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Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life | 
 enlarge | Authors: Sari Nusseibeh, Anthony David
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 397644
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 560
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.9
ISBN: 0374299501
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.9442054092
EAN: 9780374299507
ASIN: 0374299501
Publication Date: March 29, 2007
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Product Description
A prominent Palestinian's searching, anguished, deeply affecting autobiography, in which his life story comes to be the story of the recent history of his country.
Sari Nusseibeh’s autobiography is a remarkable book—one in which his dramatic life story and that of his embattled country converge in a work of great passion, depth, and emotional power. Nusseibeh was raised to represent his country. His family’s roots in Palestine traced back to the Middle Ages, and his father was the governor of Jerusalem. Educated at Oxford, he was trained to build upon his father’s support for coexistence and a negotiated solution to the problems of the region.
But the wars of 1967 and 1973 spelled the beginning of the end for the vision of a unified Palestine—and Nusseibeh’s response to these events, and to those that followed, gives us the recent history from a Palestinian point of view as no book has done. From his time teaching side by side with Israelis at Hebrew University through his appointment by Yassir Arafat to administer Arab Jerusalem, he holds fast to a two-state solution, even as the powers around him insist that it is impossible. As Palestine is torn apart by settlements and barricades, corruption and violence, Nusseibeh remains true to the ideals of his youth, determined to keep hold of some faint hope for the life of his country.
Once Upon a Country is a book with the scope and vitality of an old-fashioned novel—one whose ending is still uncertain.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 A lack of recognition May 4, 2007
Jacob F Suslovich (USA)
27 out of 60 found this review helpful
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.
 Simply Brilliant April 6, 2007
Johnny Domino (Needles, California)
24 out of 33 found this review helpful
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.
Neither black nor white . . . May 20, 2007
Ronald Scheer (Los Angeles)
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
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."
Towards a just peace between Israel and Palestine April 18, 2007
H. S. Shapiro (Raleigh NC)
19 out of 24 found this review helpful
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.
 Whose Country is it Anway? May 12, 2007
David Gottlieb (The Woodlands, Texas USA)
13 out of 34 found this review helpful
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.
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