First off, I am so glad to have the experience of reading this book with such wonderful and thoughtful people, what luck! In Search of Fatima is very interesting and sentimental for me, because my dad, Mahdi is a displaced Palestinian, and I go there a lot. Because of my heritage, I have been rather well schooled on Palestinian history, and if you guys like I would be glad to bring in some books on the subject (of which I have lots). Now let’s get down to business. My family is from Tulkarm; the village where Fatima is from, which the Ottoman Turks sort of upgraded into what is called a qaimmaqamiyya (Town) when they were in power. I am proud to say that my family were fellaheen (peasants)- because of this, I am only familiar with how the village folk lived at this time in Palestinian history, and I have been finding the new, upper-class perspective of Ghada quite interesting.  Although I have passed the remains of villas where families like hers lived, I personally have not met anyone from the Karmi family (but my dad has). In the book, Ghada talks about how her mother has mimicked the westernized Egyptian superstars in her clothing and hairstyle- this is interesting, because my mother (who has a degree in Near Eastern studies, so she is credible) informs me that the goal of the Egyptian film industry was to duplicate Hollywood, so Ghada’s mother was basically mimicking western culture. Another very interesting thing about this book for me is that Ghada and her family viewed the European Jews before Al-Nakba (The Catastrophe; what Palestinians call Israeli independence, and the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians) as foreigners- which they were, and completely different from the Arab Jews with which the Palestinians had always lived side-by-side.

Jumping to a whole different theme, Ghada’s mother’s reminds me a lot of my Great Aunt Najwa, and her sister, my grandmother- with her really oily Palestinian cooking and love of all things new and western. Much Like Ghada, my father and his siblings where packed off to Tulkarm for holidays, even though my grandparents had become educated, urban city dwellers- this is because they wanted the children to understand village life, and be in nature.

It’s amazing to me that the word “terrorist” was first used to describe the Jewish Israeli groups Irgun and Stern Gang. Today, when most people picture a terrorist, it is a Muslim Arab. The World sure can flip itself around.