Daughter of Edward Said remembers her ‘best friend’ on his 86th birth anniversary

Clip 1 - Najla's earliest memory of her dad
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Updated 01 November 2021
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Daughter of Edward Said remembers her ‘best friend’ on his 86th birth anniversary

  • Growing up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Najla Said faced a personal identity crisis as an Arab-American
  • Edward Said was an author, public thinker, pianist, founding figure of postcolonial studies and proponent of the Palestinian cause

DUBAI: The world will always remember Edward Said as a man of letters with a wide range of interests.

Born to Palestinian parents in British-ruled Jerusalem in the 1930s, he became an internationally recognized author, critic, professor, public thinker, gifted pianist, founding figure of postcolonial studies and lifelong proponent of the Palestinian cause.

However, in the eyes of his only daughter, the actress, playwright and author of “Looking for Palestine,” Najla Said, he was simply “Daddy.”

Her earliest memory of her father shows just how attached she was to him from a very young age.




Young girl Najla and her "best friend" dad. (Supplied)

“I remember being about two or three years old and I had a bloody nose. My mother told me to lie down and hold my nose, but I remember when my dad came home from work, I jumped up, shouting ‘Daddy!’ and ran toward him while blood was running down my nose,” she told Arab News in a video interview. “I was so excited that he was home. I loved him very, very much.”

Najla Said grew up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where she faced a personal identity crisis as an Arab-American, feeling like an outsider at a posh all-girls school that she said lacked diversity.

“I was never around people like me and it was very confusing,” she said. “My friends were all blonde, they had tiny little bones, and they all seemed to know each other from their summer houses. I spent a lot of my childhood in Lebanon, going back and forth before I started school, and I came from this enormous, wonderful family that I loved but as soon as I went to school, I realized that somehow I was different.”

The older she got, the more prominent her father became in the public eye, which she found embarrassing at the time.




Najla Said, daughter of Palestinian-American author Edward Said. (Supplied)

“A lot of people have said to me, ‘How could you have grown up with this person and been ashamed of being Palestinian?’ But that’s the whole point, because I think people don’t realize that before the last 20 or so years, people in America from other countries would be very uncomfortable revealing their ethnic identity, because the whole idea was to be American and assimilate.”

Today, as an adult woman, she views her father differently.

Said’s magnum opus, “Orientalism,” presented his perspective of how the West had degradingly perceived the East, or “the Orient,” in everything from literary texts to popular representation.

Though it was published in 1978, it remains highly relevant and is required reading for college students in many countries.

Said’s speeches were so captivating that, as one close friend said, “when he spoke, the whole room was just spellbound, not daring to say a word.”

“After 9/11, in the last couple of years of his life, I was really proud to be his daughter. I was old enough to understand,” Najla Said told Arab News.




Portrait of the essayist, professor of literature and ex member of the Palestinian National Council Edward Said. (Getty Images)

As his fame grew, so too did the aggression of his critics, she recalls. His life was in danger, subject to death threats, and his office at Columbia University, where he taught for four decades, was once set ablaze.

Said describes her father as “ahead of his time.”

“I think he was saying things people weren’t ready to hear.”

She believes he paved the way for people to openly assert their multi-layered identity. “When I went to college in the early 1990s, when the political correctness movement was just beginning, everyone was saying, ‘I’m African-American, I’m Asian-American.’ He gets the credit for ‘Asian-American’ because he was the one who said, ‘oriental’ is not a good word.”

Najla and Edward are alike in several ways: Like him, she is passionate, temperamental and expressive in her writing. She cherishes some of the moments she shared with her father, including rubbing shoulders with literary giants.

Attending a UNESCO committee in Paris together in 1993, they met the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco and the Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.




Edward Said, Palestinian writer in Modena, Italy, on 18th Sept. 2001. (Getty Images)

“My dad was parading me around on his arm and Gabriel Garcia Marquez came up to me and asked me, in French, which of his books I’d read, and I said, ‘None of them.’ Marquez said, ‘I can’t believe that girl said that to me,’ and he took me by the arm, saying: ‘I like her!’ My dad felt so proud of me.”

To Najla, her father was a gentleman, a man who loved to puff away on his pipe and listen to Wagner. He collected pens and ties, and his tweed suits were tailored in Savile Row, in London. He was conversational and loyal, but did not mince his words.

Edward Said befriended the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and disagreed with Yasser Arafat. On air, he challenged television journalists such as Charlie Rose and Tim Sebastian over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He did not like pop music, nor the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, who he said sounded like she was wailing.

His passion for classical music led him to work with his friend, the veteran Israeli-Argentinian conductor Daniel Barenboim, to establish in 1999 the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, made up mostly of Arab and Israeli musicians. “He even said, at the end of his life, that the greatest thing he ever did was that orchestra,” said Najla.




Palestinian writer and scholar Edward Said (R) talks to journalists at a press conference with Israeli conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim (L) in Oviedo 25 Oct. 2002, after it was announced that they will be awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord 2002, for their joint efforts to promote peace in the Middle East. (File/AFP)

She said her father encouraged her pursuit of the arts and was supportive when she struggled with anorexia, heartbreaks and self-doubt. “I was in college and I had shown him a draft of my senior thesis and said, ‘I’m so dumb’.” In a handwritten note, he responded: “There are a lot of things you are, Naj. Dumb isn’t one of them.”

Najla Said remembers her dad as sweet and loving and a man who always made time for his family. “The only place I ever felt safe was with my mother (Mariam), father and brother (Wadie). It was like us against the world. The idea of ‘home’ is: My family is home,” she said.

To this day, she finds her father’s fame surreal. “I’m still surprised by how many people know who he is,” she said. “I went back to one of my college reunions at Princeton, which is a very white, preppy school, and the kid, a typical American boy, who checked me in said, “What’s your last name?’ and I replied, ‘Said,’ and he goes, ‘Oh, like Edward!’”

He changed how the world approached representation. In 2015, a fashion exhibit entitled ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ was put on at the Metropolitan Museum, and on the wall at the beginning they flashed up his name. “The people at the museum were like, ‘We have to be careful of how we present,’” she recalled. “I never thought I’d see my dad on the wall of a fashion exhibition.”

The fact that her father remains alive in the hearts of so many has been a source of comfort for Said. “I feel like I’m not alone. If I’m in an unfamiliar place and someone knows who he is, I feel, ‘OK, I’m safe here,’ because someone knows who I am and they’re OK with that.”




Professor and writer Edward Said poses Feb. 8, 2003 in his office at Columbia University in New York City. (Getty Images)

Najla was only 17 when Said was diagnosed with leukemia in the early 1990s, a battle he fought until his death in 2003, six months after the US invasion of Iraq.

“He used to joke that he ‘took off’ as soon as we invaded Iraq,” she said. “He was like, ‘Ah! I’m done. No one’s listening to me. I’ve got to go.’”

As the disease began to take its toll on Said’s health, he lost weight and his voice became hoarse, his daughter recalled, but “he still had this fire in him.”

Nearly 20 years after his death, Edward Said continues to be an inspiration for marginalized peoples the world over. “What he was saying was basic and universal, and ultimately about humanity,” she said.

Said would have turned 86 on Nov. 1. He loved birthdays and an ideal gift for him was clothing.

On a day that is heavy with emotions for the family, Najla Said has a wish. “At the end of the day, losing a parent is hard,” she said. “I miss him so much, it’s hard to even explain. I was definitely a daddy’s girl and he was my best friend. So, I would say: ‘Please come back. This is nonsense.’”

_______________

Twitter: @aRTprojectdxb


Israeli strike hits vehicle at Beirut southern entrance: state media

Updated 4 sec ago
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Israeli strike hits vehicle at Beirut southern entrance: state media

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported an Israeli strike on a vehicle on Beirut’s southern entrance, as the Israeli army said it hit a “terrorist” working for Iran.
According to the NNA, “an enemy drone targeted a car on the Khalde highway” south of Beirut.
The Israeli army said it “eliminated a terrorist responsible for smuggling weapons and advancing terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops, on behalf of the Iranian Quds Force,” the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

Updated 3 min 53 sec ago
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Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

  • He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity“
  • Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court sentenced him to five years

ALGIERS: An Algerian court on Thursday sentenced historian Mohamed Amine Belghit to five years in prison for offending national symbols, his lawyer said, after remarks questioning the existence of the native Amazigh culture.

Belghit sparked outrage in the North African country when he said in a recent interview that “the Amazigh language is an ideological project of Franco-Zionist origin,” and that “there’s no such thing as Amazigh culture.”

He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity” by targeting “symbols of the nation and the republic” as well as “disseminating hate speech,” the prosecution said at the time.

On Thursday, Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court outside the capital Algiers sentenced him to five years behind bars.

The prosecutor had requested seven years jailtime and a fine of 700,000 dinars ($5,400).

Algeria in 2016 granted official status to Tamazight, the language of the Amazigh people, who are also known as Berbers.

The Berber new year celebration, Yennayer, was added in 2017 to the list of national holidays.

Belghit, a university professor, is no stranger to controversies.

His remarks often cause uproar, with critics accusing him of historical revisionism and hostility toward the Amazigh people.


Iran committed to Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreign minister says

Updated 5 min 41 sec ago
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Iran committed to Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreign minister says

  • Abbas Araqchi made the comment a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog
  • Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’s airstrikes

Iran remains committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its safeguards agreement, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday, a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
“Our cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will be channeled through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons,” Araqchi wrote in a post on X.
President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday enacted the legislation passed by parliament last week to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, a move the US called “unacceptable.”
Araqchi’s comment on X was in response to a call from Germany’s Foreign Ministry urging Tehran to reverse its decision to shelve cooperation with the IAEA.
Araqchi accused Germany of “explicit support for Israel’s unlawful attack on Iran, including safeguarded nuclear sites.”
Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’sJune 13-24 airstrikes on Iranian nuclear installations, which began a day after the UN agency’s board of governors voted to declare Tehran in violation of its obligations under the NPT.
Western powers have long suspected that Iran has sought to develop the means to build atomic bombs through its declared civilian atomic energy program. Iran has repeatedly said it is enriching uranium only for peaceful nuclear ends.
IAEA inspectors are mandated to ensure compliance with the NPT by seeking to verify that nuclear programs in treaty countries are not diverted for military purposes.
The law that went into effect on Wednesday mandates that any future inspection of Iranian nuclear sites by the IAEA needs approval by Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council.
“We are aware of these reports. The IAEA is awaiting further official information from Iran,” the Vienna-based global nuclear watchdog said in a statement.
US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular briefing on Wednesday that Iran needed to cooperate fully with the IAEA without further delay.


Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq to hand over weapons in first step toward disarmament

Updated 03 July 2025
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Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq to hand over weapons in first step toward disarmament

  • “A group of guerrilla fighters will come down from the mountains and will bid farewell to their arms in an effort to declare their good will for peace and democratic politics,” PKK said
  • A PKK spokesperson said the fighters will destroy their weapons “under the supervision of civil society institutions”

IRBIL, Iraq: A Kurdish militant group that has waged a long-running insurgency in Türkiye announced Thursday its fighters in northern Iraq will begin handing over their weapons, marking the first concrete step toward disarmament as part of a peace process.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announced in May it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm.

Ocalan, 76, continues to wield significant influence in the Kurdish movement despite his 25-year imprisonment. His call to end the fighting marked a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.

In the latest development, “a group of guerrilla fighters will come down from the mountains and will bid farewell to their arms in an effort to declare their good will for peace and democratic politics,” the PKK said in a statement Thursday.

The ceremony, which is expected to take place between July 10 and July 12 in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, will be the first concrete move toward disarmament.

Zagros Hiwa, a PKK spokesperson, said the fighters will destroy their weapons “under the supervision of civil society institutions and interested parties.” The number of fighters who will take part has not yet been determined but might be between 20 and 30, he said.

For the PKK to take further steps toward disarmament, he said “the regime of isolation” imposed on Öcalan in prison “has to be abolished” and “constitutional, legal and political” must be taken to “ensure that the guerrilla who have abandoned the strategy of armed struggle could be reintegrated into democratic politics in Turkiye.”

An Iraqi Kurdish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the PKK members are expected to hand over their light weapons to the regional government.

The regional government is dominated by two parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, with the KDP overseeing the regional capital, Irbil, and the city of Dohuk. The PUK governs Sulaymaniyah.

The KDP has good relations with Türkiye and has been at odds with the PKK, while the PUK is closer to the PKK.

In Türkiye on Monday, Omer Celik, a spokesperson for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said the PKK could begin handing over arms “within days,” but did not provide details. Celik added that Erdogan would meet with members of the pro-Kurdish party next week to discuss the peace effort.

There was no immediate statement from Türkiye’s government on Thursday’s announcement.

The PKK has long maintained bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkish forces have launched offensives and airstrikes against the PKK in Iraq and have set up bases in the area. Scores of villages have emptied as a result.

The Iraqi government in Baghdad last year announced an official ban on the separatist group, which has long been prohibited in Türkiye.


Killings rise when Gaza Health Foundation distributes aid: Analysis

Palestinian children line up to receive a hot meal at a food distribution point in Nuseirat on June 30, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 03 July 2025
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Killings rise when Gaza Health Foundation distributes aid: Analysis

  • Sky News finds correlation between aid drops, increased fatalities
  • UN labels GHF sites ‘death traps,’ amid claims Israeli soldiers deliberately fire at civilians

LONDON: An investigation has found an increase in deaths in Gaza correlated with aid distribution overseen by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Health Foundation.

The GHF took over humanitarian supply systems in the Palestinian enclave in May, replacing around 400 distribution sites run by other charities and NGOs with four designated facilities, called Secure Distribution Sites.

They were meant to ensure that aid did not fall into the hands of Hamas or other armed groups, which Israel alleges frequently happened under the previous UN-backed system.

However, Gaza’s health authorities say more than 600 Palestinians have been killed trying to access aid at the sites, which the UN has labeled “death traps.” Israeli soldiers have been accused of opening fire directly at civilians.

Analysis conducted by Sky News suggests that killings rise when aid is distributed by the GHF.

Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit found that an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries are reported when the GHF operates two or fewer aid distributions. That number rises almost threefold when it runs five to six aid drops. 

Sky reported that between June 5 and July 1, 77 aid distributions were conducted by the GHF. Of those, 23 — or 30 percent of the total — resulted in reports of violence, and at SDS4 half of all drops saw bloodshed.

A recent report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed Israeli soldiers who said they were ordered to fire at crowds of unarmed Palestinians at the GHF sites.

The Israeli military denies the allegations, but said it is investigating incidents where civilians have been harmed.

The UN, in its most recent update on June 24, put the number of casualties at GHF sites at 410, citing data available from nearby hospitals.

The GHF has been severely criticized for the manner in which aid is distributed, with footage obtained by Sky on June 15 showing Palestinians at SDS1 crowding and rummaging among hundreds of scattered aid packages discarded on the floor.

Sky’s analysis found that aid is often delivered in significantly smaller quantities than required, with supplies running out on average after just nine minutes. At 23 percent of aid drops, supplies were exhausted before the official opening time. 

Sky reported that 86 percent of distributions were announced to people in the area less than 30 minutes in advance, and that maps and instructions distributed to locals to navigate and access the sites were inaccurate or dangerous, including telling civilians trying to reach SDS2, 3 and 4 to congregate inside areas labeled live combat zones by Israel.

In addition, the congregation areas are typically some distance from the sites, causing surges when they open as people attempt to cover the open ground to access the aid.

The shortest distance from a waiting point to an SDS is 689 meters, at SDS4, approximately 10 minutes away on foot — more than the average time before supplies run out.

Sam Rose, director of operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, called the GHF’s system a “free-for-all.”

He told Sky: “What they’re doing is, they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in.”

Rose added: “They (the GHF) don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”

A group of charities and humanitarian groups on Tuesday condemned the GHF’s operations, saying they violate international principles.

More than 200 groups have called for the reinstatement of the previous aid distribution system overseen by the UN.