INTRODUCTION “ rational,” “ em pirical,” and “ pragm atic.” The glaring short­ comings o f such notions have been held publicly to blame for “ ou r” loss o f Iran and “ our” failure to forecast the “ resurgence o f Islam ,” without at the same time allowing for any exam ina­ tion o f the premises o f these notions. So, in fact, they get reasserted, and once again political scientists with a great role to play in decision m aking advise the same shortsighted things, and once again U .S . foreign policy is risked on what to nonexpert eyes (such as mine) are obvious losing causes, regressive historical visions. Even as I write these lines, the serious defects o f Cam p D avid seem to be proving my point. Until 1976, how ever, I do not think it is w rong to say that even Palestinians concurred in their own derogation, and hence in their unimportance as construed by Zionists and experts. Then we discovered ourselves, we discovered the world, and it discovered us. I try to describe our night and our slow awakening; without at the same time neglecting the setting o f our life on the land, in the region, in world politics, and so forth. But throughout our experience is the strand formed by Zionism . This is no theoretical issue, nor a matter of name-calling. T o us, Zionism has meant as much, albeit differently, as it has to Jews. W hat we need to inform the world about is how it meant certain concrete things to us, things of which we collectively bear the living traces. I have called my book a political essay because it tries to put our matter before the Am erican reader, not as something watertight and finished, but as something to' be thought through, tried out, engaged with— in short, as a subject to be dealt with politically. For too long we have been outside history, and certainly outside discussion; in its own modest way this book attempts to make the question o f Palestine a subject for discussion and political understanding. T he reader will quickly discover, I hope, that what is proposed in this book is not an “ expert” view nor, for that matter, persona! testimony. Rather, it is a series o f experienced realities, grounded in a sense o f human rights and the contradictions o f social experi­ ence, couched as much as possible in the language o f everyday reality.