BADIL

A quick search for ‘Palestine’ on Amazon.com (the world’s biggest book retailer) reveals over 15,000 available entries. There is clearly no shortage of literature on the subject, much as there is no shortage of discussion or opinion around the world. Many of the books written pre-Nakba were structured within two main catagories. Some were traditional ‘adventurer’ type travel journals almost exclusively penned by authors from the ‘privileged minority’ of the colonialist states, whilst others looked through religious and political perspectives including the reams of early Zionist literature. Post-1948, Palestine-related literature was dominated by accounts lauding the establishment of the Zionist dream. Again, these works were almost exclusively written by ‘Westerners’, which is unsurprising when acknowledging the fact that the creation of ‘Israel’, and the ethnic cleansing that formed an intrinsic part of that process, was a European-style colonialist project.

Education through Grassroots Arts and Culture in Bethlehem's Refugee Camps