The secret quest to preserve Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh's diaries
The world's leading Palestinian writer, Raja Shehadeh, has been on a mission to save his most personal work: his diaries.
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writer → preserve → work
The award-winning author of more than 20 books has been documenting decades of Palestinian life, starting in 1967 at the very beginning of Israel's occupation of the West Bank when he was a teenager.
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he → win → Bank
His diaries capture a unique voice and front row view of history: his meetings with world leaders, his work as a human rights lawyer, and his role as legal advisor to the Palestinians during peace talks with Israel.
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diaries → capture → Israel
Shehadeh, now 75, feared his diaries and archives — kept in his garage in the West Bank city of Ramallah — were at risk of destruction from Israeli military operations.
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diaries → fear → operations
(The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment about Shehadeh's fears.
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ministry → respond → fears
So he took part in a two-year, discreet effort to spirit them to Scotland, where he has spent many summers.
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he → take → summers
The archives are now at the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Exeter in England has published thousands of pages online.
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University → publish → pages
Shehadeh spoke with NPR's Daniel Estrin about his decades of diary writing, and the secret effort to preserve his archives.
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Shehadeh → speak → archives
The interview text below has been edited for length and clarity.
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text → edit → length
How keeping a diary consistently for so long impacted who he is as a writer
It's been a daily effort...in order to understand better what is happening around me, in order to record and document what is happening.
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what → keep → order
I started when I was...fifteen years old, just before the occupation.
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I → start → occupation
It has been a very good discipline because it helped me understand myself and what's happening around me...
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what → help → me
I was feeling that we are entering into a historic period that needs to be documented.
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that → feel → period
So I went about writing everything down that was happening and preserving whatever I could preserve.
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I → go → whatever
I was awakened many times from the sound of the bombing and shooting ...
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I → awaken → bombing
I just got too many telephones.
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I → get → telephones
The problem then became that the news spread that my spirits (so it was interpreted are down) so I got more calls from those who thought it is their duty to call me to help raise my morale ...
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it → become → morale
I am beginning to feel like a prisoner in the house, in solitary confinement ...
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I → begin → confinement
I am thinking of exercising by pacing around the house ...
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I → think → house
Then Samer called to say: now they have lifted the curfew ...
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they → call → curfew
I was glad to lift the garage door and to turn my car on ...
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I → lift → car
I continued driving up to the center and then saw two big tanks- how big they look, like elephants in a zoo where they don't belong, parked by our office blocking the street entirely ...
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they → continue → street
The satellite stations show the suffering of the Palestinians like a soap opera ...
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stations → show → opera
He is now very popular and he dramatizes everything.
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he → dramatize → everything
On Shehadeh's anger at Palestinian leaders for signing a peace accord in the 1990s that didn't stop Israeli settlement expansion
My diaries after that point showed a great anger which I was glad I didn't publish.
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I → sign → which
I mean, it was good that I put all my frustration and anger in the diaries because otherwise I would not have been able to live in Palestine because I was so angry and so frustrated by the leadership and so critical of it.
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And so the diary played an important role in helping me vent that frustration without getting myself into trouble.
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me → play → trouble
The leadership...didn't realize that the settlements were the disastrous thing and that they had to be stopped, and no agreement should happen without all settlement activities stopped, and they didn't do that.
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they → realize → that
On his diary entries documenting Israel's expanding control of the West Bank
I started recording the changes in the geography and in the roads and in the landscape and in the effect of the settlements.
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I → document → settlements
I used to walk a lot in the West Bank hills, and after the walks, I would record what I saw and how I felt and how the land looked.
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land → use → what
I was so confused by what was happening and so wanting to understand it, and so writing it helped me understand it.
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me → happen → it
I had my own way and my own nonconformity.
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I → have → way
And so describing my world in words helped me grasp it better.
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me → describe → it
Shehadeh's fear for the safety of his archives due to Israeli military operations
I n the Nakba (the Arabic word for "catastrophe," commonly used to refer to the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians when Israel was established) in 1948, they destroyed so many of the journals and private papers of Palestinians, and they were never found again.
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they → use → Palestinians
And then in 1982 in Lebanon, in Beirut, they went to the Palestine Research Center and took all the papers and all the journals and everything there and destroyed it.
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they → go → it
And in 2002, in the re-invasion of Ramallah, they went into so many homes and destroyed the private papers and everything.
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they → go → papers
And so I was worried that they would do the same for me.
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they → do → me
In 2023, with the Gaza war and the destruction of so much of the archives in Gaza, I became really worried and thought that I must do something to preserve these diaries.
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I → become → diaries
I kept the diaries in the garage.
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I → keep → garage
If the soldiers, as they did once, (would) enter my house, go to the garage and see them, they would just throw them all over the place and maybe set fire to them.
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they → enter → them
…and 21 more, not listed.
