Inshallah

Inshallah
Photography Donald Boström
Language Swedish
Length 432 pages
Year 2001, 2004, 2010, 2012
Publisher Ordfront Förlag
Author Boström, Donald (red.)
Size 180 x 110 x 30 mm
Weight 320 g
ISBN 9789170370939

The telephone rang late in the afternoon of 10th December 1985. ’Come immediately,’ said the voice at the other end of the line in broken English. The call came from Arafat’s office informing me that our request for an interview had been granted. We were on the spot within 24 hours in the Tunisian capital, Tunis. The phone rang as soon as I walked into the hotel room. The voice at the other end told me that the interview would take place after midnight. ’You’ll get ten minutes with Chairman Arafat. Wait in your room and be ready.’ As the clock approached one-thirty in the morning I loosened my clothes and drank a glass of iced water. The phone rang once again. ’It’s time. Come down to Reception.’ 

The black limousine took us through the darkness, past road blocked streets towards an unknown destination. All we knew was that out there somewhere the notorious Yassir Arafat waited.

A short time previously an Israeli plane had bombed the Palestinian area outside Tunis. Nearly a hundred people had been killed and Arafat’s private residence lay in ruins, so the situation was tense.

When we arrived, the armed guards were barely visible in the weak light of the street lamps. It was obvious that inside there was something or someone worth guarding.

After a security check we entered the Palestinian Freedom Fighter’s centre and Arafat’s den.

The door was flung open and in came the legendary leader, praised by some as a freedom fighter and hated by others as a terrorist leader. The first thing he did was to notice my expanding waistline and, with a smile, comment that I ought to lose weight.

Thereafter followed a conversation that lasted nearly two hours. A meeting that was the beginning of the work on this book.

English edition

Paperback edition

Arabic edition

media voices on Inshallah

»Donald Bostrom deserves an award for bravery on the battlefield of propaganda wars. He is one of the most sincere and serious investigative reporters I have met.« 

Tom Hayden, editorial board, The Nation

»The pictures alone are so powerful that they tell the Palestinian-Israeli story by themselves.«

Ryszard Kapuscinski

»With strong images and emotional texts the book Inshallah conveys the power and fury of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.«

Sydsvenska Dagbladet

»The book is to a large extent a photographic masterpiece.«

Arvika Nyheter

»History is present in Boström’s strong images.«

Aftonbladet

»Boström is a skilled storyteller.«

Örebrokuriren

»Why have these facts not come to the surface before?«

Nerikes Allehanda

»Anyone who really wants to know something about the conflict between Israel and Palestine would be wise to shut out the media noise and read Inshallah instead.«

Smålandsposten

»The must READ of the month.«

ETC

»In Sweden there are two people who legitimately call themselves photojournalists ... One of them is Donald Bostrom.«

Dagens Nyheter

»Translate this book into English and publish it all over the United States.« 

Kinda-Posten

»When Donald Boström uncovered the ugly truth about Israelis harvesting organs from dead Palestinian bodies, his career and character were threatened. The story turned out to be true.«

Tom Hayden, editorial board, The Nation

“Donald Boström has with a range of strong reportages through the years brought out an insightful documentary story of one of the world’s most serious and longest ongoing-armed conflicts, the conflict between Israel and Palestine”.

Award motivation by the Nordic Museum, Sweden