Edward Said was supposed to give the lecture in memory of Freud for the year 2001 at the Freud Institute in Vienna as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of "The Interpretation of Dreams," but the lecture was canceled on the grounds of "the political conflict in the Middle East" and Said's Palestinian identity. He was hosted in December of the same year at the Freud Museum in London.

Using a wide range of material from literature, archaeology, and social theory, Edward Said's essay is an exploration of the profound consequences that Freud's book "Moses and Monotheism" has for politics in the Middle East today.

Demonstrating his enduring interest in Freud's work and its influence on his own, Edward Said suggests that Freud's thesis that Moses was Egyptian undermines any simplistic acceptance of a "pure" identity and, furthermore, that we cannot think about identity itself and process it without recognizing its inherent limits.

Said implies that such an intricate, nuanced understanding of identity could be integrated into the political reality, serving as a basis for a new mutual understanding between Jews and Palestinians. In contrast, Israel's relentless pursuit of an exclusively Jewish state denies any notion of a more complex and inclusive past.