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Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land
The writings of an Israeli journalist who has chosen to live in a Palestinian town in order to provide a firsthand description of what daily life is like for the population.
The only Israelis this generation of Palestinians know are soldiers and settlers. For them, Israel is no more than a subsidiary of an army that knows no limits and settlements that know no borders. Recipient of the UNESCO Guillermo Camo World Press Freedom Prize in 2003, Amira Hass is the only Jewish Israeli correspondent on Palestinian affairs to live among the people about whom she reports. The child of Holocaust survivors, Hass prefers the title "expert in Israeli occupation," and, as such, is relentless in her quest for both truth and justice.
The only Israelis this generation of Palestinians know are soldiers and settlers. For them, Israel is no more than a subsidiary of an army that knows no limits and settlements that know no borders. Recipient of the UNESCO Guillermo Camo World Press Freedom Prize in 2003, Amira Hass is the only Jewish Israeli correspondent on Palestinian affairs to live among the people about whom she reports. The child of Holocaust survivors, Hass prefers the title "expert in Israeli occupation," and, as such, is relentless in her quest for both truth and justice.
209 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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437 people want to read
About the author
Amira Hass
15 books52 followersShe is a prominent left-wing Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz. She is particularly recognized for her reporting on Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, where she has also lived for a number of years.
Amira is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors , she was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studied the history of Nazism and the European Left's relation to the Holocaust. Early in her career, she began her journalistic career in 1989 as a staff editor for Ha'aretz and started to report from the Palestinian Territories in 1991. As of 2003, she is the only Jewish Israeli journalist who has lived full-time among the Palestinians, in Gaza from 1993 and in Ramallah from 1997 .
Her reportage of events, and her voicing of opinions that run counter to both official Israeli and Palestinian positions has exposed Hass to verbal attacks, and opposition from both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
On December 1, 2008, Hass, who had traveled to Gaza aboard a protest vessel, was arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel for being in Gaza without a permit . and after residing in the Gaza Strip for several months, Hass was again arrested by Israeli police upon her return to Israel on May 12, 2009 "for violating a law which forbids residence in an enemy state .
Awards
(2001) Golden Dove of Peace Prize awarded by the Rome-based organization Archivo Disarmo , (2009)the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women's Media Foundation .
Amira is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors , she was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she studied the history of Nazism and the European Left's relation to the Holocaust. Early in her career, she began her journalistic career in 1989 as a staff editor for Ha'aretz and started to report from the Palestinian Territories in 1991. As of 2003, she is the only Jewish Israeli journalist who has lived full-time among the Palestinians, in Gaza from 1993 and in Ramallah from 1997 .
Her reportage of events, and her voicing of opinions that run counter to both official Israeli and Palestinian positions has exposed Hass to verbal attacks, and opposition from both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
On December 1, 2008, Hass, who had traveled to Gaza aboard a protest vessel, was arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel for being in Gaza without a permit . and after residing in the Gaza Strip for several months, Hass was again arrested by Israeli police upon her return to Israel on May 12, 2009 "for violating a law which forbids residence in an enemy state .
Awards
(2001) Golden Dove of Peace Prize awarded by the Rome-based organization Archivo Disarmo , (2009)the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women's Media Foundation .
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 26, 2012
No matter where your loyalties lie in the Israel-Palestine conflict, this book will almost surely make you angry. It is a selection 37 articles and op-ed columns written by an Israeli journalist who was during 1997-2002 chief West Bank and Gaza correspondent for one of her country's leading dailies, Ha'aretz. Her observations of life in the occupied territories cover the years following the Oslo accords and the first two years of the second Intifada. As investigative reporting, her stories focus - sometimes in stomach-churning detail - on the collapse of law and order under the boot heel of Israeli security forces, the negligence and corruption of the Palestinian authority under Yasser Arafat, and finally the obsession for revenge among armed resistance fighters, young, undisciplined, and beyond the reach of reason.
While many may justify the heavy-handed actions taken against Palestinians, and carried out by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), Hass points out over and over the devastating impact on noncombatants - the bulldozing of homes and businesses, the roadblocks, the building of Israeli settlements and the bypass roads for the exclusive use of the settlers, the confiscation of property, the poverty and unemployment, the curfews, the unending disruption of everyday life, the tanks and helicopters, the observation towers, and the "collateral damage" of unarmed civilians wounded and killed.
In one account, a contingent of IDF soldiers invades the apartment of a family to use their home as an observation post for days. In another, the Palestinian Ministry of Culture is taken over by IDF troops for a month, leaving behind not just destruction of its contents but a wasteland of human excrement, urine, and rotting food. A chilling interview with a young IDF sniper reveals the unofficial policy of shooting to kill children as young as 12. While none of this justifies a single suicide bomber, it goes a long way to account for the rage, humiliation, and despair of a people with little or no right to self-determination in their own land. Not objective, Hass admits, but a fair appraisal of Israeli policies that she regards as totally counter-productive.
While many may justify the heavy-handed actions taken against Palestinians, and carried out by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), Hass points out over and over the devastating impact on noncombatants - the bulldozing of homes and businesses, the roadblocks, the building of Israeli settlements and the bypass roads for the exclusive use of the settlers, the confiscation of property, the poverty and unemployment, the curfews, the unending disruption of everyday life, the tanks and helicopters, the observation towers, and the "collateral damage" of unarmed civilians wounded and killed.
In one account, a contingent of IDF soldiers invades the apartment of a family to use their home as an observation post for days. In another, the Palestinian Ministry of Culture is taken over by IDF troops for a month, leaving behind not just destruction of its contents but a wasteland of human excrement, urine, and rotting food. A chilling interview with a young IDF sniper reveals the unofficial policy of shooting to kill children as young as 12. While none of this justifies a single suicide bomber, it goes a long way to account for the rage, humiliation, and despair of a people with little or no right to self-determination in their own land. Not objective, Hass admits, but a fair appraisal of Israeli policies that she regards as totally counter-productive.
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November 26, 2023It's hard to say how this compares to life in the occupied territories today in light of the recent and unprecedented violence unleashed upon Gaza, but I appreciated the perspective from ordinary Palestinians and scenes of the more "regular" workings of occupation from the time of the Second Intifada. The cold, calculated, and often bureaucratic approach taken by Israel toward Palestinians seems prelude to today's genocide - yet even this "restrained" approach seems more or less aimed at the destruction of Palestinian society. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
May 21, 2021
"A Palestinian is a terrorist when he attacks Israeli civilians on both sides of the green line--in Israel and the territories--and when he attacks Israeli soldiers at the entrance to a Palestinian city. A Palestinian is a terrorist when an army unit attacks his neighborhood with tanks and he shoots a soldier who gets out of a tank momentarily, and he is a terrorist when he is hit by helicopter gunfire while holding his rifle. Palestinians are terrorists whether they kill civilians or soldiers. The Israeli soldier is a fighter when he shoots a missile from a helicopter or a shell from a tank at a group of people gathered in Khan Yunis, after the fighter (or one of his comrades-in-arms) fires a shell or a missile at a house from which the army claims a Qassam rocket was launched and kills a man and woman. He is a fighter when he encounters two armed Palestinians in the brush. The Israeli soldier kills armed people and kills civilians. He kills senior commanders of murderous terrorist cells and he kills kindergarten-aged children and adults in their homes."
This is a really great, careful, dispassionate yet empathetic book. It is an excellent corrective to a lot of the myths that circulate in English-language media about the Oslo process and the intransigence or bloodthirst of the Palestinian people. It makes clear that the two-state solution was dead long before the failed meetings at Camp David in 2000, because Israel never seriously considered stopping illegal settlements, because Israel always considered its illegal settlements to be worth any price in Palestinian lives. Hass tells a lot of stories from a lot of different perspectives and gets at a lot of angles: the complex feelings of Palestinian civilians toward both the PA and its militant rivals, the disconnect between official IDF policies and the orders given to soldiers on the ground, the disconnect between what the IDF says it permits and what Palestinians know to be true.
This is a really great, careful, dispassionate yet empathetic book. It is an excellent corrective to a lot of the myths that circulate in English-language media about the Oslo process and the intransigence or bloodthirst of the Palestinian people. It makes clear that the two-state solution was dead long before the failed meetings at Camp David in 2000, because Israel never seriously considered stopping illegal settlements, because Israel always considered its illegal settlements to be worth any price in Palestinian lives. Hass tells a lot of stories from a lot of different perspectives and gets at a lot of angles: the complex feelings of Palestinian civilians toward both the PA and its militant rivals, the disconnect between official IDF policies and the orders given to soldiers on the ground, the disconnect between what the IDF says it permits and what Palestinians know to be true.
February 22, 2020
This book is very interesting and I really advise to read it to know the real life in Ramallah. The point of view of this journalist who choosed to live in the Occupied Land
The only Israelis this generation of Palestinians know are soldiers and settlers. For them, Israel is no more than a subsidiary of an army that knows no limits and settlements that know no borders. Recipient of the UNESCO Guillermo Camo World Press Freedom Prize in 2003...
The only Israelis this generation of Palestinians know are soldiers and settlers. For them, Israel is no more than a subsidiary of an army that knows no limits and settlements that know no borders. Recipient of the UNESCO Guillermo Camo World Press Freedom Prize in 2003...
January 15, 2025
video book review: https://youtu.be/8fzcwJdd1xI
As in her prior book, Drinking the Sea at Gaza, Hass unflinchingly brings us views from "the other side." By living side-by-side with Palestinians and hearing their stories, she's able to give us detailed accounts of the daily injustice that the Palestinians endure from their evil occupiers.
As in her prior book, Drinking the Sea at Gaza, Hass unflinchingly brings us views from "the other side." By living side-by-side with Palestinians and hearing their stories, she's able to give us detailed accounts of the daily injustice that the Palestinians endure from their evil occupiers.
November 11, 2007
What i learned from this book? that we should force Washington to stop subsidizing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
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February 2, 2008God i love Amira Hass...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews