Reading

I re-read Saeed, The Ill-Fated Pessimoptimist by Emile Habiby. The travails of the unaccommodated Palestinians through the narrative of an idiot. An informer who tires to please his masters. People arrested for trying to return home. Trying to retrieve their possessions. Let's face it--now, to move into a place where others live must involve colonialism. You can have a brutal version--as was done by the Nazis in the Lebensraum in Poland and Russia or in South Africa or here against the native Americans. Or you can have it less brutal but no less soul-destroying as exists in Israel. Who owns the land? What was here before we got here? In the novel, there's the small prison and then there's the large prison. They let you out of the smaller space (jail) and into the larger space (the outdoors). It's just one large prison. It's claustrophobia and agoraphobia all over again.