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Edward W. Said, "Leaving Palestine" in The New York Review of Books (Sept. 23, 1999)

STUDY QUESTIONS

 

1) What message do you believe Said hopes to convey by emphasizing the fact that he spoke predominantly Arabic in Jerusalem and English in Arab-speaking Egypt? (Note the fact that he mentions communicating in English in Jerusalem only with the purportedly one Jewish child in his old school.)

2) How does Said describe 1940s Jerusalem? What details does he choose to highlight?

3) What happened at "Deir Yassin"? (You may need to look this up.) Why do you think Said chose this particular reference?

4) What do you make of the apparent contradiction that Said's father felt he "lost everything" when he lost Palestine but that, according to Said, he "never much liked the place"?

5) In what ways does Said suggest the Palestinians in Egypt "suppressed Palestine"? What does he mean by this phrase?

6) Said's Aunt Nabiha takes on almost mythic proportions in his narrative. What work did his aunt perform in Cairo? What has she evidently come to symbolize for the author?

7) Although Said's immediate family, by his own account, did not fair badly in Cairo, he writes passionately of "dispossession," loss of identity, waning health, and the vulnerability of a people without a country. What was the Egyptian government's attitude towards the Palestinians within its borders, both "officially" and in fact?

8) What does Said mean when he asserts that his Jewish friend in Cairo ("Albert") viewed the "fall of Palestine" as just "another anti-Jewish episode"?

9) What is the predominant tone of Said's article? (Give examples.)