The Palestinians

In 1980, Jonathan Dimbleby and Don McCullin wrote a seminal book on the plight of the Palestinian people from the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 onwards. It chronicled their struggles and their dreams of a homeland. Through extensive interviews, it gave a voice to the people: to the old men who were children when the Balfour Declaration prepared the way for the exodus from Palestine; to the children who were born in the diaspora and who were then willing to contemplate certain death in a guerrilla war rather than surrender the right to their homeland. ‘The Palestinians’ is about individuals – lawyers, doctors, diplomats, craftsmen, students, labourers, businessmen, politicians, soldiers, fighters and peasants. Through them the book explores the crisis of a people without a land, demonstrating that the ‘Palestinian problem’ is not an abstract issue but an urgent human tragedy.