Sleeping on a Wire
Conversations with Palestinians in Israel
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
Israel: Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel.
In the summer of 1991 David Grossman set out on a journey into the world of Arab citizens of his country. Sleeping on a Wire is an account of what he found. It is about men and women fighting to find a voice, to pick out the pulse of their own identity in a land that doesn't seem to be theirs. He has not written about open conflict. Rather it is a story of ferment beneath the surface, and an intensifying bitterness which can only exacerbate the troubles of the Middle East.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What sets this book apart from others about the Palestinians are the harsh questions Israeli journalist-novelist Grossman asks and the blunt answers he elicits. Reproducing his conversations with Israeli Arabs from all walks of life, he offers readers a rare opportunity to hear the voices of Palestinians criticizing their own society. Some of the issues addressed: Why is it that the Arabs in Israel have produced little of lasting cultural significance? Why has the Jewish state's attitude of rejection virtually paralyzed the Arab minority? To what extent are the Arabs themselves responsible for the state of affairs in the Arab-Jew interface? Grossman is sympathetic to the Arabs of Israel, to their exclusion from the mainstream and their daily hardships, particularly at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force. At the end of his thought-provoking work, Grossman ( The Yellow Wind ) warns that Israel, by its callous treatment of one-sixth of its population, is ``creating for itself the enemy it will run up against after its other enemies have made their peace with it.''
