Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel






In Sleeping on a Wire, Israeli writer David Grossman takes on the complicated task of sorting through the complex historical, psychological, and political situation of Israeli Arabs.  That is, Arabs who are Israeli citizens.   

Even the term Israeli Arab is a trigger for debate.  In this book Grossman uses the term Palestinian Arab far more often, showing just how complex the relationship of Israeli’s largest minority (about 20 percent of the population) is to the Jewish majority.

Just as in his book on the territories The Yellow Wind, where Grossman examines the problem of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, in Sleeping on a Wire Grossman is unsparing in his treatment of the situation of Arab Israeli citizens.  He interviews, he examines and analyzes, leaving us with a book that reaches no easy solution to a complex problem.

Rather, the book is a mirror of the problem itself.  A signpost, so to speak, showing us where reality lay, and how hard it is to ignore.   

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