Erasing Palestine: Free Speech and Palestinian Freedom by Rebecca Ruth Gould

Erasing Palestine: Free Speech and Palestinian Freedom by Rebecca Ruth Gould wasn't quite what I expected. I saw Gould in an interview and decided to read her book. Erasing Palestine starts out with an engaging story then goes into an academic discussion of antisemitism and the history of antisemitism while showing how antisemitism has been used as a cudgel to quiet the Palestinian voice and erase the history of the Palestinian people. Gould supports her individual points fairly well but sometimes it's easy to forget the overall point she's trying to make. I was a bit disappointed she didn't really explore how the legal definition of antisemitism came to differ so much from the dictionary definition. I felt this might have been an important part of discussing the erasure of Palestine. Some of her later points in the book about free speech in general weren't particularly convincing but also demonstrated what a complex issue freedom of speech can be. I, personally, don't believe consequence-free speech can exist and she said nothing that changed my mind. Overall, Erasing Palestine is a valiant effort at addressing a real and important issue, the silencing of people in academia trying to expose the reality of the treatment of the Palestinian people and how that ties into larger discussions around the consequences of speech.


Currently Reading:

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M. D. 

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010 by Lucille Clifton

The Joy of Writing Journal: Spark Your Creativity in 8 Minutes a Day by Lisa Tener


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