For decades, from his perch safely high atop his ivory tower at Columbia, Edward Said has been making pronouncements about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Far from balanced, Said begins as his point of departure that Israel is illegitimate and has no right to exist. As such, whenever any Palestinian living on the West Bank suggests some form of compromise, Said attacks them viscerally as traitors. Indeed, Said often seems to be willing to let Palestinians on the West Bank live in misery rather than accepting a compromise that might bring peace to both people.

While Said speaks of his demand for Israel?s destruction through a series of clever code words. For example, he claims that any peace would require Israel, not the new Palestinian state created by a peace agreement, to absorb 4 million Arabs. Far from stupid, Said knows that such ideas would destroy the Jewish State, but that, again, is his goal. Said?s idea of peace involves the death or removal of every Jew from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Readers looking to understand this conflict should look elsewhere.

Some critics have chosen to question what Edward Said means by 'real peace' and claim that, in truth, he seeks the destruction of Israel. No one who reads this book can be left in any doubt as to what he believes are the conditions necessary for a just and lasting peace.

For decades Edward Said has been a powerful advocate of a two-state solution, preserving the state of Israel within its pre 1967 borders. In this book he again and again condemns those who continue to argue for the elimination of the state of Israel and urges his fellow Arabs to accept the reality of the Jewish state. Indeed, he even goes as far as to brand those who refuse to have any dialogue with Israelis as racist. Anyone who was under the slightest illusion that Said is in any way making a case that even approximates to the destruction of Israel can be left in no doubt by the articles republished in his latest book.

Said argues very powerfully that the Israelis must recognise the wrong that has been done to the Palestinians, and that those who have been forced from their homes at gunpoint, dispossessed, their houses seized or bulldozed should either be permitted to return to their homes or should be compensated (not that all should have an automatic right or return). The Jews have been very vociferous in their campaign to see compensation paid to Jews for losses and suffering inflicted by the Nazis. Why then should they refuse to compensate those who have been dispossessed by Israel, the victims' victims, the Palestinians whose only crime was to live in Palestine?

Although some may think it is absurd to allow the native inhabitants of the land of Palestine the right to return to the land from which they have been expelled over the past fifty years, it is hard for Jews and their supporters to maintain such a position. After all, the principal of the Jewish Right of Return - which says that the land of Israel belong to Jews, wherever they live and that all Jews have an automatic right to 'return' - is the very cornerstone upon which the state of Israel was founded..

Said makes clear the historical context in which the dispute over Jerusalem must be seen. Israel has illegally occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. Its annexation is not recognised by any country in the world and the United Nations has consistently resolved that Israel must withdraw from all illegally occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, which has an overwhelmingly Arab population. The fact that Jews have lived their throughout history has no bearing on matters: Jews have also lived in a great many cities for a great many centuries - are we to allow Israel to annex any city with an ancient Jewish presence?

Then, of course, there is violence. Said's very simple point, which has been amply borne out by recent events in Israel and Palestine, is that if there is to be any hope for a lasting peace it must be founded upon a genuine settlement of the conflict, not some phony 'peace deal' which amounts to little more than formalising the Israeli dispossession of the native population. This is not threatening anyone but rather making plain the simple idea that peace must be made and not taken for granted. Peace must be based on mutual respect and an agreement reached between two parties treating each other as equals, something which Israel has consistently refused to do. (for example, the Palestinians are repeatedly required to 'recognise' Israel and guarantee the security not only of Israelis but also illegal Jewish settlers, but Israel refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Palestinians claim to statehood and refuses to guarantee the security of Palestinians).

Edward Said's book is a powerful, thoughtful statement from a committed Palestinian nationalist and highly respected academic. I do not agree with all he says but, nevertheless, I found the book thought provoking and engaging.

...These essays are all excellent, and Said is one of the few people addressing the problems of the Israel/Palestine issue ... The essay about Said's visit with his son in Palestine I found particularly good. It is quite different in tone from the rest of the essays. However, it gives a very real and vivid picture ofwhat daily life is like in Palestine, and thus, why adressing the 'real' issues is so imperative.

I think the best way to understand Said is to see him as an admirer of culture, especially western literature, but an uneasy admirer. Said was not born in one of the European capitols but in Egypt and so he grew up well aware of the east/west conflict & nowhere was that conflict more apparent than in the Palestine and Israel situation. Perhaps his own background and growing involvement in Middle Eastern affairs led him to begin reading the classic western texts in a more critical way than those that came before him and from western backgrounds. As an easterner Said in his cultural studies was therefore especially attuned to the way the east was representated in the west. Judging by his 1978 study Orientalism he was appalled at what he found.
There were schools of criticism that dealt with economic realities and historic realites before Said but only a few studies had concentrated on racial bias as a determining factor in cultural production(ie:Benita Parry's 1972 Delusions and Discoveries). Saids approach was groundbreaking and it brought to cultural studies a very timely and responsive social relevance. No one can really ignore the impact that Orientalism had. Even though the ideas in the book were all in circulation before Saids book Orientalism brought a new intensity and immediacy to them. To Said cultural artifacts can never be divorced from their political context and so his work often resituates each work he discusses within the political situation from which it arose. This is often very interesting but not without considerable controversy because while Said can be quite a profound thinker he cann also be a highly speculative one as well. Many of his arguments hinge on only partially convincing evidence and so to follow him is sometimes more an act of faith than one of reason.

In this carefully selected anthology of Said's work spanning more than three decades, pieces written at different times and from distinct priorities, here held together, become illuminating commentaries upon each other. The Reader embodies Said's own insistence upon the struggle to maintain an inspired connection between intellectual concerns and political consciousness. However, one problem with this book is the evidence of lax proofreading. We are confronted with too many typographical errors in a text that should have received better technical attention before Vintage took it to print.

Edward Said, the renowned literary & cultural critic & passionately engaged intellectual, is one of our era's most formidable, provocative, & important thinkers. For more than three decades, his books, which include Culture & Imperialism, Peace & Its Discontents, & the seminal study Orientalism, have influenced not only our worldview but the very terms of public discourse. The Edward Said Reader includes key sections from all of Said's books, from the ground-breaking 1966 study of Joseph Conrad to his new memoir, Out of Place. Whether he is writing of Zionism or Palestinian self-determination, Jane Austen or Yeats, music or the media, Said's uncompromising intelligence casts urgent light on every subject he undertakes. The Edward Said Reader will prove a joy to the general reader & an indispensable resource for scholars of politics, history, literature, & cultural studies: in short, of all those fields that his work has influenced and, in many cases, transformed. "Said is a brilliant & unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete & political activist.... [He] challenges & stimulates our thinking in every area." --Washington Post Book World. "No one studying the relations between the metropolitan West & the decolonizing world can ignore Mr. Said's work

It is easy enough for a celebrity columnist to throw together his entire output of op-eds and other short pieces over 25 years, label them 'essays' and present the results as a consistent narrative, but for this type of enterprise to succeed the author needs to exercise rigorous control over the quality of the output. Said has not done this, and thus has produced an incompetent, mean-spirited and frequently abusive collection.

The consistent theme running through the book is the cliche that the troubles of the world may be attributed to the United States and Israel. In the interests of maligning the world's leading democracy, there is no tyrant so base that Said will fail to enter a plea of mitigation for him. Said even applies his balm to Saddam Hussein, whom he describes - in a sort of obligatory throat-clearing - as 'deeply unattractive ... has suppressed personal freedoms' (you don't say), but cannot avoid blaming the United States for. Apparently, Saddam is 'neither mad nor ... an unlikely figure to emerge out of the desolation that has characterized recent Arab history.' And who is responsible for the desolation? Well, here comes the 'radical chic' catechism of the supposed iniquities (including, in reality, many noble and humanitarian acts, such as the defeat of a murderous thugocracy in Grenada and the institution of free elections there) of the US, faithfully trotted out. This type of thing is both a feeble substitute for serious political analysis and a deeply patronising approach to the non-western world. Contrary to Said's sly anti-Arab insinuations, the rulers of Iraq, Iran, Syria and the other nightmare states are free agents perfectly capable of making their own independent decisions; unfortunately, unlike the statesmen of the US, Europe and Israel, they exercise their choice to persecute and execute their political opponents, oppress women and homosexuals, and foment terrorism.

If the political analysis of the book is weak, the style is turbid and tendentious. Said appears to be insecure about his own intellectual status, because he repeats the word 'intellectual' like a mantra and expounds his views not through exegesis but by abuse. He hurls imprecations at, among others, an astute journalist, Thomas Friedman, and an outstanding Middle East scholar, Fouad Ajami, as 'belong[ing] to the genre of celebrities'. ... In truth, Said's political writings in this book are little more than an attitude furiously held to: before you start reading, you know with complete certainty what view he will enunciate. One dispiriting example will suffice. Rather than engage in a serious critique of, or display a proper moral revulsion at, terrorist violence, Said propounds the - if you will excuse the metaphor - exploded notion of a countervailing 'state violence' that dwarfs 'private violence'. I can recommend as a succinct and eloquent refutation of this undergraduate notion Conor Cruise O'Brien's 1978 book _Herod: Reflections on Political Violence_. The violence (let us purposely call it 'force', to denote its legitimacy) of the democratic state may be applied imprudently or even immorally on occasion, but it is open, accountable, and - by the nature of the democratic process - limited in scope and target. The violence of the terrorist is indiscriminate.... Said doesn't get this, but the critical reader will - and will therefore find a better book than this to occupy him.

It is remarkable how relevant these essays seem still, even as they lead up to the era of the Oslo process, in the frozen present since 1967, or 1948. Sorting out the myths of the Arab-Israeli conflict can be a full-time job, and that's the problem. Said's witnessing of the issues since 1967 has always been one component of the unfolding tragedy. The Arab-Israeli conflict sometimes seems in a time warp, and the relevance of these essays endures, whatever one's perspective. Said's acerbic commentary seems to hover over the decades, and his personal account, to start the book, is a permanent record of those who endured the juggernaut.

Thank God for Said. He explains so eloquently the Palestinian cause in a way we never hear from the maintream media. This collection of essays, though 400 pages, hangs together very well.

There seems no reason to me that his analysis should include only the suffering of the Palestinians and not the Jews. That being said, Jewish suffering under the British and the Arabs is well-covered, and Said does a service to readers to present this viewpoint.

Its one-sidedness, in all probability, is for expediency's sake since a balance of injustices would result in -- well, the same decion the UN reached on Nov 47. The reader will have to decide if organized zionism or 11 oil-producing arab nations held the cards during that vote. If sympathy after the holocaust were that high, why was the vote so close the first time, and why was Jewish immigration to Israel either limited or stopped? The British, as always, only cared about their empire, and Said avoids this point in exaggerating Jewish international connections without exploring the power that OPEC oil yielded.

Said also fails to sufficiently cover the injustices which the Palestinians suffered at the hands of agressive and underhanded Arab governments. Jordan, Egypt and Syria all used the Palestinians to fight a war which the Palestinians did not care about, and then expoited the refuge crisis for their political gains. Finally, as Said points out, the Camp Daivid accord put the question of the refugees on a seering back-burner. Yet this should fall on Egypt's shoulders as well, should it not?

I didn't realise before I read this that the country now called 'Israel' is in fact Palestine, and that it was taken over and renamed after the second world war. I suppose pieces of territory are always being occupied and peoples are always being turfed off their land, like what happened to the poor Palestinians. What this book suggests, however, is that, thesee things come and go, and that maybe in 50 years or so, Palestine will revert back to its proper people. Mr Said is obviously a very passionate and wise man.

Does the fact that I am an Israeli Jew living in Israel mean that I should reject this book ? Does the fact that I think the book is crucially important mean that I am "taking sides" ?
I believe otherwise. I found this book to be very important, as it is an account of a Palestinian - an admittedly interested party in the conflict. Said knows about the Jews and Zionism much more than most Israeli Jews know about the Palestinians. But of course - Said is never "objective" - he himself is a refugee, who describes the side of Zionism as he and many others like him experienced.
Said shows surprising understanding of Zionism - he even says that one cannot compare the situation in Israel to that which existed in South Africa. He says that things here are more complicated. Said acknowledges the achievements of Zionism as far as Jews are concerned, another surprise.
I felt a deep passion for peace and compromise in this book - I believe that the author accepts the reality of a Jewish state in Israel. However, Said points out that no such peace can be achieved as long as Palestinian dreams are constantly shattered or ignored.
There are two sides to this story - I am on one and Said is on the other. Still, this book is important because it acknowledges the existance of two sides, and thus provides a road to conciliation that is so important to all of us.
I think every Jew and every Paelstinian should read this book, and so should evreybody with a serious interest in our troubled piece of land.

Prior to September 11, most Americans knew (or cared) little about Afghani politics, but today it seems imperative for us to learn all we can about the history, culture, and politics of this exotic but troubled nation. In *Unholy Wars*, reporter John Cooley has provided a wealth of information about Afghanistan and its geopolitical importance over the past quarter-century, including the 1979 Soviet invasion, the U.S.-supported campaign by the *mujahedin* to expel the Soviets, and the subsequent transformation of the most militant *mujahedin* into the Al-Qaida terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden.

Cooley succeeds in providing an admirably detailed account of the origin of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, including excerpts from the now-infamous 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski published in a French publication in which he boasted about having entrapped the Soviets into invading so that they would experience their own Viet Nam-type military disaster. The involvement of the CIA, along with Pakistan's ISI, in supporting and supplying the *mujahedin* is laid out clearly, and Cooley even devotes a chapter to the significance of the opium trade as a source of funding for Islamist armies both during and after the campaign against the Soviets.

Other chapters discuss how the multi-national Islamist "freedom fighters" dispersed after 1989 to spread their gospel of militant Islam and their terrorist tactics to Egypt, Algeria, Chechenya, the Philippines, and ultimately, the United States. The book was completed prior to the events of September 11, 2001, but the material dealing with previous Al-Qaida attacks in the U.S., including the first bombing of the World Trade Center, is vital reading for people interested in historical background to the current crisis.

The main problem with this book is that whereas Cooley presents a veritable blizzard of "facts," there is very little accompanying analysis. The presentation reads like a first draft, a mass of semi-digested material in dire need of editing and refining. Particularly in the chapters pertaining to recent terrorist activities in nations outside of Afghanistan, the endless parade of names, dates, places, factions and parties will make even the most resolute reader's head spin.

Overall, the book seems to have been thrown together way too quickly, as evidenced by an appalling lack of careful proofreading or fact-checking. Examples of gaffes that should never have made it to the final galleys include the claim that California's Chico State University is located in Nevada, the declaration that the time period between 1956 and 1970 constituted 24 years, and a reference to the "two 110-foot towers" of the World Trade Center. Whoops! Aside from the obvious sloppiness evidenced here, the inclusion of these kinds of careless errors cannot help but cast doubt on the overall accuracy of Cooley's reporting in this book.

Given that so far there is but a handful of books in English that provide historical background pertaining to Al Qaida and international terrorism generally, I would say that Unholy Wars is definitely worth reading. We can only hope, however, that a more analytical and carefully written work on these subjects will emerge soon.

In this impressively detailed and exhaustively documented book, John K. Cooley gets to the roots of the international terrorist organizations that are striking fear and violence into the world’s populations. Beginning with surprising revelations about U.S. and Soviet actions in Afghanistan during the Cold War, Cooley traces the origins of today’s terror back to the West’s strategy of creating an army of fanatical Muslim warriors to mire the USSR in its own Vietnam. While that plan was successful, it gave birth to the terrorist violence we face today, and Cooley deftly explains how. (...) strongly recommend this book to all readers for the historic context lacking in mainstream media coverage of the war on terrorism.

Former President Jimmy Carter was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize for his Middle East peace efforts. Yet Carter's Central Asian policies were directly responsible for the spawning of international terrorism as we know it now. On Juy 3, 1979, Carter, acting on the recommendation of his National Security Advisor, cold-warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski, began clandestinely supporting Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan. Carter may rue this now. But at the time, he believed Afghani Islamist rebels were simply fellow Believers denied their religious freedom by the "godless" Marxist government in Kabul. Brzezinski knew better. But as he stated in a 1998 interview: "This secret operation was an excellent idea. Its effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap." When the Soviet Army entered Afghanistan in late December 1979, Brzezinski gloated, "Now we can give the USSR its own Vietnam War!" Brzezinski and Carter's CIA Director Adm. Stansfield Turner freely acknowledged that "possible adverse consequences of the anti-communist alliance with Afghan Islamists (and shortly afterward with their radical Muslim allies around the world) -- the growth of a new international terrorist movement and global outreach of Central Asian drug-trafficking -- did not weigh heavily, if at all" in their calculations. Brzezinski, asked later whether he regretted arming and training future terrorists, retorted: "What was more important in world history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet empire? A few over-excited Islamists, or the liberation of eastern Europe?" Brzezinski's native Poland was, of course, in eastern Europe... Carter encouraged Islamist incursions into the Central Asian republics of the USSR, ostensibly to foment religious rebellion in those secular Islamic states. As Brzezinski admitted, the US intended to "build bridges to states having a strong Muslim identity." However, the insurgents frequently committed small-scale terrorist acts by planting bombs in crowded markets, bus depots, apartment and government buildings, and through kidnappings and executions. Carter's sincere but misguided religious naivety regarding Islamism was rewarded with the Iranian hostage crisis which ended his chances of a second term.
The Reagan regime continued Carter's Central Asian policy, and began to deploy an army of Muslim zealots from geographically strategic Pakistan and wealthy Saudi Arabia. Jihadists from every corner of the Muslim world were recruited and trained by the CIA and US military Special Forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even at US military bases. Reagan vastly increased funding of mujahedin "holy warriors" who established their own facilities -- later to become terrorist training camps -- in Afghanistan. There, exiled Saudi billionaire Usama bin Laden started his ascent from mujahed commander to international terrorist mastermind. Following the death of Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev implored the UN to intervene and help negociate an end to the Soviet Afghan quagmire. At this, Reagan responded with his infamous exhortation to the mujahedin "Declare holy jihad and go for the victory!" After the Soviet withdrawal, the government of Afghanistan collapsed. The various mujahedin factions began to fight amongst themselves for political supremacy, territory, and opium. The fundamentalist Wahabist Taliban emerged victorious. The so-called northern alliance was (and still is) a loose coalition of warlords and bandits with the motive of personal power, tribal bigotry, and drug profits for its opposition to the Saudi-sponsored Taliban. Moscow regarded the Northern Alliance as the sole barrier between Wahabist extremism and the vulnerable bordering Central Asian states. Russia committed ongoing support to the northern forces, whose leader was, ironically, one of the most notorious CIA-trained rebel operatives during the Soviet Afghan War.
Normally, I am not impressed by right-of-center interpretations of history, because they so frequently attempt to absolve the US of responsibility for disasterous policy. But Cooley has written an honest, unbiased account of the birth and rise of a world-threatening evil. And "Unholy Wars" does not spare recriminations toward any country whose actions contributed to the empowerment of international terrorism. It is a frighteningly eye-opening and timely book. All I can say is, read it now!

It was unlucky for Edward Said's long-awaited memoir to coincide with the expose by Justus Reid Wiener, writing in Commentary (9/99), on Said's past representations of his early life. The resultant controversy, unavoidably, has been as much about what his book is about, as well as what it is not about.

There is nothing wrong with Said's ability to conjure up a sense of distant youth or to evocatively discourse on his quickly-acquired sense of alienation. He discusses being 'invented', a post-modernism that grates with repeated use, but which is deployed fruifully here to conjure up a sense of powerlessness and bewilderment that can accompany childhood. His emphatic and repetitive emphasis on personal victimhood will not be to everyone's taste, but it has at least the ring of authenticity.

Out of Place has been widely (though scarcely universally) praised by a host of literary and journalistic notables. Indeed, there are some highly evocative pasages, of a Proustian kind, intent on recapturing the tang and smell of distant times and places. As to the account's factual reliability, one cannot take issue with it, if only because it tallies in all important respects with the detail unearthed by Wiener.

Why, then a controversy? Wiener, alleges that, prior to Out of Place, Said deliberately misrepresented his past in order that his public biography fit the idealised form of a Palestinian forcibly dispossessed of his patrimony in December 1947. In fact, says Wiener, Said was actually raised in Cairo and had departed a temporary stay in Jerusalem long before Palestinians evacuated Jerusalem in April-May 1948. Now Said admits as much; importantly, however, not in so many words. Nor do Said's defenders, who seem to recognise no contradiction in insisting that Said has been smeared by an account of his life that in fact tallies with the one Said himself has now put before the public.

Said makes no effort in Out of Place to clear up the swath of discrepancies between the new, authorised version and the competing ones he offered over the years. As these discrepancies are more than merely incidental, it is inevitable that Said has been, and will continue to be, scrutinised on the grounds of intellectual honesty. Thus the resultant fervour of his defenders, who insist on viewing the Wiener exercise as an intellectual mugging by a partisan Zionist.

Salman Rushdie has been particularly virulent on this score. His attack on Wiener, of an indirect McCarthyist kind aimed at slurring the institution that employs him, is unworthy of someone who might be expected to exhibit special sensitivity to innuendo aimed at character assassination.

It is true that raised in Palestine or not, Said's Palestinian credentials are clear, even if earlier misrepresentations as to his early life point to an unsavoury agenda of assumed victimology. In other words, it would mean that it was not enough to be born in Jerusalem to a largely Palestinian family and to have departed after a long visit there as the place descended into chaos; it was necessary to have lived there throughout early life and to have been driven out by those evil Zionists.

Rushdie and others have batted vigorously for Said, believing him to be a exponent of enlightenment and rationalism where the Arab-Israeli conflict is concerned. If only it were true.

Said formerly gentrified the PLO. He opposes it now that it has embraced negotiations with Israel. Nor is this just a matter of specifics. Said condemns any solution that leaves Israel intact, just as he opposes Israeli-Palestinian dialogue as collaboration with an enemy he has seen fit to liken, with boundless moral relativism, to Nazi Germany. He has intellectually winked at so-called 'collaborator killings'.

It is possible, at the end of his memoir, to empathise with the experience of Palestinian refugees. It is harder to excuse Said's 'invention', if I might for once use the word, both personal and political.

There are three interesting aspects of this book. The first is the re-creation of the life and lifestyle of the Palestinian, make that Arab bourgeoise-a subject that even its own members try to dodge in their discussion of Arab issues. The second is the life of dysfunctional little Edward in his very dysfunctional family with his totally off-the-wall parents. Finally, is the story of how Said's identity as a man and as a critic emerged from that background. Two points should be made: One is the way he was always characterized by the-powers-that-be in his school as "dishonest" or "ingenuous" and usually for no real or tangible reason. As the student with the highest marks in his American boarding school, he was denied the title of Valevictorian for some unspecified flaws in his character. The second point is that because of these experiences, Said developed an accute sense of how people are classified, objectified, and placed into "boxes" by hegimonic systems. This is perhaps what is most revealing about this book: how character and childhood experiences form the general outlook of a human being and how a human being who gets to be a critic can develop these ideas in the most sophisticated of manners and then bring them in or inflict them on the world. I feel sorry for Said the child but wonder what his fate would have been if her were in more ordinary socioeconomic circumstances, let us say, American Middle Class. I symptathize with his character predictiments, and whatever flaws he has in that realm are no worse than those of others in academia.

In one section of the book, he describes his impressions of an American school after being in a British one. His way of looking at students and society in an American school are dead on accurate and dead on fatal. I liked that part of the book the most. I wish he would write a whole book of criticism on the society and system of an American high school.

Magical journey trough personal & historical "time column" arousing all senses as if you are present in this intimate memoir.
It's especially appealing to those who share Mr. Edward the seines of the Middle East.
Simply great... thank you Mr. Edward for sharing with us your vibrant life, hopping you will triumph your illness.

Said is an intelligent man who had read widely in the literature related to what he calls "Orientalism." He asks an excellent question here: "Can one divide human reality into clearly different cultures, histories, traditions, societies, and even races, and survive the consequences humanly?" Reviewing Western attitudes toward the Arab / Muslim world, as reflected in literature and scholarship, could be a worthwhile project. I don't doubt that imperial Europe developed a definite superiority complex, and often justified it in racist terms. No doubt traces of that attitude, along with other things, contribute to Western ideas about Islam to this day.

But I have not found this book a pleasant or terribly enlightening reading experience so far. This for eight reasons:

(1) Much of it is poorly written. Said is overly fond of abstract nouns.

(2) Said's argument is often too many steps removed from reality for my taste. It seems when he asks about a Westerner's opinion about the "Orient," the last question he asks is, "Is it true?" That is the first question I want asked, but Said admits he is "uninterested" in the reality of which "Orientalist" ideas are meant to be the reflection. I feel trapped in the Looking Glass.

(3) Said attacks Westerners for overgeneralizing about Arabs; but does the same with his target groups. (Though he does admit good qualities in some of his victims.)

(4) It seems to me Said's generalizations largely derive from selective sampling. I have lived most of my adult life in Asia, and study Asian religions and cultures for a living. It seems to me many scholars and missionaries in particular I am familiar with, from the colonial period, disprove Said's caricature.

(5) Said makes use of a "hermeneutics of suspicion" in reading writers he does not like, such as Bernard Lewis. If his chosen victim won't come right out and spout racists slogans (yet persists in supposing liberal democracy superior to tyranny!) Said "reads between the lines" to deduce the racism he imagines. "Lewis everywhere restrains himself from making such inflammatory statements." but Said knows what he's thinking: Muslims are "ruled by passions, instincts, and mass hatreds." Lewis denies Said's guesses, but the heurmeutics of suspicion does not, apparently, include suspicion of one's own cleverness, or a willingness to admit error. (See the Afterword.)

(6) It seems to me Said does not sufficiently appreciate the importance of world views. During the periods he discusses, the West was in intellectual uproar among conflicting ideas: that life was a bloody struggle (between classes or races) for existence on the one side, and that all peoples were created in the image of God on the other. It seems to me Said has a responsibility to consider how such conflicting notions affect ideas of the "other." (As well, of course, in the case of Islam.) But Said admits to a lack of interest in such questions.

(7) Said never seems to face squarely the question, "Could rule by a foreign liberal democracy be in some cases, preferable to rule by the most likely 'native' alternative?" He seems to assumes that the answer is "no," and that anyone who thinks otherwise is actuated by self-deception and racism. But having lived in a Hong Kong on the verge of being handed back to China, I can say the answer is not always so obviously "no" to the "natives" themselves. This is but one instance of Said's tendency to beg the question -- to ask colonialists and apologists for Western culture, in effect, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" Some systems are preferable to others, but there is a quota of power within every system, as Burke put it, and people can pursue power for a variety of reasons, some honorable. While imperialism may be discredited, it seems to me a disservice to truth to allow such terms as "orientalism" to obscure the difference between people who acted for good or evil under earlier systems. The deeper moral issues remain constant, and should not be obscured by simplistic talk of "interests."

(8) Said takes himself too seriously, and shows little sense of humor.

Ultimately, I have the same problem with Said as with Marx. There is no doubt about the breadth of their intelligence or learning. But it seems to me their sympathies are too narrow, and their thinking a bit cramped. This book has been influential, and therefore may be worth reading. There are also parts of it that are inherently interesting. But afterwards, go elsewhere for morally responsible thinking that is true to the complexity of life, and for fresh air.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

Public opinion has gone in and out like the tides on Said's book since I first read it some six odd years ago. It has been said that the primal characteristic of a truly enlightened mind is its ability to entertain two seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time; in that context I find it odd that people can be so proud of their total discrediting of Said's work in favor of the preeminent and (seemingly) diametrically opposed Bernard Lewis. It is obvious to me that both men have something provocative to teach us about Europe and America's relationship with the Middle East (as it has been over the centuries and is reflected in culture and scholarship), and both need to be heard in that context.

It is not often that a brilliantly, exhaustively researched book on an alternatingly controversial and trivialized subject can engender an emotional response of the magnitude with which this work does--which usually means that it is worth reading. In documenting the psychological architecture of the western mind and its perspective on the East--or the "Orient"--he deconstructs it. The idea that it exists deconstructs it by nature; before reading this book you will swear that most of what we know of the Arabian East is the absolute truth, without even being aware that it's been either romanticized into impotence or isn't much of anything complimentary, let alone influential.

I rate ORIENTALISM, for its effect on our psyche as Americans alone (regardless of race or assumed political leanings), as one of the most important books written in the last decades of the 20th century. The world looks the way it does not because of natural law, like the reasons why the Sahara has become a desert--or at least not by the natural laws we have imagined. Edward Said, regardless of the possibility of biases coming through his scholarship, regardless of the political realities he left out of his thesis, shows this in remarkable fashion to people--like myself--who never considered this fact's existence (let alone its influence on my perceptions of the Middle East in all their forms).

Be mature enough to accept that it is not the only educated opinion or set of facts about our complex world, and this book will be a great read and teach a great deal. I would suggest triangulating ORIENTALISM with Karen Armstrong's HOLY WAR and Moseddeq Ahmed's WAR ON FREEDOM, for a truly eye-opening experience of the Western psyche regarding the East.

Orientalism is a masterpiece of comparative literature studies and deconstruction, published in 1978 it is arguably Said's most rigorous piece but undoubtedly his most influential. This is a examination of the academic discipline of Oriental Studies, which has a long history most of the European universities. Oriental Studies is a pastiche areas of study which include philology, linguistics, ethnography, and the interpretation of culture through the discovery, recovery, compilation, and translation of Oriental texts. Said makes it clear that he is not breaking new ground. Said limits Orientalism on how English, French, and American scholars have approached the Arab societies of North Africa and the Middle East. Although at times he refers to other periods - ranging as far back as the Greeks, the time period he covers is more limited than the scholarly field really extend. Said stays within the confines of the late eighteenth century to the present, whereas European scholarship on the Orient dates back to the High Middle Ages. Within his time frame, however, Said extends his examination beyond the works of recognized Orientalist academics to take in literature, journalism, travel books, and religious and philosophical studies to produce a broadly historical and anthropological perspective incorporating Foucaultian notions of "Discourse" and Gramscian notions of "Inventories".

His book makes three major claims. Firstly, that Orientalism, although purporting to be an objective, disinterested, and rather esoteric field, in fact functioned to serve political ends. Next, his second claim is that Orientalism helped define a European (mainly English and French) self-image. Lastly, Said argues that Orientalism has produced a false description of Arabs and Islamic culture. Whether you agree with him or not, feel that he may have misappropriated Foucault or feel like I do that what he is putting out is not comprehensive enough therefore is suspect, the point is moot. What is important is that Said has opened up a whole new area of discussion. The book has brought the author a sense of academic place and the author has placed a sense of notoriety on the subject. Trapped in what Foucault has described as an "Authorial Function" of book and author, author and book, the book is a reawakening and sin to overlook.

Miguel Llora

By now more than a little dated, this collection bears a title that makes sense only ironically. The "victims" in question are the fancifully named "Palestinians," a pseudo-ethnicity that conveniently came into existence with the founding of the state of Israel. To be sure, the people now being identified by this name are poor, enjoy few political rights or privileges, and live in often appalling conditions. But their victimhood stems from two major--and consistently dissimulated--causes: first, the cynical, strategically motivated refusal of statehood as proposed by the U.N. in 1948; and, second, their unanimous rejection by Arab neighbor states.

The populace thus left without access to institutional status or means of political self-expression or determination has become the victim of yet another cynical ruse. States like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and others have exploited the disaffection they created to direct pointless Palestinian acts of aggression against the Israeli population.

The international community's deafening silence on this point is hard to miss. While dictatorial regimes with long histories of abusing the human rights of their own citizens supply weapons, money and political cover for a decades-long campaign of terror, the U.N. passes one resolution after another condemning Israel's every attempt to deal with the problem. The Israeli government's reactions over the last three decades have varied dramatically, and reducing this variety to the rubric of "occupation" or "apartheid" is disingenuous and unjust.

Perhaps the editors and authors should ask if the conditions under which the Palestinian population now lives might have been avoided or ameliorated had the wealthy neighboring Arab states directed resources toward improving the Palestinians' economic conditions. Indeed, their cause could have been helped immeasurably if these neighbors had simply recognized Israel's right to exist, thus both generating trust and applying legitimate political pressure on Israel to come to an arrangement of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians.

Instead, it is the Israelis who are charged with providing for Palestinian well-being, and blamed for the persistence of conditions which long preceded the appearance of the state of Israel. To be sure, Israeli policies are far from blameless, but the essays in this book consistently misidentify the main perpetrators of injustice against this liminal population and persistently blame the other victims of this same injustice--the Israelis. What makes this collection particularly galling is that it provides a patina of intellectual legitimacy to what amount to little more than plain old anti-Semitism. The difference is that this anti-Semitism asserts itself as political criticism directed against specific government policies. But this, too, is little more than a ruse, since the policies in question stem directly from efforts at self-preservation. It is beyond dispute that Israel has no colonial predilections; its "occupation," misguided or not, is an effort to secure itself against attacks. It is a given that if its security could be guaranteed, Israel would have no interest in governing a non-Israeli population and would happily divest itself of that responsibility.

The inflammatory charges of "apartheid" imply that the Jews who live in a democratic Jewish state are perpetrators of injustice precisely as Jews, that is, as members of a privileged ethnic group. But this "group" is simply the citizenry of the state. American citizens, too, enjoy rights not afforded to non-citizens--even ones who live inside the U.S. This is hardly apartheid. Moreover, there is no Palestinian ethnicity. The Palestinians are simply Arabs who happen to live in a certain region of the Middle East. There is nothing racial, religious, cultural, or political that distinguishes them from millions of their neighbors. They do not form an "ethnos," and their very name did not exist until 1948. By contrast, Jews are a distinct religious and cultural minority, both in the Middle East and the world. Their "ethnic" solidarity has persisted for millennia, and their nation-state came into existence for the express purpose of securing their population against universal persecution. The state of Israel was created in a region inhabited by Jewish people dating back thousands of years. To equate this with the forcible imposition of foreign colonial control over an indigenous population is the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty, to say the least.

By way of introduction, the obvious cannot be overstressed here, namely that Israel is the occupier and therefore the aggressor while the Palestinians are the occupied and therefore the victims. Paradoxically, this fact is hardly ever even taken into consideration by western politicians, thus ignoring the fundamental element of the conflict. Needless to say, attempting to solve this conflict without differentiating between the aggressor (Israel) and the victimized (the Palestinians) will never lead to permanent peace. According to Said, understanding the root causes of the extremist movements in the Palestine is crucial. People turn to extreme measures when in extreme despair and agony. Surely, no one chooses to blow himself in the air when happy and contented with life. Instead, it is in situations in which people see no other way out but to resort to terrorist actions. Needless to say, understanding why terrorism exists does not mean that it is justifiable and morally acceptable. On the contrary, violence is never a solution to any problem. Instead, it can only further aggravate matters. Killing innocent people is always wrong and morally reprehensible. Said further claims that Israeli government mainly consists of extremists and fundamentalists. This is never mentioned in mainstream media; the sole focus is on Islamic fundamentalists. Western politicians never ask themselves the fundamental question: why does terrorism emerge? Said recognizes a number of factors, the most important of which are injustice, poverty, subjugation, inferiority and discrimination. Thus, terrorism is not a result of justice and equality. Israel commits terrorist actions every day and violates international law but no one condemns nor criticizes Israeli government. Instead, the U.S. gives a billion dollar aid to Israel even though Israel is being accused of belligerent and merciless war waging against the Palestinians. As Said puts it, how is it that Israel can remain so extremely powerful among one billion Muslims? The answer to that question is readily apparent to those who disbelieve the mainstream media.

This work seems to exist in another time,for it echoes with as relevant now after many turns of the merry-go-round as it did when written. It strikes the keynote of the last fifty years of the Arab-Israeli conflict as it ticks over in its basic manufactured fallacies, invariant through all policies, editorials and intiatives. The work opens with an account of the appearance of Peters' From Time Immemorial, a concoction of disinformation on the history of Israel, in the myth of the 1948 and the non-existence of the Palestinians. As the Oslo cycle joins the rest, and the next cycle of the basic swindle begins, one might as well go backto the future by rereading this work.

For those of you not familiar with Edwards Said's unabashed support of terror groups AND getting caught in complete lies about his own privileged nonPalestinian background, do some research. This guy is not an authoritative source on anything. Sorry to have been force fed this book in class.Hes a charlatan only concerned about his own prestige.

Some reviewers have criticized this book for wanting to cover up racism, misogyny and religious persecution in Muslim countries. This is completely false. Said is challenging the notion that because some Muslims are bad that Islam is inherently bad. One would not say Christianity was inherently bad even though Christian America once had legal slavery, lynching, denied women equal rights, locked Japanese Americans up in concentration camps, and persecuted the Irish, Italians, Mormons, Jews, and Chinese etc. The media does not blame oppression, misogyny, crime, poverty, extremist movements or racism in Peru, Mexico, Russia, Japan, and South Africa etc. on the predominant religion.

Media bias is helping to spread negatives stereotypes of all Muslims. For example, after 9/11 a few hundred Palestinians celebrated and it was shown all over the American media. Yet a million Palestinians held 5 minutes of silence in honor of the victims but this got no media coverage. ProOsama protests got huge media coverage, but the tens of thousands of Muslims around the world who held memorials were largely ignored. Muslim leaders and clerics all over the world condemned the attack but got little or no press. The problem is the Cold War is over and the media is looking for another bogeyman.

Another problem is that many American journalists don't know any Muslims, so they also write and portray things based on their own stereotypes. For example, if a study came out that 50% of Kuwaiti women are victims of domestic violence, the article would more than likely mention that Kuwait is a Muslim country. Yet if 50% of South African women were victims of domestic violence the predominant religion (Christianity) would not come up in the article. So a connection is made in the mind of the reader between Islam and abuse of women, even though domestic violence occurs regardless of race or religion (25% of American women are victims).

I have to admit that I had very negative views of Muslims myself before I met some, and I started to realize that my stereotypes were wrong. Where did my negative stereotypes come from? The media, of course.

Having lived in Sweden for ten years, I frequently meet people who are highly suspicious of Moslems. Needless to say, this unwarranted suspicion is primarily based on preconceived ideas, ignorance as well as parochialism. Swedish media often distort and misrepresent the facts in order to misinform and deceive the public. This is achieved by the media's subtle yet insidious allusions, which attempt to link Islam to terrorism and belligerence. Moreover, I have come across many Swedes who associate the oppression of women with Islam. Every time I meet a prejudiced person, I try to explain to him that Islam teaches piety, tolerance and equality among people of different races and religious convictions. Further, women are not considered inferior nor subordinate to men in Islam. Contrary to the popular belief in the West, Islam does not sanction torture of women who have been accused of adultery or infidelity. People who commmit these heinous crimes against women should be treated as individuals; the fact that they happen to be Moslems is completely irrelevant. These extremely atavistic and ignorant individuals wittingly misinterpret the Quaran so that their subjective beliefs are in accordance with the teachings of Quaran. However, the western media constantly attempt to link the oppression of women to Islam, which as we have seen is based on a deliberate distortion of the given facts. Also, the media almost exclusively use the word "terrorist" in conjunction with the word "Moslem". Attempting to establish a false connection between terrorism and Islam may in fact be detrimental and counter-productive for several reasons. First, it creates unnecessary suspicion but also tension between the members of Moslem community and Christians. Second, it amplifies and fosters the false conceptions of Islam in schools, labor market etc. Teaching people to be suspicious and fearful of Moslems on clearly false grounds is wrong and unacceptable. What people think has always been unimportant to me but it is difficult to remain indifferent when you are constantly subjected to derogatory and preposterous remarks about your religious conviction. Paradoxically it is often believed that westerners are very open minded and tolerant of other religions and races and surely many are. None the less it may come as a surprise to some that the intellectual communities are more prejudiced and islamophobic than the general population. Crucially, westerners fail to realize the fact that Moslems should not be viewed as a homogenous group; it would be a gross oversimplification and overgeneralization. Geographical and social differences must be taken into account before even attempting to view Moslems as a homegenous entity. There are large differences among individuals within the Moslem community, but this is common knowledge. Educated westerners should know this without my telling them; yet they continue to remain prejudiced and intolerant especially of Islam. This is a paradox as the primary objective of educating people is to obliterate prejudice and parochialism and to promote tolerance and open-mindedness. In this respect, western societies have failed. Thus the media in the west are biased, intolerant and anti-Islamic. Said's book should help explain why Islamophobia pervades our societies. Strongly recommended!

In this collection, Edward Said comments on the aftermath of the signing of the Oslo Accords. As an American Jew, I have grown up in a staunchly pro-Israel environment. As an American in general, I have been steadily force-fed an image of Palestinians as terroristic religious fanatics by the media. Said's words contradict these stereotypes and capture the acute suffering the Palestinian people have endured as a result of Israeli occupation. He also calls for the resignation of Yasir Arafat, who Said sees to have basically bowed to all Israeli and U.S. demands. If you truly want to understand the Palestinian side of the story that doesn't make it into the newspapers and on to the evening news, read Peace and Its Discontents. Hopefully you will become as outraged as I have and will be motivated to end the injustice that is the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

International man of letters and tireless critic of Israeli lawlessness towards his own people: Columbia University professor Edward Said represents everything Israeli apologists never admit - the virtual hidden history of Palestinians being massacred and forcibly removed (described if at all in contemporary newspeak as "displaced") from their lands for the last sixty years by Isreal's brutal and relentless campaign. Said, living proof as himself is one of the half million Palestinians forcibly transferred in the late 1940s, quite simply speaks the truth in this fantastic, informative and sorrowful collection of essays, which originally appeared over the course of seven years in various Middle East news outlets.

His flair for language and the crystal clear prose make his essays seemingly flow off the page and are a joy to read. "Peace and Its Discontents" is a welcome counterpunch, especially for an American audience fed a steady supply of Israeli and United States propaganda and deceit that whitewashes Israel's flaunting of international law and its consistent violation of a resilient and proud peoples human rights.

That someone becomes so filled with hopelessness and despair to strap a bomb to themselves to wipe out a group of innocents is something that's clearly outside the conceptual framework of any relatively comfortable human being. In "Peace and Its Discontents" Said, while never justifying these acts, presents them in the correct historical, economic and political context in order to allow the reader a better grasp of the motivations that lie beneath them.

For a quality primer on the Palestinian plight one can think of no better book. From an authentic source and distinguished scholar, Said gives the reader almost a first hand account of a struggle the Palesinians will no doubt eventually win.

Said, a Palestinian intellectual with impeccable credentials that carry him well within both the halls of American academia and Palestinian political forums, despairs over the failure of his community's leadership to achieve a solid set of goals in the present negotiating process. Most of the material presented here has appeared elsewhere in Arabic-language papers or in one of Said's many publications, but all was written originally for an Arab audience. While the theme may appear to be redundant to many'the Palestinians caved in to U.S. pressure and obstinate Israeli demands without exploiting their advantage of moral position and sound political objectives'the thought processes and manner of deliberation exhibited by Said require attention by everyone interested in the topic. Said's sentiment is echoed by other Palestinians such as Mohamed Rabie (U.S.-PLO Dialogue, Univ. Pr. of Florida, 1995). Recommended for students of diplomacy and in particular the current Palestinian-Israeli peace process.'