Jim Brown reviewed The Question of Palestine by Edward Said
depressingly relevant
It's fairly depressing to read a book as old as me (published in 1978) that offers an analysis that is still pretty much dead on.
One thing that jumped out at me was Said's argument that the Zionist project is rooted in detailed plans and institutions, something that is not met with symmetry by Palestian political institutions. He doesn't necessarily lay blame on anyone (well, maybe he does), but he does offer much evidence in this area:
"The Palestinians have not understood that Zionism has been much more than an unfair colonialist master against whom one could appeal to all sorts of higher courts, without any avail. They have not understood the Zionist challenge as a policy of detail, of institutions, of organization, by which people (to this day) enter territory illegally, build houses on it, settle there, and call the land their own-with the whole world condemning them." (95)
