Laetitia Bucaille. Growing up Palestinian: Israeli Occupation and the Intifada Generation.

Laetitia Bucaille. Growing up Palestinian: Israeli Occupation and the Intifada Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2004. Hardback $21.95.

The book is an intense account of growing up as a Palestinian in the context of social and political despair. Bucaille describes, in immense detail, the daily lives and experiences of three Palestinian youth since the first Intifada in 1987, to their raised hopes in 1994 after attaining the Palestinian Authority, and to their disappointment when they realized that their leaders were incapable of achieving the goal of national liberation. She contends that the Al-Aqsa Intifada is a consequence of this disappointment. The author further explores how "for at the end the history of the Palestinian confrontation is inseparable from the history of the Palestinian's confrontation with themselves" (XIX).

Bucaille swiftly recognizes that the aim of Israel's continuous repression is to exhaust Palestinian society. Israel's Intensifying repression led to serious escalation of violence, including suicide martyrdom and radicalization. However, though she does not specify the dialectical relationship between the two, she arrives at the same conclusion. The increase in repression and sophistication of the methods of repression produce their antithesis and sophistication of the resistance to the occupation by the Palestinians.

In her analysis of the effect of the continuation of conflict on the Palestinian side she suggests that it weakened the Palestinian society. The reoccupation of the west Bank and Gaza strip, the systematic demolition of the Palestinian Authority, and the recent fragmentation of the territories into separate enclaves/cantons by building concrete walls, had eliminated the foundation of a Palestinian state. The author also describes the complexities in the Palestinian current status is due to the diversification of the Palestinian society between the middle class and the politically active youth (shebab). On the Israeli side, the continuation of the conflict led to a drift in the Israeli military due to the refusniks, or the military who refuse to serve in the Israeli army, and are determined not to participate in the oppression of Palestinians or to commit war crimes.

This is a thorough narrative that depicts why growing up to be a Palestinian is not without its compromises. By revealing the daily life of Palestinians in the street, prison, home, and refugee camp she perceives balancing hopelessness with the desire to live a decent life demands much courage. Bucaille argues, "from the point of view of both protagonists, violence remains the strategy that yields more results" (P.153). Her proposed solution for the Palestinians is to retain to nonviolence, especially that they are to expect an intimidating life ahead.