The Real Meaning of the Hebron Agreement

This essay argues that despite the media hype that surrounded the January 1997 signing of the Hebron protocol the agreement has done nothing to alter Israel's de facto control over the West Bank and Gaza and in fact demonstrates the Palestinian Authority's acquiescence in continuing Israeli sovereignty. Meanwhile, the media have remained silent about the continuing deterioration of daily life in the Palestinian territories. The author proposes that Palestinians themselves can help to end this silence by organizing an information campaign to expose the inequalities of life in the West Bank and Gaza.

EDWARD W. SAID is University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and the author of numerous books on a wide range of topics, including Orientalism (1978), The Question of Palestine (1979), Culture and Imperialism (1993), and, most recently, Peace and Its Discontents (1996). This is a revised version of an article that was published in the Guardian, 15 February 1997.