Reading Edward Said During the Gaza Genocide
Zionism must be understood from the standpoint of its victims
When Edward Said published The Question of Palestine in 1979, he broke with an unstated taboo in mainstream North American culture against writing from a Palestinian point of view. Said had just published Orientalism, the book which made his reputation as a literary critic, the previous year. At that point in history, no major public intellectual had clarified “the Palestinian interpretation of the Palestinian experience” in English, as Said described his own goals for this book.
In The Question of Palestine, Said applies the analytical insights of Orientalism to his contemporary political context, thereby revealing the process through which everyday anti-Palestinian racism permeates everyday discourse and shapes foreign policy.
The Question of Palestine had a huge impact when it was published, and yet it seems the lessons Said offers us have yet to be fully learned. The decision of Fitzcarraldo Editions to republish Said’s seminal book from 1979 alongside his essay “The One-State Solution” (1999) published two years later in New York Magazine, is…
