I trust David will permit me to correct him. I did not say "certain
uncomfortable facts", what I said was that Three Wishes may raise
"uncomfortable questions with our children that we adults must try to
answer, and the contextual material Ellis provides is a good starting
place for [doing] that".
While I agree that there are many underlying reasons as to why
Palestinian children suffer and that David's list is a good one, it
omits a key factor and indeed David denies this altogether - namely
that Israel bears some (by
no means all) of the direct and indirect responsibility for their
suffering. This so patently obvious that I think it unecessary to go
into details.
I am not familiar with James Parke's WhoseLand? A History of the
Peoples of Palestine, to give it its full title. I know Parkes as a
writer on Christian Jewish relationships, and antisemitism in the
Christian church, but not in the field of Palestine history. I've
already requested the book from my local public library, noting in
their catalogue that it is "Based on [his] A History of Palestine
From 135 A.D. to Modern Times, 1949."
I never said that Palestinians were "a homogeneous people for
centuries". As I made clear in my reply to Andrea Rapp's posting, the
rise of a real national identity among Palestinians took place
primarily after 1908 - but *not* after 1947.
David asks whether readers of Three Wishes are "aware of the fact
that the Arabs rejected the Partition Plan, that they started three
wars against Israel with the purpose of total destruction, that the
Palestinians elec-
ted the Hamas (a terrorist organization) whose objective is the destruction
[of] Israel?" In her introduction, Ellis says "the Palestinians and
the neighboring Arab countries rejected the [UN Partition] plan", but
does not make it clear that the new state was attacked by those
neighboring states in 1948. I agreed with Anne Dublin on this point
in my critique of her review. And I agree with David's criticism that
the wars of 1967 and 1973 should have been noted by Ellis as having
been started by the Arab states with intent to destroy Israel. Also
not mentioned by her is the 1956 war, in which after escalating
guerilla raids into Israel from Jordan and Egypt,
Israel colluded with Britain and France, and attacked Egypt. David's
final comment about Hamas is not relevant to the book, which was
published in 2004, but I must say that their election is an
incredible blow to peace in my opinion.
I would again urge David to actually read Three Wishes, but I won't since
he has so clearly already made up his mind about it. I hope others on
this list will read it, because it is very important and yes,
positive in that it speaks to our children, as Linda said in her
original review (noting that she had reservations, but that she still
recommended it) showing that "fear, hatred, resentment, sadness,
despair, and hope are distributed among
the children regardless of their identity... They live in the midst
of terrorism and war and what they have to say is, above all,
heartbreaking." This book belongs in our libraries - "an especially
apt choice for school libraries", said Linda - and should lead to
discussion and learning about how the conflict in a land we all love
has led to the suffering of ALL of the children that live there. B'shalom,
Bernard.
Bernard Katz, former head, Special Collections and Library Development
McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph
author, descriptive bibliog. of L.M. Montgomery's books (in progress)
and founding treasurer AJL- Ontario Chapter
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
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