The secret quest to preserve Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh's diaries

Key Points:

• Raja Shehadeh, a leading Palestinian writer, has spent decades documenting Palestinian life through diaries starting from 1967, capturing personal, political, and historical moments including meetings with world leaders and peace negotiations.
• Concerned about the risk of destruction from Israeli military operations, Shehadeh undertook a secret two-year effort to digitize and transfer his archives from his West Bank garage to universities in Scotland and England for preservation.
• His diaries reveal his critical perspective on Palestinian leadership's failure to halt Israeli settlement expansion and document the changing geography and hardships in the West Bank under occupation.
• Shehadeh's archives also include a 40-year investigation into his father's 1985 killing, highlighting flaws in the Israeli police investigation and suspicions of protected collaborators.
• Throughout his writings, Shehadeh emphasizes the importance of Palestinian steadfastness ("sumud") as resistance against Israeli efforts to displace Palestinians and preserve their existence in the occupied territories.