Karmi, Ghada. In search of Fatima; a Palestinian story

Kliatt, Sept, 2004 by Edna Boardman

KARMI, Ghada. In search of Fatima; a Palestinian story. Verso. 451 p. illus. c2002. 1-85984-561-4. $16.00. SA

Despite the prominence of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the news today, the story of the roots of the discord is not well understood. Carefully, with detail that helps the reader understand the feelings and culture, Karmi leads her readers through her family's experience as Palestinians living in Jerusalem in 1948. She was a young child with an older sister and slightly older brother when increasing violence sent her family fleeing from their comfortable home, their dog, and beloved servant Fatima. They went to Damascus, where relatives already lived. Her father was an academic and linguist whose talents enabled him to earn a relatively good, if still modest, living for his extended family. Soon, the BBC in London offered him a job. Karmi grew up there, becoming ever more English while her parents and sister continued to think of themselves as Arabs with a veneer of English culture in public. It didn't help that they blamed British policy for the upheaval that pushed Palestinian people from their homes into refugee camps and exile, creating in their geographical space what they believed was the non-legitimate state of Israel. They saw themselves as rendered helpless, humiliated, and displaced by international intervention and military power.

Karmi tells of her home, which her mother (who never learned English) maintained as a center for Arabic persons of all kinds living or visiting in England. Her father, who always saw life in England as an interlude after which they would return to the Middle East and live a fully Arabic Muslim life, was interested almost entirely in her academic achievement. seeing England as a tool rather than anything of which the family was part. He pushed her into a medical education that was never in tune with her natural inclinations. Her sister remained more Arabic and became a chemist; her brother experimented with questionable behaviors, taking on negative characteristics of a culture he never quite understood. Karmi recounts her unfortunate marriage to an English fellow doctor and her involvement for a time in a Palestinian activist group. She ends by telling of her sense of not belonging anywhere and continuing to believe that Israel has no right to exist in the physical space taken from people who should possess that land. Readers who wish to understand better the point of view of the actual Palestinians who were displaced will appreciate Karmi's personal and frank autobiography.

Americans who read this may also want to read Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism by Thomas L. Friedman, an American journalist. In some of his essays, he treats the enduring view among Palestinians that Israel does not have the right to exist and what he believes will happen because of it.

S--Recommended for senior high school students.

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Edna Boardman, Bismarck, ND