edward said was born in jerusalem in 1935, but he mostly grew up in cairo, egypt. said completed his education in the united states. he graduated from princeton university, and earned his doctorate at harvard university in english literature. he then became a famous professor at columbia university. edward said wrote about the situation between israel and palestine. his statements were shared by the plo, (the palestine liberation organization is the most important palestinian political organization, founded in the 1964). in 1977, edward said was elected as an independent to the plo's parliament, the palestine national council. said started to criticize the way in which arabs and muslims were portrayed as different and inferior by the west. in 1978 his book "'orientalism"' was published. the book had a huge impact, it quickly gained popularity, and was translated in more than 35 languages. the book explores how the west depicts the east. the west depicted the east as 'other' and essentially inferior. this 'otherness' helped the west to justify the colonisation of the east. edward said defines orientalism as: ""a way of coming to terms with the orient that is based on the orient's special place in european western experience."" said also states that the west has portrayed itself as the contrary of the orient. he shows this with an example, a quote from sir alfred lyall (english philosopher, editor, clergyman and traveller) to illustrate the way of thinking of 17th-century europeans: ""on the one hand there are westerners, and on the other there are arab-orientals; the former are (in no particular order) rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of holding real values, without natural suspicion; the latter are none of these things."" the relationship between the orient and occident goes way back, european powers like france and britain have a long history in the orient, influencing it, imperialising and colonising it. this domination was imposed especially as of 1798, after napoleon's expedition in egypt. said states that the relationship between the orient and occident is one of power. the orient, seen as a place of sensuality, immorality, exoticism. and authoritarianism, is compared to the west, defined as being rational, liberal, moral, diametrically the opposite. in this way, the orient has been made oriental by the west. said states that we should not think that orientalism was only an idea, but something more pervasive, that has been influencing our ideas, culture, clothing, and so on. these ideas keep orientalism alive still today.