Word: turky
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...Turki traces his life, he felt the Palestinians had been betrayed by the world. They had been forgotten, they had become almost an invisible people, nobody even called them by their name--Palestinians...
...REACT to these situations. The constant dependence on the international community for some hand-outs, for medical care and education, the humiliation of being stateless, of feeling unwanted in the host country may dull people or it may fill them with anger and rage. "The defeated, like myself," writes Turki, "took off to go away from the intolerable pressures of the Arab world to India and Europe and Australia, where they wrestled with the problem and hoped to understand. The reduced, like my parents, waited helplessly in a refugee camp for the world, for a miracle, or for some deity...
...anger of such intensity that they feel they must now take matters in their own hands. That is their only hope. The guerilla groups are determined to do just that. This development of Palestinians fighting for themselves brought for many of them a rebirth, a new sense of humanity. Turki returned from his retreat in India with a new pride of being a Palestinian. He felt part of the struggle against "imperialist oppression" and a sense of community with "brothers and sisters fighting in Vietnam, in Africa, in South America, in the United States and elsewhere...
...first four chapters of this slim book are autobiographical, always, however, with an eye on the wider political scene, the last chapter looks forward to what solution would bring a lasting peace to the Middle East, one that takes into account the national rights of the disinherited, dispossessed Palestinians. Turki sketches a tentative plan of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel which would give Palestinians at least the right to national self-determination in part of their homeland. However, in coversation, the author has moved away from that position because he fears a separate state would just become a puppet...
...Turki's fascinating book is a very personal account. But he does not only speak for himself; he speaks for a whole generation of Palestinians, whether they grew up in exile, many of them in refugee camps like himself, or in Israel. It is clear that there can be no lasting peace in the Middle East that denies the rights of the Palestinian people. As Eric Rouleau said, even if the present resistance movement fails and collapses, there will be another one because we are dealing with a people's demands for self-determination...