David Pratt is a Scottish journalist. He is Foreign Editor of The Herald and The National.
He specialises in conflict, humanitarian and security issues. An author and broadcaster, with a particular interest in the Arab and Islamic world, he previously worked for Reuters and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
"The Palestinian intifada is a war of national liberation. We Israelis enthusiastically chose to become a colonialist society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities . . . we established an apartheid regime" (Michael Ben-Yair, Israeli Attorney General 1993-96)
Sunday Herald reporter David Pratt's, "Intifada: The Long Day of Rage" is based on his newspaper reports from Israel and the occupied territories from the mid 1980's through to early 2006. The reports have been expanded, and additional material added to put them into their full context.
Pratt captures the day to day reality of the occupation as it has evolved over that period, as well as many of the key events including the eruption of the first intifada, the Hebron massacre and it's aftermath, Ariel Sharon's walk-a-bout in occupied East Jerusalem that triggered the Al-Aqsa intifada, the Israeli assault on Jenin refugee camp, the annexationist wall, and a number of other events. He also covers events in Israel including the Iraqi Scud missile attacks that occurred during the 1991 Iraq War, and bombing attacks by Palestinians.
As far as British journalism from the Middle East goes, Pratt is second only to Robert Fisk; he has no difficulty in capturing the details, large and small, in powerful and often disturbing prose, as well as placing them into the bigger historical picture. Nor is he afraid to tackle a number of the issues that are deemed controversial such as the comparison of the Israeli states policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians to that of Apartheid era South Africa and their policy with regard to the black majority; the failures of the Arafat led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as in its negotiations with the Israelis; and the utter poverty of the Oslo "peace" process.
This is a valuable work that covers a remarkable amount of the history of the occupation over the last twenty or so years given its relatively short size. It also includes a brief chronology of events and a glossary of terms. Readers who wish to learn more about the issues covered in this book may find Said K Aburish's "Cry Palestine" which covers the state of affairs in the occupied West Bank in the early 1990's; Edward Said's "From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap" is a selection of articles that span the period of the "peace" process. The Israeli dissident Tanya Reinhart's two books ("Israel/Palestine" and "The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003") give an articulate and principled view of the conflict, primarily during the period of the Al-Aqsa intifada.
Biased, sloppy, hysterical, misleading, poorly written, poorly researched, poorly edited - Just look at that godawful cover - who the hell, other than the writer, thought this should be published?