Parallels, imperfect as they are, are one of history’s tools. If we consider Israel’s efforts to “make the desert bloom,” to dispossess its Palestinian and Bedouin inhabitants, we might see, in the landscape, a cognate to the American government’s disregard of the rights of Hopi, Navajo, Ute, and Pueblo peoples in the red rock desert of Utah.
© Fazal Sheikh © Teju Cole. All rights reserved