Background

Raja Shehadeh was born in 1951 in Jaffa, Israel. He is the son of Aziz, an attorney, and Wedad Shehadeh.

Education

Shehadeh studied law in London, graduating in 1973.

Career

Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer and writer who lives in the Ramallah refugee camp. He works as attorney in private practice in Ramallah since 1980. Before that, he was a part-time instructor in law at the Bethlehem University. He was also a visiting fellow in Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School in 1988.

He is a founder of the pioneering, nonpartisan human rights organization Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists.

Shehadeh is the author of several books on international law, human rights, and the Middle East, including Strangers in the House and Occupation Diaries. In July 2018, his biographical Where the Line is Drawn: Crossing Boundaries in Occupied Palestine was chosen for BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, and was narrated by actor Peter Polycarpou. His most recent book, Going Home: A walk through fifty years of occupation, which was published in August 2019.

Achievements

• Raja Shehadeh is an award winning writer. His best known work is Palestinian Walks, for which he won the Orwell Prize, Britain's pre-eminent award for political writing, in 2008.

Works

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  • Shifting Sands: The Unravelling of the Old Order in the Middle East

    (At a time when the Middle East dominates media headlines ...)

    2015
  • Where the Line Is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships, and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine

    (Shehadeh explores how occupation has affected him persona...)

    2017
  • Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine

    (This revealing memoir of a father-son relationship, the f...)

    2012
  • Samed: Journal of a West Bank Palestinian

    (Describes the daily lives of Palestinians living under Is...)

    1984
  • Language of War, Language of Peace: Palestine, Israel and the Search for Justice

    (When conflicts become entrenched over generations, the la...)

    2015
  • From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel and the Palestinian Territories

    (This book represents an in-depth legal analysis of the le...)

    1997
  • Going Home: A walk through fifty years of occupation

    (In Going Home, Orwell Prize-winning author Raja Shehadeh ...)

    2019
  • A Rift in Time: Travels with my Ottoman Uncle

    (Raja Shehadeh is the most celebrated Palestinian writer w...)

    2010
  • Occupation Diaries

    (It is often the smallest details of daily life that tell ...)

    2013
  • When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege

    (The Israeli army invaded Ramallah in March 2002. A tank s...)

    2003
  • Palestinian Walks: Forays into a Vanishing Landscape

    (Raja Shehadeh is a passionate hill walker. He enjoys noth...)

    2008
  • The Third Way 1982
  • Occupier's Law: Israel and the West Bank 1988

Politics

Shehadeh was critical of the Palestinian National Authority for having imported on its return the prejudices of the Palestinian diaspora. He himself resigned his work as an advisor in dissent from the PLO during the Madrid peace negotiations, and considers the continuing hostility of the Palestinian diaspora for failing to come to terms with the realities of Palestinians who have endured the occupation for decades, and who have built their civic institutions while exercising the traditional values of sumud rather than indulging in impractical cults of heroism.

Personality

Raja is a passionate hill walker. He enjoys nothing more than heading out into the countryside that surrounds his home.

Connections

Shehadeh married Penny Johnson, a writer, in 1988.

Father:

Aziz Shehadeh

Mother:

Wedad Shehadeh

Spouse:

Penny Johnson

Great-great-uncle :

Najib Nassar

Grandfather:

Saleem Shehadeh