Once Again

Another nice day ahead of us. Highs will be into the low 70's. It's not at all like winter and that's a shame. But it will be a good day to get outside and stretch some aching muscles; that will hasten my recovery.

I've finished Palestine Inside Out and now I'm working on the book, A History of Palestine by Gudrun Krämer. This is a scholarly work and doesn't contain the raw emotions found in Palestine Inside Out; that's a good thing. I'm not sure I could read two books like that. This book takes the reader to the bronze age in this part of the world and then moves through time until the time of the founding of the State of Israel. My book mark has me somewhere in the middle of the Ottoman Empire, the early 1800's.

What I've learned so far is that this part of the world has always been coveted by other nations; it has no natural borders except for the Mediterranean Sea on the west. It has always been a place where cultures met and traded, yet the wealth always went away with those who did the trading. The economy was agrarian; in good times the Palestinians stayed in one place and farmed. In times of drought, they would pack up and move to better pasture, if they could find it.

These were resilient people. In Biblical times they were known as the Jebusites and were the only tribe that couldn't be evicted from Jerusalem by the Israelites. No matter who conquered the land, the Palestinians endured. One can only hope that they can endure once again.

Link to A History of Palestine
a pdf file