Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel

Grossman, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224032925 ISBN 13: 9780224032926

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1993

Israel is both Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel. During the Gulf War many Israeli Arabs found themselves in an absurd situation as they climbed atop their roofs, gas masks on their faces, to cheer on the missiles Saddam Hussein had aimed at Israel. 'My people is at war with my country, ' is how one Israeli Arab has described the dilemma in which he and his brothers are caught. In the summer of 1991, Israeli writer David Grossman sets out on a personal journey into the world of the Arab citizens of his country to explore these problems. This book is an account of that journey, a story about an intensifying bitterness and a Palestinian problem likely to become as serious as the one already familiar to the world.

Review:

"Intelligent, sympathetic, resonant and accessible" (Nick Hornby Sunday Times)

"Outstanding... Unblinkingly harsh, this journey is also, in its sheer honesty and decency, a work of hope" (Observer)

"The Yellow Wind established Grossman as one of Israel's finest political writers. His latest examination of the Palestinian tragedy is of equal quality, sympathetic without being patronising, sensitive to the point of pain" (Robert Fisk Independent)

"A writer of passionate self-honesty, unafraid to ask terrible questions" (Nadine Gordimer)

"A fine, sympathetic book... Its insights reverberate far beyond the Middle East" (Scotsman)

Book Description:

A ground-breaking and profundly important portrayal of the Arab population in Israel