The Dispossessed: The Ordeal of the Palestinians, 1917-1980

Dispossessed describes the Palestinian experience of the twentieth century: the conquest of Palestine by the Zionist movement and the subsequent expulsion of its Arab inhabitants; the years of misery spent in other lands or under Israeli military rule; and the desperate attempts made by the Palestinians to win back at least a part of their homeland. The author has travelled through countries where the Palestinians now live and has talked to them of their memories of Palestine, their lives in exile and their hopes for the future. He has talked to the children of the refugee camps, to the old Jerusalem notables, to Palestinian businessmen in the Gulf, and to the guerrilla leaders in Beirut. From their narratives he has drawn a portrait of a nation in exile — of a people who know that they do not belong anywhere except to a land which is closed to them.

The Palestinians are dispersed throughout the Arab world, leading different lives in different circumstances — yet the experience of exile is common to each of them. It is the consequent sense of alienation and the longing to return home that have made Palestinian nationalism one of the strongest political forces in the Arab world. But, as the author argues in the final chapter, it is a longing that must be satisfied if there is ever to be a solution to the Palestine question and justice for the people themselves.