The
Morality of "Munich"
AlterNet, December 24, 2005
In 1972, Black September, a wing of Arafat's Al Fatah movement
kidnapped and then killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team
during the Munich games. This set in motion a series of reprisals
by the Israelis, including targeted assassinations of Palestinians,
and continuing acts of terrorism by militant groups against Israeli,
European and American targets. Today we are no closer to an end
to the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem,
nor to a lasting peace agreement that addresses equally the needs
of both Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
Click
here for full review.
Food
and Conflict Merge Onstage in "The Arab-Israeli Cookbook"
Daily
Star-Beirut June
13, 2005/Common
Ground News Service, June 24, 2005
Los Angeles - In "The Arab-Israeli Cookbook," kibbeh,
falafel, fattoush, and grape leaves, among other mezze and main
courses, are almost as central to the story as the 40 characters
inhabited by the nine actors on stage. The old adage "you
are what you eat" is never far from anyone's mind during
the drama that ensues. Each of these residents of Jerusalem, Haifa,
Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, or a West Bank refugee camp, whether they
are Muslim, Jewish, or Christian, talks about family, food and
the hope for a better future. And while almost everyone is paranoid
about suicide bombings or Israeli military incursions, the audience
quickly comes to understand that Palestinians and Israelis are
in this crucible together - no wall, no matter how many meters
high or how many kilometres long, will ever truly separate their
interwoven destinies.
Click
here for full review.
An
Autumn Love Affair: Torture and Desire in the Summer War
Al
Jadid. Vol. 8, N. 40, Summer 2002.
Love in Exile
By Bahaa Taher
The American University in Cairo Press,
2001, 283 pp.
This novel by Bahaa Taher contains a great deal of heart and much
truth about the Middle East. The protagonist, Umtaz, is an exiled
journalist and Egyptian nationalist still enamored with Nasser,
living out his days as an under-used correspondent in an unnamed
city in Europe – perhaps Geneva, Brussels, or some place
in France with a nascent Arab population.
Middle-aged, divorced, and alone, this fragile near-remnant of
a man acquires a new lease on life when a lovely Austrian woman
half his age finds herself in love with him. For a time, that
magical time in which we lose ourselves, they love each other
passionately. This is all set in 1982 against the backdrop of
the Summer War in Lebanon, a war launched by Israel, ostensibly
to create a buffer zone at its northern border. The gruesome massacres
at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut pervade the atmosphere.
Click
here for full review.
Murderers'
Redemption: Establishing Actual Innocence
Criminal Defense Weekly. Oct. 12, 2002.
Attorneys rarely have time to read fiction these days, it seems,
but if you read anything at all for entertainment, you’ll
be warmly surprised by Scott Turow’s latest novel. In fact,
you might find that Turow (who has practiced law since the late
‘70s—first as a Chicago prosecutor before going over
to the defense side) has much more in mind than spinning a good
yarn. For without question, this is a literary novel, which has
as its purpose the demonstration of a new way of seeing the world.
Click
here for full review.
Global
Grabbers:
Progressives Hope to Solve "American Crisis"
San Jose Metro. March 7, 1996
Lest anyone doubt we live in a world that is now one hypertrophied
marketplace, where everything is for sale, the essays in a new
anthology shine a light on the darkest recesses of global capitalism.
The New American Crisis: Radical Analyses of the Problems Facing
America Today serves up both muckraking journalism and practical
suggestions on ways in which the fragmented progressive movement
might begin to organize effectively against the forces of the
New World Order. With essays by, among others, Noam Chomsky, Howard
Zinn, Zapatista leader Marcos, professor bell hooks and Native
American activist Winona LaDuke, the anthology roams the spectrum
of alternative viewpoints.
Click
here for full review.
Father
of the Bribe: Greed Swamps a Simple, Moral Moroccan Man in Corruptioner
San Jose Metro. Nov. 30, 1995
In Tahar Ben Jelloun's new novel, Corruption, the underlying
question is: What makes a man? He who maintains his integrity
in the face of widespread corruption; or he who is willing to
conform in order to provide for his family?
What the question really begs is, how do you deal with being well-adjusted
in a society that is morally bankrupt? Ben Jelloun, one of Morocco's
most prolific dissident writers, argues that the Third World is
rife with corruption's cancer, yet his short novel may also be
read as a metaphor for the dirty practices of business and politics
in our own society, where bribes, payoffs and the nefarious influence
of Washington lobbyists have perverted the political process.
Being well-adjusted to this sordid reality means that most of
us remain silent, rejecting activism and protest for complacency.
Click
here for full review.
A
Philosopher in the Bedroom
Washington Post Book World. Nov.
12, 1995. P.1
We
live in an age when information is often prized over knowledge,
high-tech weaponry and toxic chemicals are destroying the earth,
and the culture of reality, because it seems more relevant to
us than literature, has usurped the culture of storytelling. This,
at any rate, is the thesis of Rasero, a mature first novel
by Mexican author Francisco Rebolledo. A roman fleuve descendent
from such distinguished forebears as Tolstoi, Dickens or James,
Rasero almost seems an anachronism in form, yet it is fundamentally
subversive because it challenges our notion of history.
Click
here for full review.
From
the Outsider: Exile and Displacement in the Stories of Irene Dische
San Jose Metro. Nov. 2, 1995
If writers are often outsiders who feel the need to stand on the
margins of society looking in, expatriate authors are their literal
counterparts. Living and working in another culture, these self-exiles
throw new light on their native land even as they explore life
abroad. James Joyce and Samuel Beckett are exemplary of the estranged
writer: Joyce composed English prose with a unique cadence and
point of view, forever influencing modern fiction, while Beckett
wrote in French to avoid the banalities of his own language.
Irene Dische is an American born and raised in New York's Washington
Heights district. Her parents were Viennese Jews, and the neighborhood
was home to so many German Jews that it was known as "the
Fourth Reich." That German Jews would refer to their new
surroundings in this way explains, in part, Dische's unusual world
view, which sees isolated individuals living in a shadow realm
of confounded cultural identities.
Click here for full review.
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