Abstract

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.

'Kanaaneh succeeds brilliantly in bringing to light his community, and 'the wall of seclusion and concealment' behind which Israel has isolated its Palestinian citizens'
Emma Williams, The Lancet
'A moving account of the plight of the Palestinians by one of them'
Desmond M. Tutu, Archbishop Emeritu
'Sheds a unique light on the lives of ... Palestinians in a beautifully readable and engrossing memoir. His account of the rank racial discrimination, difficult social circumstances and pervasive poverty of most Palestinians in the Jewish state is leavened by Kanaaneh's humour and his eye for striking detail. This is a truly touching book that is hard to put down'
Rashid Khalidi
'Blends the personal with the political, the past with the present and the emotional commitment with the rational analysis. It is a fascinating first hand account from the perspective of a Palestinian who defeats the imposed partition of the land and the fragmentation of its people: he belongs to Palestine on both sides ... both a native of the land and a refugee in it'
Ilan Pappe
'Scarcely any personal narratives of the lives of Israel's Arab minority exist. Kanaaneh's fascinating exposure of this little known subject is written with passion and authority'
Dr Ghada Karmi