If the role of power is to obscure, then the role of the intellectual is to reveal. A key element of such revelation lies in examining realities not only as they exist today but as they have evolved over time—understanding not only what they are, but how they came to be. Thus, as the contributors to this volume have powerfully shown, the current reality of Palestine is not inevitable but contingent—an accumulation of economic distress that is both deliberate and a consequence of conflict, the product of human choices that can be changed, even reversed. As I have written, “the de-development of the Palestinian economy… was not natural but imposed… the growing violence in Palestinian society is not predetermined… but rather the logical and tragic outcome of relentless repression… By understanding how events unfolded and why, they acquire a history and logic of their own that challenge static and reductionist explanations and, in Said’s words, allow description and (explanation) to become transformation.”
