Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process by Edward Said

Edward Said is crazy smart and a cool thinker. Peace and Its Discontents is written in the 1990’s. Growing up in that time, I always heard that phrase “peace in the Middle East.” It was practically a joke, like the cliche thing that a beauty pageant contestant would say is what she wishes for. What I didn’t realize is that the phrase actually references an urge for Palestine to surrender itself to Israel. Palestine is situated right between Egypt and Jordan. It was colonized by England from 1918 to 1948. Then, just as a lot of neighboring countries were gaining independence, Palestine was taken over by Israel, a new Jewish state which is backed by America (financially and otherwise). Now Israel is on the map and Palestine isn’t. One of Said’s suggestions in this book, as an exiled Palestinian now living in America, is to take a census. Show and admit how many Palestinian people there really are because right now you are completely denying that you came and settled on land that was alre