Reviews for Warrior Healers

The average rating for Warrior Healers based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-07-29 00:00:00 Gayla Mcord In July of last year I went to Palestine as a solidarity volunteer. In my time there, I saw early morning raids by Occupation soldiers, got pushed around and gassed by those same soldiers are demonstrations, saw friends attacked and arrested, and saw the blight of settlements and the Wall firsthand. That said, this book was still a difficult read. Not because it was poorly written, but because it presents such a sweeping summary of the long-running oppression of the Palestinians. Makdisi presents the struggle of the Palestinian people in an accessible 5 part format: looking at the West Bank, Gaza, Palestinians within Israel, a history of the occupation of Palestine by Zionists, and a discussion of the situation within the Occupied Territories in 2007 and possible ways forward. All of this is delivered smoothly and concisely, through the stories of Palestinians, anecdotes, and facts and observations from the UN and Israeli peace organizations among others. Most of the book is focused on the mundane nature of the Occupation that rarely appears in the press, such as the arbitrary and excruciating nature of checkpoints, the calculated and heartbreaking methods Israel uses to deny family unification to Palestinians. In the past, I've struggled to think of books to recommend to people unfamiliar with the Occupation. This book has solved that problem. It is well-written, concentrates on powerful examples to illustrate larger points and follows them with facts from outside observers, and has an exhaustive and readable section for sources and further reading. And for those already familiar with the conflict, you may just take away a thing or two yourself!

Review # 2 was written on 2015-06-24 00:00:00 Stephen List I've stayed up until 3 am for the last two nights reading this book and i imagine i will again tonight to finish it. it takes up where amira hass' "drinknig from the sea of gaza" left off, but looks at all of occupied-palestine instead of just Gaza. It is about how bureaucracy kills individuals and communities and the banaltity of laws and their ferocious power, and about the innability of the UN and human rights groups to do anything but record and amerliorate the actual evils of zionist-settler actions and policies. This books makes me angry and frustrated and dejected, but makes me also want to fight and reinforces that this is a colonial struggle, that laws are what are killing palestinians and that we need to look towards struggle. He's also an English scholar and by coincidence I just read an article he wrote on Sir Walter Scott's "Waverley", a book I am currently writing on. I wrote him a long email telling him all this. The magic of coincidence.