Wednesday, NPR's Robert Siegel interviewed a Palestianian lawyer and author Raja Shehadeh as part of All Things Considered's look at the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War in 1967, involving Israel and surrounding Arab nations. Israel won the war and the region has been changed.
Shehadeh was 16 years old in 1967 and living in the West Bank when the war began. He says Israeli troops easily occupied the area...
"....(Siegel) "How did the war in 1967 change the life of a teenager and his family?" (Shehadeh)."for me, at 16 it was a most crucial time when I needed to be free and explore life and go into the world, instead the world meant perpetual curfew at first a 24 hour curfew, then it was reduced a little bit and then there was utter confusion...."
Shehadeh went on to get a law degree and write about the occupation and life in the West Bank.
Listening carefully were John Viste and Elaine Strite of Harshaw, in Oneida county.
John and Elaine lived in the region for part of their careers. The got to know Shehadeh quite well, and as Viste says Shehadeh wrote about the changing West Bank after the Six Day War...
"...every Sunday he would take walks in the hills of the West Bank and Elaine and I often times went with him on these walks. He just enjoyed the nature but also the landscape...the rising settlements the Israelis were building in the West Bank. We had a lot of interesting confrontations with people in the settlements..."
One of Shehadeh's books "Palestinian Walks" details the walks he took with John and Elaine and others. We have Robert Siegel's interview with Shehadeh and a longer interview with John Viste on below.
