On December 20 Mondoweiss published Hatim Kanaaneh’s review of my book
The Optimist: A Social Biography of Tawfiq Zayyad. While I welcome any criticism that sheds a different light on a text I wrote, this review baldly misrepresented the book’s contents and mischaracterized my own approach. Kanaaneh makes a sweeping argument that I fall short in ridding myself “of the ‘Jewish Israeli’ tribal prejudices and inimical presumptions about all things Palestinian.” Needless to say, for a scholar who has dedicated his academic career to studying various aspects of Palestinian history, society, culture, and politics, this is an offensive allegation that should not go unchallenged.