Blog Post 3

The tone of the last section of In Search of Fatima is resentful. Ghada's life has a series of tragic events that have caused her to lose connection of her culture she grew up in as a child. Upon visiting what is now Israel,  as an adult, she sees the memorial and government buildings made by the State of Israel, "I visited the Israeli parliament, built on the flattened and now unrecognisable land f the Palestine village of Lifta... The Holocaust museum nearby was also built on confiscated Arab Land... Outside, a humble Palestinian gardener in shabby, soiled clothing pulled weeds and dead flowers from the beds, making the place pretty and neat, oblivious of its significance" (440). Ghada has watched this land change from home of her people to be destroyed, and then rebuilt up for the religious group whom she has always resented. It must be painful and angering to have to see this. All of these emotions she has, because of the hardships she endured, cause fiery resentment within her. This quote clearly outlines her resentful tone of thought which carries throughout the last part of her story.

My favorite part of the book is watching Ghada as a young girl interact with Leslie's Jewish Family. She acknowledges that this is the first Jew she ever befriended. It is fascinating to see these girls connected because of similarities, they are both outcasts as result of their religions in school. While their ethnic groups are across the world raging at war they have found friendship in one another. They don't understand the severity of war, and therefore are able to foster a friendship. While they recognized that their cultures are pitted against each other, they still find that they have commonalities, they are young girls growing up among a majority of people who take to a different faith. Reading about Ghada meeting Leslie's family was especially fascinating because of the acceptance they had. It is surprising and  relieving to the reader that this occurred. Clearly, as shown later in the book, not all Arabs nor Jews are able to be understanding, even so this one occurrence puts both cultures in a new light for the reader.