Supposedly we live in a post-truth age: There is no foundational fact-based consensus, only disparate emotion-based versions of what is. But has it not always been so? Uri Avnery, the Israeli writer and peace activist, is quoted in this book that he escaped brainwashing by the Israeli media during the 2014 Gaza war by watching both Israeli and Arabic coverage and so seeing "two different wars, happening at the same time on two different planets". Here is the battle of language: beginning in 1948, when Israel drove the Palestinians from their land, Israelis celebrate Independence Day. But the same anniversary is known among Palestinians as al-Nakba – the catastrophe. Displaced Palestinians are denied refugee status but have "special status", thus reinforcing the sense that they have no homeland. This book begins by exploring language but wanders into examining various peace negotiations at which the author was a legal adviser. It is very interesting on Shehadeh's opinion of mistakes made by the PLO in initial negotiations. Add quotations, anecdote and personal experience, and you have a pocket history of the last 48 years of Palestinian misery. A thoroughly depressing but necessary book, written in a measured tone that cannot suppress the language of despair.
