The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine: Can Rocks Feel Pain

A photographic and verbal account of the landscapes of Palestine.

This book offers a portrait of the lives and struggles of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories on the West Bank, in particular the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley. Among the topics highlighted are house demolitions; confrontations between Palestinian shepherds or farmers and Israeli settlers, soldiers, and police; the daily challenges of sheer existence posed by the occupation system, intent on pushing Palestinians off their land; and the tenacity and courage that these conditions require. The book endeavors to impart to the reader a sense of the beauty of the landscape, the sound of the language, the taste of friendships, and the richness of a way of life that is threatened with extinction.

Voices of activists, both Palestinian and Jewish, are also present. The introduction sets forth, in brief, the historical context that generated present realities in Palestine as well as the history of the authors’ partnership. The book’s viewpoint reflects many years of activism on the peace and human rights front in Palestine as well as an ongoing conversation between two authors who have experienced together the continually renewed astonishment that comes with such encounters.

Margaret Olin is a senior lecturer emerita at Yale University. She specializes in visual culture and theory and is also a photographer active in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement. David Shulman is professor emeritus at Hebrew University Jerusalem, a scholar of South Asian language and literature, and a veteran activist in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement.