Sarah Irving

Dubbed "the poster girl of Palestinian militancy," Leila Khaled's image flashed across the world after she hijacked a passenger jet in 1969. The picture of a young, determined looking woman with a checkered scarf, clutching an AK-47, was as era-defining as that of Che Guevara. In this intimate profile, based on interviews with Khaled and those who know her, Sarah Irving gives us the life-story behind the image. Key moments of Khaled's turbulent life are explored, including the dramatic events of the hijackings, her involvement in the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, her opposition to the Olso peace process, and her activism today. Leila Khaled's example gives unique insights into the Palestinian struggle through one remarkable life â€“ from the tension between armed and political struggle, to the decline of the secular Left and the rise of Hamas, and the role of women in a largely male movement.

Fighting for Palestine

Leila Khaled

Sarah Irving provides a fine portrayal of a compelling and mysterious figure from a tumultuous period in Palestinian history, mixing biography and historical critique to deliver a valuable insight into Leila Khaled's character as well as her extraordinary appeal as a revolutionary icon.

Icon of Palestinian Liberation

ʻAblah ʻŪdah

أيقونة التحرر الفلسطيني

ليلى خالد

Anthony Gorman

This book examines the ways in which non-Arabic cultural influences interacted with the rich, complex and sometimes conflictual environment of the Arab world in the pre-independence era. It comprises a series of 11 detailed case studies, including topics such as the songs of Egyptian forced labourers in the British Army in World War I, the translation and commentary of an Ottoman text in interwar Palestine, and the contested use of French in the Algerian independence movement, that highlight the complex interplay of colonial pressures, traditional and novel art forms, local and international practices, notions of identity and belonging. The book demonstrates how the interaction between Arabic and non-Arabic cultural and intellectual production as well as influences from imperial Europe and the Islamic East, have in various times and spaces inspired creative tensions which challenge binary views of East-West relations and the standard imperialist-colonial frameworks. In this sense the volume seeks to offer a critique of both established modernising conceptions of cultural development and nationalist, nativist frameworks based on the values of a specific political project.

Arts, Thought and Literature

Cultural Entanglement in the Pre-Independence Arab World

Sharyn Lock

An eye-witness blog written during the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Beneath the Bombs

Gaza

The only practical guide to traveling in Palestine and Palestinian communities in Israel.

Palestine

Represents a history of the British Empire that takes account of the sense of empire as intellectual as well as geographic dominion: the historiography of the British Empire, with its preoccupation of empire as geographically unchallenged sovereignty, overlooks the idea of empire as intellectual dominion.

Sarah Irving

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