Reviews for Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land

The average rating for Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-04-25 00:00:00 Karen Burns 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.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-02-22 00:00:00 Shivanth Bhaskaran 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...