Ibrahim Taha: 2016. The Fourth Dimension: Semiotic Debates with Palestinian and Arabic Literatures. Nazareth: The Arabic Language Academy

#12–2019 Book Reviewed University of Minnesota Press, 2018 ISBN-13: 9789659251834 Until recently, literary criticism among the Palestinian minority in Israel was dogmatic and ideological and did not meet the ethical standards of true literary critique. Rather, it was nourished by the ideological activities of the political party frameworks of that minority, mainly the Communist Party (RAKAH) and its newspaper al-ittiḥād (The Unity) and magazine al-ghadd (Tomorrow). The critique focused on praising the literary works for the author’s intentions rather than for qualities of the literary text itself. Conversely, it would purposefully crush a work of literature because of the personality of the author or his political or ideological affiliations. I do not believe that this kind of literary criticism did justice to the texts that developed during the national and social struggle of this minority. This book by Ibrahim Taha attempts to address key questions concerning such literary criticism: what is the current state of the field? What key changes has Palestinian literary criticism in Israel undergone? Given the scarcity of literary criticism, how can one balance between the number of literary texts and methodical academic literary criticism?