Ibrahim Abu-Lughod : resistance, exile and return : conversations with Hisham Ahmed-Fararjeh

Abstract

The political memoirs of Ibrahim Abu-Lughod are the result of a number of oral interviews conducted with him at his home in Ramallah, Palestine, over a period of two years, from July 1999 to May 2001, the month of his death. In this book, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod speaks for himself, narrating the different eras of his educational, social, professional and political life. In essence, this narrative ends exactly where it began: Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, born on February 15, 1929 in Jaffa, Palestine, was determined to be buried close to his ancestral home in Jaffa, in spite of all Israeli government objections.In this book, the reader is certain to learn about the history, geography, lifestyle and politics of Palestine and other parts of the world during the period encompassed by Abu-Lughod‘s life. By exposing the story of his life, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod succeeds in condensing the details of several historical phases of the Palestinian struggle and manages to mirror the experience of many Palestinians around the world. This personalization of the Palestinian people‘s collective existence reveals the dynamics of the British Mandate over Palestine, the life of so many Palestinians in the United States and the soaring compulsion to exercise the Right of Return. This book should have been published at least a year ago. Unfortunately, AbuLughod’s illness during the last few months of his life, in addition to the disruption caused by the repeated Israeli incursions into Palestinian cities and the omnipresent yet unpredictable checkpoints, delayed its completion. We expect this work, based as it is on information from an invaluable firsthand source, to contribute to the scholarship and historiography surrounding Palestine; but mostly we hope that it will foment more research and analysis on the fascinating richness of Ibrahim Abu-Lughod’s life