The preeminent teacher of Palestinian thinking in the United States has a new lesson plan.
Edward Said, now in his mid-60s, lives in the shadow of leukemia, and political disappointment, relieved in a measure by a university teaching life in literature and music. But when he thinks of the Middle East and the hope of his children for peace and reconciliation, Edward Said's prescriptions have changed.
He says Palestinians will never get the sovereign statehood for which Said himself made common cause with Yasir Arafat. Neither will Prime Minister Barak or any Israeli government get the wire-fence and checkpoint separation they seem to want from Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza.
The problem is that ideology of separation, on both sides: for people living on top of each other indefinitely, Said says, salvation will be coexistence, equality, integration. People, not governments, will achieve it, he says. (Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
