My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story

by Ramzy Baroud

Book Overview

Gaza is the frontline in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and rarely out of the news, this book explores the daily lives of the people in the region, giving us an insight into what is at risk in each round of violence.

Ramzy Baroud tells his father's fascinating story. Driven out of his village to a refugee camp, he took up arms and fought the occupation at the same time raising a family and trying to do the best for his...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0745328814
• ISBN13: 9780745328812
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The painful truth

It is not easy to talk about one's life in public with total honesty, specially if it includes some humiliating episodes, but the whole world should know the truth. This book is an honest rendering of almost all the Palestinians' ordeal .

And the whole world keep silent

I have read other books on the subject but Ramsy Baroud is very well documented, acurate and touchy he definitely knows how to write. The problem with the Western world is that many people do not even know what is happening in the Middle East. The news-media keeps silent in the face of those crimes against humanity that are occurring right now at this very moment. This is diabolical, because when you try to talk to people about it they even get mad. Where is the United Nations?, Where are all those Human Right Groups? and The International Red Cross?. Looks like the whole world has turned their back on the Palestinian people including the Arabs. Where are our politicians?. This is a very interesting book that has to be read by everyone.

Palestine genocide

I feel that most people could identify with Palestinian neighborhoods whether they grow up in cities like Brooklyn in the 50s, 60s and many other places- even the country , but suburbia and sterile modern America it was not , and is not...what's left of it. This book will hold your interest. Writer is calm and seems genuine. I am learning a lot. He understands the human heart. This book shows how we all have the same needs- family stability, jobs, places to gather, homes, a reason to live. Their world was shattered...somewhat resembles British genocide committed on Ireland- for a thousand years- but really culminating in the famine of the 1840s- that is when my father's ancestors came to America. One and one-half million Irish died from starvation while so called cultivated English enjoyed the deaths of poor, innocent people. No wonder the Irish can't stand them. I take the side of President Jimmy Carter who stood up for Palestinians. I am glad I bought this book. I think that Americans are brainwashed and that they hear the word Palestinian, and that automatically means terrorist. How far from the truth- Americans just fed horrible propaganda.

A Palestinian Son

Ramzy Baroud grips the heart from the very beginning of this book. Through the prose, I saw Baroud's father, felt the sorrow of his fate as a refugee - an intelligent, compassionate man and father who had everything taken from him, including his ability to protect and provide for his family for the single reason that he was a non-Jewish native of Palestine. I felt Ramzy's shame at leaving his family behind even though it was his only choice if he hoped to get an education and live the life he and his father had wanted for him. My Father Was a Freedom Fighter is at once a history of Palestine and the story of one proud family, torn from its ancient roots and cast into oblivion to trod through the indignities of the refugee's life. It is at once an academic work of historic significance and a work of literary non-fiction. Baroud's historic accounts spring from meticulous research, and the story of his family is clearly poured from his heart. This book is a must read for anyone who cares to understand the foundation of the Palestine-Israel conflict; for anyone who cares to see the genocide happening before our very eyes. There will come a day when our children and grandchildren will ask us what did we do while Palestine was being wiped off the map. As Dr Abu Sitta points out in the preface, no one can honestly say "I did not know". Palestine lives through the words of people like Baroud and through the actions of so many of Palestine's sons and daughters, who, contrary to David Ben Gurion's prediction, have not forgotten.

Gaza's Untold Story

Though I've only begun reading this new release a few days ago, one feels as if he's walking with this author thru time and history --thru the memories of his grandfathers and extended family eyes..during the Ottoman Empire's end and British Mandate's rule, transitioning from one form of oppression to the next until the time when their neighbors in nearby villages with whom they'd shared meals, had doctor visits become the hunters, expelling /clearing villages from the Gazan district turning friends into homeless landless refugees. Westerners hear little and know less about Gaza than any other part of Palestine but it is so central to all key issues of peace, war and negotiation. Daily accounts of bombings of an encaged people from daily paper becomes personal to the reader when experienced so intimately in this family of several generations in the Strip. Absolute must read this compelling account.