wagner was based in Chicago, Illinois and I was in Youngstown, Ohio. We both were engaged in the same struggle for Palestine. Subsequently, when I relocated to Palestine, I would speak to the various eyewitness delegations he led to the Holy Land, or what he prefers to call the “unholy land” — which, he writes, “serves as a place of injustice that awaits the arc of the moral universe bending to usher in justice, peace, and reconciliation.”


Palestinians never stop conceding, for nothing in return [Book Review]

Palestinians never stop conceding, for nothing in return [Book Review]

by | June 30, 2022 | Books, Writings

Jerome M. Segal’s book has one main goal, which is to highlight the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence as a lost inflection point: a rare, pivotal moment that the US, Israel, and even the Palestinian leadership who issued it, could have seized (but did not) to advance Palestinian statehood and peace between Palestinians and Israelis. “If it seems odd that a Jew should offer his thoughts on how Palestinians can be successful in their struggle, let me only add that the struggle for an independent Palestinian state is also the struggle for a humane and safe Israel, and that there can be no Judaism without a commitment to Justice.”


Israel’s linguistic acrobatics [Book Review]

Israel’s linguistic acrobatics [Book Review]

by | June 28, 2022 | Books, Writings

I am careful about recommending books. Everyone’s time is precious. My commending Alex McDonald’s How I Learned to Speak Israel: An American’s Guide to a Foreign Policy Language, and its sequel, When They Speak Israel: A Guide to Clarity In Conversations About Israel to your attention in a single review, then, means I found them to be beyond impressive. McDonald writes, “Language has consequences.” Then, as Mr. McDonald skillfully dissects the discourse on Israel and Palestine, that statement begins to seem wildly understated. McDonald’s analysis explains in detail how Israel and the West have used language, discourse, and narrative framing to camouflage a never-ending stream of the dispossession of Palestinians, including institutionalized discrimination, human rights abuses, military occupation, and so much more.


Foreign Perceptions of the United States under Donald Trump [Recommended]

Foreign Perceptions of the United States under Donald Trump [Recommended]

by | September 27, 2021 | Books, Writings

Featuring a chapter by Sam. “President Donald Trump’s term in office significantly affected the way the United States is seen by other nations in the international setting. This book presents 18 case studies of the effect of Trump policies and behavior on the U.S. standing abroad, and examines the long-term consequences of these effects.” A big hats off to Professor Gregory Mahler, Research Professor of Politics and Academic Dean Emeritus at Earlham College, as well as to all the distinguished fellow contributors from around the world.