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(More customer reviews)The whole time I was reading this book I had an odd feeling of déjà vu. Dr. Kanaaneh's personal and moving story of his journey from the small Palestinian village of Arrabeh, to Harvard, Hawaii, and back to Arrabeh, has a strikingly quality of honest self-examination. He openly acknowledges that the nature of his motivation to "save the world" has been both altruistic and egotistical. When I finished I realized that the place I had recently encountered this same combination of impulses was in Barak Obama's "Dreams from My Father".
Dr. Kanaaneh describes the complex obstacles and opportunities he has encountered in his life journey with an unsparing eye for the morally ambiguous positions of all of the actors in the drama, from Israeli officials in the Ministry of Health, to Jewish and Palestinian colleagues and personal friends and neighbors. Eventually the torturous compromises involved in working within a system which was stacked against the achievement of his goals forced Dr. Kanaaneh to leave the Ministry of Health and start the Galilee Society.
Running throughout this story is Dr. Kanaaneh's connection to the land of his forefathers and his deep concern for both the physical and spiritual health of the people who live there. This is symbolized in the last chapter by his pursuit and cultivation of an ancient olive tree. The meaning of this deep connection is all the more profound at this moment, when the Israeli state is threatening to take away the land that Dr. Kanaaneh has spent his life working to keep and improve. Here is a quote from his letter to President Obama:
"The newly-elected prime minister of Israel, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and his foreign minister, Mr. Avigdor Lieberman, plan evict me from my home and to take away my garden. These two persons and their fellow ministers were democratically elected to their positions and will use `democratic' means at their disposal to legitimize my disenfranchisement as have previous Israeli governments done in the past. The difference is that the current leaders are explicit and aggressive about disadvantaging me based on my ethnicity. They have devised a way to blame me for my victimhood. They intend to ask me to sign an oath of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state, a state that defines itself as exclusive of me and my people."
All readers of this book will be moved by Dr. Kanaaneh's life of devotion to the improvement of the plight of his people, and the position he finds himself in today. Perhaps the poisoned atmosphere, fueled by the words and actions of the Israeli government and its absolutely unquestioning support by recent American administrations, will begin to clear slightly after the overtures that President Obama made in his speech Cairo. We can only hope so!
In any case this book is a beautifully written and poignant account of the position of Arabs living with Israel's border, a topic which is rarely discussed in the polarized characterizations of the Middle East in American media. The indefatigable creativity which is at the heart Dr. Kanaaneh's quest for social justice is source of inspiration.
In January of 2009 I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Kanaaneh on the street in Manhattan during a protest of Israel's latest violent incursion in Gaza. He told me he was in the United States to visit his children and grandchildren, because, although some things have improved, they still face the same prejudices and lack of opportunities that he encountered as a bright, ambitious, young student, many years ago.
Click Here to see more reviews about: A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel
Hatim Kanaaneh is a Palestinian doctor who has struggled for over 35 years to bring medical care to Palestinians in Galilee, against a culture of anti-Arab discrimination. This is the story of how he fought for the human rights of his patients and overcame the Israeli authorities' cruel indifference to their suffering. Kanaaneh is a native of Galilee, born before the creation of Israel. He left to study medicine at Harvard, before returning to work as a public health physician with the intention of helping his own people. He discovered a shocking level of disease and malnutrition in his community and a shameful lack of support from the Israeli authorities. After doing all he could for his patients by working from inside the system, Kanaaneh set up The Galilee Society, an NGO working for equitable health, environmental and socio-economic conditions for Palestinian Arabs in Israel. This is a brilliant memoir that shows how grass roots organisations can loosen the Zionist grip upon Palestinian lives.
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