Palestinian lawyer’s diary saved from risk of destruction by Scottish university

Some of the diaries of a prominent Palestinian lawyer, writer and human rights campaigner have been saved from the risk of destruction and preserved at a Scottish university.Through an estimated five million words, Raja Shehadeh has chronicled more than six decades of daily life in Palestine, spanning almost 60 years from 1967 when he was 15 years old.Alongside the diaries, his archive includes original copies of military orders, issued following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, and legal and diplomatic papers that belonged to Mr Shehadeh’s father, the lawyer Aziz Shehadeh, that span the 1930s to the 1980s.The physical archive has been preserved by the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections.Digital copies have been stored at the Digital Archive of the Middle East (Dame), based at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.“I am happy and relieved that my and my father’s archives are now safe and will be published in the interests of truth and justice,” Mr Shehadeh said.“I have long been aware of Israel’s destruction of Palestinian archives in Beirut, Jerusalem and elsewhere, and of the importance of preserving Palestine’s cultural heritage.”He added: “I consider Edinburgh my second home, and I am profoundly grateful to the universities of Edinburgh and Exeter, where these papers are now safely deposited.”For many years, the University of Edinburgh said Mr Shehadeh’s archive was stored at a property in Ramallah, in the central West Bank, Palestine.Following Israeli military operations in Gaza, and the spread of violence to the West Bank, Mr Shehadeh wanted to ensure his archive was safeguarded from loss.Read MoreUnder the direction of UK-based writer and journalist, Matthew Teller, members of the project team in Palestine worked discreetly to assess and preserve the collection, and secure archival materials in safe locations.Work included digitising paper items and safely transporting the entirety of the paper archive to the UK.“Raja Shehadeh’s archive is a testament to Palestinian history, memory and intellectual life, and we recognise the great responsibility academia has in safeguarding this body of knowledge,” Dr Kholoud Al-Ajarma, deputy director of the University of Edinburgh’s Alwaleed Centre, said.“By preserving and making the archive accessible to students, researchers and the wider public, we seek to support a richer and more inclusive understanding of Palestine, while advancing our commitment to decolonising knowledge and ensuring that marginalised voices, histories and lived experiences are represented within the global academic record.”The collection will operate under the university policy of an open and transparent archive available to all researchers, scholars and members of the public.About 4,000 pages from the archive have now been made publicly available.At an event delivered by the university’s Alwaleed Centre, on Thursday, Mr Shehadeh will read extracts from his diaries and discuss the work that has taken place to preserve, digitise and transport the archive safely to Scotland.