This is a memoir written by a professor of philosophy who is also the current president of Al Quds university in East Jerusalem.

After getting through his father's history in the early chapters, University professor Sari Nusseibeh realizes the central problem between the Israeli and Palestinian coexistence: neither sides understanding of the other side. It takes him meeting Israeli students at college, and flying on an Israeli ariline, and teaching at Hebrew University before he begins to see the similarities between the two. And thats where he evolves his ideas about peace.

A central concept of his is that both sides are allies, NOT enemies. He even goes as far to say that the two are more like allies than the united states/israel and palestinians/arab states are allies.

Unfortunately as the occupation of the west bank and gaza continues throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s, he sees a different kind of arab majority emerging from the areas, that is bent on the concept of eradicating the Jew, instead of working with. As his story progresses we see how the author gets involved in politics and attempts to keep the two state solution as a viable option, while trying to maintain his own logical understanding of what was transpiring.

But as we come to the 2000s, Hamas gains most of the support of the palestinians, wins elections and violence ensues.

The author is not hopeless. He does speak of trying to advocate a peaceful two-state solution by teaming up with Israelis in the Peace Now movement and in the government, to get the peace that both sides seek. He writes up a two state solution, that would allow Palestinians to have the borders from pre-1967, and allows palestinian refugees to return to palestinian areas, and Jews to jewish areas.

Only concerns i have with his memoir book are of misrepresentations of Israeli actions. He states that the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 82 without "any bullets being shot from lebanon." That's misleading. The PLO were launching rockets into kiryat shemonah and nearby cities which was provoking the Israelis during this turbulent time for the lebanese people, to maintain peace in southern lebanon.

Ina few other places he tries to place more blame on Israel rather than sharing it with the palestinian people, a product of his upbringing more than malicious intent.

However Sari Nusseibeh is not Hamas and not an islamic fundamentalist. He isa two-state solution advocate who writes mostly about using non-violent disobedience. As the reader I wondered, if more palestinians were like Nusseibeh perhaps the world opinion would change towards them? But Nusseibeh DIDNT grow up in a refugee camp, was educated at Oxford and Harvard, and lived a different life than the majority of palestinians.

So perhaps palestinians as a whole dont see life as he does? And maybe this book is as much a minority views as that of the suicide bombers?

Hopefully not, because Nusseibeh portrays himself as a peace seeker. and thats what is needed in Israel and Palestine.

This is a memoir written by a professor of philosophy who is also the current president of Al Quds university in East Jerusalem.

After getting through his father's history in the early chapters, University professor Sari Nusseibeh realizes the central problem between the Israeli and Palestinian coexistence: neither sides understanding of the other side. It takes him meeting Israeli students at college, and flying on an Israeli ariline, and teaching at Hebrew University before he begins to see the similarities between the two. And thats where he evolves his ideas about peace.

A central concept of his is that both sides are allies, NOT enemies. He even goes as far to say that the two are more like allies than the united states/israel and palestinians/arab states are allies.

Unfortunately as the occupation of the west bank and gaza continues throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s, he sees a different kind of arab majority emerging from the areas, that is bent on the concept of eradicating the Jew, instead of working with. As his story progresses we see how the author gets involved in politics and attempts to keep the two state solution as a viable option, while trying to maintain his own logical understanding of what was transpiring.

But as we come to the 2000s, Hamas gains most of the support of the palestinians, wins elections and violence ensues.

The author is not hopeless. He does speak of trying to advocate a peaceful two-state solution by teaming up with Israelis in the Peace Now movement and in the government, to get the peace that both sides seek. He writes up a two state solution, that would allow Palestinians to have the borders from pre-1967, and allows palestinian refugees to return to palestinian areas, and Jews to jewish areas.

Only concerns i have with his memoir book are of misrepresentations of Israeli actions. He states that the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 82 without "any bullets being shot from lebanon." That's misleading. The PLO were launching rockets into kiryat shemonah and nearby cities which was provoking the Israelis during this turbulent time for the lebanese people, to maintain peace in southern lebanon.

Ina few other places he tries to place more blame on Israel rather than sharing it with the palestinian people, a product of his upbringing more than malicious intent.

However Sari Nusseibeh is not Hamas and not an islamic fundamentalist. He isa two-state solution advocate who writes mostly about using non-violent disobedience. As the reader I wondered, if more palestinians were like Nusseibeh perhaps the world opinion would change towards them? But Nusseibeh DIDNT grow up in a refugee camp, was educated at Oxford and Harvard, and lived a different life than the majority of palestinians.

So perhaps palestinians as a whole dont see life as he does? And maybe this book is as much a minority views as that of the suicide bombers?

Hopefully not, because Nusseibeh portrays himself as a peace seeker. and thats what is needed in Israel and Palestine.

The writer knows a country we know very little about. I loved learning about the people of Palestine and their culture from a non-politicized source.

This book forms part of a larger group of first person memoirs by wealthy Palestinians (Out of Place: A Memoir andPalestine: A Personal History andThis Side of Peace: A Personal Account and Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine). Sari Nusseibeh was born in 1949 in Demascus, and was descended from one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic Jerusalemite family (along with the Hussaynis, Nasashibis, Khalidis and Dajanis). He studied at Oxford and received a Phd in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard and moved to the West Bank in 1978 to teach as Bir Zeit University. Later he would be President of Al Quds ('the Holy') University.

He has lived a life devoted to being anti-Israeli and at the same time a 'peace' activist. His memoir is one long diatribe about his reighteousness, his love of Islam("How could a civilized nation rooted in palestine for welel over a thousand yeats be so easily plucked out and chased away at gunpoint"-surely the Jews wondered the same of the Romans and the Byzantines of the Arabs).

He speaks frequently of his "love for Jersualem" a city he did not grow up in, nor was he born in. For Nusseibeh the 'peace' activist Abdel Khader Husseini, who was a terrorist and ambusher of civilian busses, is "the great Abdel Kader el-Husseini". Nusseibeh, despite his obsession with Islam, marries a western woman named Lucy who he then converts to Islam.

Nusseibeh's life is one of wealth and privilidge. While he was sipping tea as a young boy the Millions of Jewish refugees of the Holocaust and the other million tossed out of Islamic countries were living in cramped apartments in Israel. While he was as Harvard, Israelis were working in the fields and the factories. His was a classic life of a Bourgeoisie and like the children of White Russians who spoke of exotic 'mother Russia' and their desire to return, he too shares the yearning for a time gone by, for a new 1939, for a different outcome to the Second World War and the 1948 war. But his father, Anwar Nusseibeh, helped seal the fate of the Palestinians in 1948, Sari's account would have been more honest if, despite all the other factual errors, he at least noted the truth about his family's role.

Seth J. Frantzman

If you want to understand the immense gulf between Israel and Palestine even among moderates, read this book.

This is a truly important book for anyone wishing to understand fully the Arab / Palestinian - Israeli conflict. It sheds tremendous light on very important events, thus far not fully presented from the Palestinian side, especially that of the non rejectionist Palestinian camp. Sari Nusseibeh is a truly visionary man with tremendous courage and is a highly gifted activist and indeed very clever politician despite his own denials.

I have thoroughly enjoyed, and was often moved by, the first half of the book which dealt with the history of Nusseibeh's family and contained his even handed description of the events leading to 1948 and all the way through the 1967 war and his subsequent return to live in Palestine with his British wife. Nusseibeh's portrayal of the lives of the Palestinians between the wars of 1948 and 1967 was very helpful.

In the second half of the book Nusseibeh hammers in, over and over again, on the tacit unspoken alliance of the extremists on both sides and shows how Israel supported the creation of Hamas as a counter weight to the Fateh and PLO. He coherently and very persuasively presents the thought process that he went through to move from the one state solution to the two state solution and demonstrates very effectively the threats that prolonging the conflict would cause to it.

Nusseibeh was often right at the center of things or at least presents himself as such; we see him as a leading figure in standing up to the Israelis and to the Islamists, we see him as the key engine behind the first intefada, or uprising, and we see him winning the respect and approval of Yasir Arafat. In this, second, half, this book moves from being a truly exceptional account of the personal and family history more into an aggrandizing politician's memoir. This should not reduce nor detract from the tremendous personal sacrifice and commitment Nusseibeh made to his cause.

I have heard of the peace work of Dr. Nusseibeh and read some of his articles and interview for some years and while I admire him more than any other Palestinian public figure, this book troubled me in a number of ways. Unlike the other three Palestinian memoirs, originally written in English, that I have read (Gada Karami, Fay Kenfani & Edward Said) Nusseibeh sought to justify every action he has ever taken, to defend his various historic positions and to settle the scores with those of differing views. Most unlike the other three biographies, the book contained virtually no retrospective sole searching whatsoever and important topics such as his obvious passion and skill for politics vs. his academic eccentric persona were packaged for the purpose rather than thought through. Nusseibeh repeatedly simply presented himself as the reluctant professor, yet left us wondering about his very savvy organizational, political and survival skills. He seemed to know exactly how to deal with wily old Arafat, Hamas, the Israeli intelligence and the various factions of the PLO yet retain the freedom to advance his own agenda as well as build important relationships with Israelis.

The tremendous heights, in which, Nusseibeh holds his father, a former Governor of Jerusalem, ambassador and member of cabinet gives the feeling of an immature biography lacking in the distance to be objective. Indeed the first half of the book contains rework of the some of the father's own unpublished memoirs. Obvious points such as the father's commitment to an idealistic form of pan Arabism, albeit non Bathist and non Nasserist, and Nusseibeh own movement into being Palestinian nationalist, seeing Palestine being in natural alliance with Israel did not cause him to reflect further on the role and thinking of his father. A respectful critique and contrast of the views would have enhanced and not hindered the understanding of his father and need not be disloyal to his memory.

Most grating perhaps is the competitiveness displayed with other Palestinian peace advocates and the various attempts at discrediting them. This was particularly evident in describing the efforts that led to the Geneva Accord, which Nusseibeh referred as the plan by the name of the Israeli negotiator, thus marginalizing the Palestinian partner. At some point Nusseibeh clearly fell out with Hanan Ashrawi and Dr. Barghouti, both articulate advocates of the Palestinian cause and for peace and coexistence with Israel, he made his disdain of them very obvious and has not troubled himself to analyze their positions even in retrospect.

In the Palestinian struggle against an apartheid, territorially hungry (manifest-Zioinst-destiny) Israel, there has been a shortage of local leaders of wisdom, character, and good fortune. This shortage has been partially circumstantial and partially managed by Israel who has been "sowing the wind" for decades by imprisoning moderates and secretly cultivating Islamist extremists. That Nusseibeh has managed to be spared assasination by Israel or others is fortunate for everyone. We may hope that just as modern Israel has risen from the ashes left in the ovens of the shoah, a viable modern Palestine will emerge from the ordeal of Israeli presecution and imprisonment, and Nusseibeh's voice might be revered as both prophetic and instrumental. Otherwise, we might well see a second shoah (of the sort for which, unfortunately, many end-times enthusiasts seem to hanker). We must hope, indeed we should pray, that Nusseibeh's humanitarian good will and good sense are not too late and that his voice, now seemingly crying in the wilderness, will not have been a waste of breath.

Well written history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from somewhat of a unique perspective. The author had a very different experience with some of the primary events of the conflict - not up close and personal a la Arafat, but certainly not man-on-the-street. Dr. Nusseibeh has been a broken record set on "peace," but events have conspired to not let his message get across. An interesting look at a mostly unfortunate series of events.

I read this book without skipping a single word. I am not a particularly political person and one with average education and I have to admit that it has forced me to re-think an oughful lot at age 60. The process was painful at times. I found myself protesting quitely to myself about the love, admiration and understanding Palestinian perpetrators of aggression are referred to during the first 80% of the book and the way Israelis are always portrayed as more trigger happy and destructive. I was used to thinking just the opposite and this is where I was made to "rethink". That does not mean that I now subscribe to the above attitude but only that I now will ask questions before filing acts of violence in my mind.

The most valuable aspect of reading the book has been to perceive the "enemy" as human, rational and making sense some of the time.

And to the book itself: well written to the point of making for compelling reading at all time. It shows an author who has always made efforts to avoid automatic perception labouring to see the perspective of the "other" side. What is admirable is how never faltering pride in and loyalty to his camp permits him to bend very far to approach the adversary.

I have a very minor point to make as well: he quotes more than once an author that readers should know is very marginal. Pattai is not an "Israeli-American" author. He is a Hungarian, reacting to the peak of antisemitism in his native country. He lived and wrote in Palestine in the 40s and never managed to be accepted fully by the academic environment of his time so he left the country and lived in the US most of his life. He thus is a Palestinian (Jew) and an American. His book (mentioned by Nusseibeh) "The Arab Mind" is not representative of anything Israelis think of Arabs and if anything, Nusseibeh must have used it because it fits in well with Edward Said's "Orientalism".

Summing up, the book should be translated into Hebrew fast (if it has not been translated yet?) and should be read widely. The next edition should be proofread as there are a few typos.

It actually gave me glimmers of hope at a particularly grim time of the life of this embattled land.

I read the book word for word. Not a particularly political person and one with average education I have to admit that it has forced me to re-think an oughful lot at age 60. The process was painful at times. I found myself protesting quitely to myself about the love, admiration and understanding Palestinian perpetrators of aggression are referred to during the first 80% of the book and the way Israelis are always portrayed as more trigger happy and destructive. I was used to thinking just the opposite and this is where I was made to "rethink". That does not mean that I now subscribe to the above attitude but only that I now will ask questions before filing acts of violence in my mind.

The most valuable aspect of reading the book has been to perceive the "enemy" as human, rational and making sense some of the time.

And to the book itself: well written to the point of making for compelling reading at all time. It shows an author who has always made efforts to avoid automatic perception labouring to see the perspective of the "other" side. What is admirable is how never faltering pride in and loyalty to his camp permits him to bend very far to approach the adversary.

I have a very minor point to make as well: he quotes more than once an author that readers should know is very marginal. Pattai is not an "Israeli-American" author. He is a Hungarian, reacting to the peak of antisemitism in his native country. He lived and wrote in Palestine in the 40s and never managed to be accepted fully by the academic environment of his time so he left the country and lived in the US most of his life. He thus is a Palestinian (Jew) and an American. His book (mentioned by Nusseibeh) "The Arab Mind" is not representative of anything Israelis think of Arabs and if anything, Nusseibeh must have used it because it fits in well with Edward Said's "Orientalism".

Summing up, the book should be translated into Hebrew fast (if it has not been translated yet?) and should be read widely. The next edition should be proofread as there are a few typos.

It actually gave me glimmers of hope at a particularly grim time of the life of this embattled land.

First off let's start by exposing who Nusseibeh really is:

He's a double-talker. Saying one thing in English and another in Arabic.
* Helped organize the first Palestinian Intifada, 1987-1993
* Seeks the ultimate destruction of Israel
* Supports Palestinian suicide bombings against Jews

He has appeared on Al-Jazeera TV supporting the Palestinian "right of return" and the "stages" strategy towards the eventual annihilation of Israel. This has been Nusseibeh's modus operandi for some time: pursuing a sequence of small, pragmatic steps - each arguably justifiable as purported attempts to mitigate hostilities - but whose ultimate objective is to bring about Israel's destruction.

He does not condone bombings against Jewish civilians, and sees the terrorist attacks and martyrdom operations.

Then there's the complete BS included.. the NYSun covers it well:
In Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life, Sari Nusseibeh misses no opportunity to denigrate and delegitimize Israel through sharp, short, often subtle yet always false readings of history.
His text is marred by countless factual errors and inaccuracies that cast a serious doubt on the validity of his personal narrative, not to mention the wider historical and political picture he seeks to paint.
But Mr. Nusseibeh is not someone to be bothered by the facts. His text is marred by countless factual errors and inaccuracies that cast a serious doubt on the validity of his personal narrative, not to mention the wider historical and political picture he seeks to paint.
--The British foreign secretary who made the famous declaration (in November 1917) on "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was Mr. Arthur James Balfour, not " Lord Alfred Balfour," and the declaration was made in a letter to Lord Rothschild, not to Chaim Weizmann.
--Lawrence of Arabia had nothing to do with the Anglo-Hashemite correspondence that led to the "Great Arab Revolt" of World War I, and the person with whom the British plotted the revolt was Emir Hussein ibn Ali (later King Hussein of the Hijaz), not his son Emir Faisal (misrepresented by Mr. Nusseibeh as " Sheikh Faisal Hussein").
--Neither did the British ever promise Faisal (or Hussein for that matter) the headship of the Arab kingdom that would be established on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
--General Edmund Allenby did not occupy Palestine with his Mule Corps but rather with the powerful Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and the Ottoman potentate Djemal Pasha did not surrender to the British in 1917, as it was only in late September 1918 that Allenby scored his culminating victory, in the Battle of Megiddo.
--Sheik Izz al-din al-Qassam, the Syrian religious fanatic operating in Palestine in the mid-1930s, was not hanged by the British but killed in action.
--The Higher Arab Committee (established in 1936) comprised 10, rather than six, members and Jaffa's Arab population in 1948 didn't amount to 200,000 people, but to about a third of this figure.
--The Dome of the Rock was built by Caliph Abdel Malik ibn Marwan and not Mu'awiya, and Caliph Omar did not capture Jerusalem in 638 C.E. after the bloody conquest of Baghdad and Cairo for the simple reason that both cities were established long after the Muslim capture of Jerusalem. And so on and so forth.
If the Arabs reverted to violence, as they occasionally did, it was invariably the Jews' fault, according to Nusseibeh. The 1929 massacres, for example, in which 133 Jews were slaughtered by their Arab neighbors, and hundreds more were wounded, were but "a nasty backlash among Muslims" to Zionist nationalist aspirations regarding the Wailing Wall; just as Arafat's war of terror was a logical reaction to Ariel Sharon's short stroll along the Temple Mount. But then, why should Muslims act differently when Jews, who have no valid claim to Palestine, let alone to the Wailing Wall - "a most likely candidate for being the wall of a fortress built for Roman legions" - make outrageous demands on this holy Muslim site.

This absurd assertion -- part of a lengthy historical fabrication of Jerusalem's history posted on the homepage of Al-Quds University, an institution headed by Mr. Nusseibeh -- is hardly different from the countless misrepresentations and distortions contained in "Once Upon a Country." It is also congruent with the persistent Palestinian denial of the existence of King Solomon's Temple, and by extension the Jewish millennarian attachment to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Small wonder that in 2002 he was appointed PLO Commissioner for Jerusalem affairs by Arafat, who in the Camp David summit of September 2000 had told President Clinton that the Temple had been located in Nablus rather than in Jerusalem. To judge by the gist of "Once Upon a Country," Arafat could not have made a better choice.

First off let's start by exposing who Nusseibeh really is:

He's a double-talker. Saying one thing in English and another in Arabic.
* Helped organize the first Palestinian Intifada, 1987-1993
* Seeks the ultimate destruction of Israel
* Supports Palestinian suicide bombings against Jews

He has appeared on Al-Jazeera TV supporting the Palestinian "right of return" and the "stages" strategy towards the eventual annihilation of Israel. This has been Nusseibeh's modus operandi for some time: pursuing a sequence of small, pragmatic steps - each arguably justifiable as purported attempts to mitigate hostilities - but whose ultimate objective is to bring about Israel's destruction.

He does not condone bombings against Jewish civilians, and sees the terrorist attacks and martyrdom operations.

Then there's the complete BS included.. the NYSun covers it well:
In Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life, Sari Nusseibeh misses no opportunity to denigrate and delegitimize Israel through sharp, short, often subtle yet always false readings of history.
His text is marred by countless factual errors and inaccuracies that cast a serious doubt on the validity of his personal narrative, not to mention the wider historical and political picture he seeks to paint.
But Mr. Nusseibeh is not someone to be bothered by the facts. His text is marred by countless factual errors and inaccuracies that cast a serious doubt on the validity of his personal narrative, not to mention the wider historical and political picture he seeks to paint.
--The British foreign secretary who made the famous declaration (in November 1917) on "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was Mr. Arthur James Balfour, not " Lord Alfred Balfour," and the declaration was made in a letter to Lord Rothschild, not to Chaim Weizmann.
--Lawrence of Arabia had nothing to do with the Anglo-Hashemite correspondence that led to the "Great Arab Revolt" of World War I, and the person with whom the British plotted the revolt was Emir Hussein ibn Ali (later King Hussein of the Hijaz), not his son Emir Faisal (misrepresented by Mr. Nusseibeh as " Sheikh Faisal Hussein").
--Neither did the British ever promise Faisal (or Hussein for that matter) the headship of the Arab kingdom that would be established on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
--General Edmund Allenby did not occupy Palestine with his Mule Corps but rather with the powerful Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and the Ottoman potentate Djemal Pasha did not surrender to the British in 1917, as it was only in late September 1918 that Allenby scored his culminating victory, in the Battle of Megiddo.
--Sheik Izz al-din al-Qassam, the Syrian religious fanatic operating in Palestine in the mid-1930s, was not hanged by the British but killed in action.
--The Higher Arab Committee (established in 1936) comprised 10, rather than six, members and Jaffa's Arab population in 1948 didn't amount to 200,000 people, but to about a third of this figure.
--The Dome of the Rock was built by Caliph Abdel Malik ibn Marwan and not Mu'awiya, and Caliph Omar did not capture Jerusalem in 638 C.E. after the bloody conquest of Baghdad and Cairo for the simple reason that both cities were established long after the Muslim capture of Jerusalem. And so on and so forth.
If the Arabs reverted to violence, as they occasionally did, it was invariably the Jews' fault, according to Nusseibeh. The 1929 massacres, for example, in which 133 Jews were slaughtered by their Arab neighbors, and hundreds more were wounded, were but "a nasty backlash among Muslims" to Zionist nationalist aspirations regarding the Wailing Wall; just as Arafat's war of terror was a logical reaction to Ariel Sharon's short stroll along the Temple Mount. But then, why should Muslims act differently when Jews, who have no valid claim to Palestine, let alone to the Wailing Wall - "a most likely candidate for being the wall of a fortress built for Roman legions" - make outrageous demands on this holy Muslim site.

This absurd assertion -- part of a lengthy historical fabrication of Jerusalem's history posted on the homepage of Al-Quds University, an institution headed by Mr. Nusseibeh -- is hardly different from the countless misrepresentations and distortions contained in "Once Upon a Country." It is also congruent with the persistent Palestinian denial of the existence of King Solomon's Temple, and by extension the Jewish millennarian attachment to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Small wonder that in 2002 he was appointed PLO Commissioner for Jerusalem affairs by Arafat, who in the Camp David summit of September 2000 had told President Clinton that the Temple had been located in Nablus rather than in Jerusalem. To judge by the gist of "Once Upon a Country," Arafat could not have made a better choice.

Dr. Nusseibeh tells an intricate, compelling and important story. It is his story, a story of running from and back to the political necessity that is part and parcel of his families life. It is a tale of woe, painfully presented in a manner that peels back the layers of Israeli and Palestinian ambition and governance to portray leaders, students, cabbies and colleagues struggling to find light in a world in which both options and walls continue to collapse all around him. It is about creativity in the face of oppression and about thumbing ones nose at a murderous system and staying alive. Its about inventing a process of comings and goings to preserve independence while developing a secondary channel of existence to enable the continuing expression of freedom. In freedom hope for a better future lives on.

Written by Palestinian peace activist Sari Nusseibeh, this book is an immensely readable personal and political memoir - an account of a life lived in a "broken and violated land." Descendant of a patrician family in Jerusalem, tracing its history back to the seventh century, the author was educated in England and, following in his father's footsteps, devoted his years to advocating reason and nonviolence in the resolution of Arab-Israeli conflicts. A student and later a professor of philosophy, he first believed that Arabs and Israelis could live together as citizens of a single nation. Then, after the 1967 war, he came to the conclusion that a two-nation solution was in the best interests of both peoples.

Over the years, in his account, he has watched both of those objectives resisted and undermined by the objectives of those with political power - the Israelis through a campaign of seizing territory in the West Bank for Jewish settlements, and the PLO by demanding the return of all occupied lands. Meanwhile, moderates such as himself are cast as "dangerous," and his efforts at building bridges between Arabs and Jews are often frustrated. When the intifada of the 1980s flares up, Nusseibeh plays a strategic role in secretly writing and publishing materials that provide it with a voice and direction, channeling the energy of street demonstrations away from violence. And he is instrumental in building a nation-building organization to set the stage for Arafat's return from exile in Tunis to govern the West Bank and Gaza. At the same time, he is reaching out to peace activists among Israelis, even while the second intifada surges to life and Arab extremists begin to have a deadly impact with suicide bombs.

The entire story - which brings us to the present with the building of Sharon's walls and the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections - is a continuing account of hopes raised and then crushed. While it can be read as an indictment of Israeli policies against the Palestinians, it portrays the PLO as ridden with corruption and the Islamist Hamas organization as blindly and dangerously irrational. Moved deeply by visions of Jeffersonian democracy, Nusseibeh is confronted over and again with the extreme difficulty of seeing reason prevail in the service of government, diplomacy, and building social institutions. What he falls back on at the end is a belief that the fundamental decency of humans - as reflected in sacred scriptures - will eventually lead people to see the folly of their ways. This is a fine book for portraying a moderate and measured history of the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1948 to the present. Readers may also enjoy Jeffrey Goldberg's "Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide."

In a work so compelling that I could hardly put it down, Nusseibeh describes in personal terms the struggles for freedom of the Palestinian
people. His personal courage, that of the many people whose generosity
he cites, and the example of his father's service to his people is most inspiring. If you did not know it before, after reading this book you will understand why the Palestinian people need their own state and
freedom to act as the People they are.

I admit to a pro Israeli bias-at the same time one of my major reasons for buying this book was to get,what I assumed,from other reviews was what would be a balanced view. Not so,after a valiant effort to show that their might be at least three sides to the reality on the ground,the author makes a number of sweeping generalizations which act as an inditement of all those whose perception might differ with his own.
Those Israelis who he does accept are those who represent a small minority.Of course because Israel is a democratic society dissent is not only encouraged but honored. What the author does not deal with is the fact that the majority of Palestinians do not believe that Israel has a right to statehood.
Finally,the use of the "occupation" to explain all Arab resentment and violence does not hold true. The fact is that even prior to 1948,when Israel became a recognized,state-the Palestinians as well as the majority of their brethern have waged unrelentless war against Israel.
Does Israel have some fault?Of course-but the fact is that even today there is no Palestinian government willing to even suggest that Israel has a right to exist.

In order for there to be a true, long lasting peace each side to the Israeli-Arab dispute must recognize, understand, and appreciate that the other side has a reasonable and sincerely held position. Even if you don't agree with that position you can live with a compromise based on that type of mutual recognition that the other side believes that they are justified. If you feel that the Israelis are just a bunch of thieves that have robbed you of your land without any arguably valid claim, then any compromise will last only until you have the ability to correct the injustice of the thieves having a state of their own.

Unfortunately this book does not represent such an acceptance. For example the wailing wall, the surviving remnant of the Jewish second temple is not a place where Jews worshipped before Islam even existed, rather it is most likely the wall of a fortress built for Roman legions" . As a result the efforts by Jews in 1929 to blow a Shofar at the wall is characterized by the author as being an outrageous demand on this holy Muslim site. It would indeed be an outrageus demand if one assumes as the author does that there never was a Jewish Temple at the site (although even then I don't think it would justify the subsequent riots in which over a hundred Jews were slaughtered by Arab mobs). Only in the context of the wailing wall being Judaism's most holy cite could an Arab possibly be willing to compromise on the issue of religiuos observances at the wailing wall.

The author refuses to acknowledge other facts that would, if accepted as facts by the Arab world, allow for compromise. As pointed out in a recent review by Karsh, time and again we hear of the rootless "Russian Jewish upstarts streaming into the country" to dispossess its indigenous population. Readers of "Once Upon a Country" will never know of the countless Zionist attempts at reconciliation, or the real opportunities for statehood offered to the Palestinians in the decades preceding the 1948 war. Instead, they are treated to an uninterrupted story of the victimization and abuse of the hapless Palestinians by the heartless Zionists who in public spoke peace but in private "spelled out their [expulsive] plans."

Books of this type that deny any facts that justify or even humanize Israel can only fan the flames of hate.

Anyone with any hopes for peace in this conflict must read this personal memoir of the bravest, most perceptive, and most humane leader in that divided land - a leader who has never given up his dream of peace between peoples sharing the same land.

Nusseibeh's book allows us to break through the stereotypes of the Palestininan struggle and see behind the images the humanity of a people struggling for an end to the Israeli occupation of their land. Far from the images of unbridgeable fanaticism, Nuseibeh offers us another view of people prepared to compromise in order to ensure an end to this bitter conflict. His represents the only way forward in this conflict--acceptance of two states--viable and contiguous in their territories; a shared Jerusalem; and a reasonable solution to the problem of refugees that involves acknowledgement of loss and compensation. I urge people to read this book for its honest recognition of the shortcomings of Palestinian politics and its generous and rational understanding of the needs and pain of two peoples.

Sari Nusseibeh, the Oxford-educated Palestinian philosopher, lays out with eloquence and unflinching honesty his personal life story and how it intersects with the larger saga of Palestinian national life. In doing so, he creates a startling image of Palestine and of Palestinians seldom seen by Western eyes.

Nusseibeh describes the history Palestinian suffering and struggle not as a narrow, tribal cause, but as a global cause consistent with humanism and universal human rights. He does so in a way that is not tendentious, preachy, or moralising.

For this, I heartily recommend his seminal work.