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How an American Woman Found Her Way Through Politics, Love, and Obedience in the Middle East
Free Press
January 2008
On Sale: May 13, 2008
272 pages
ISBN: 0743291832
EAN: 9780743291835
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
n the early 1980s, Deborah Jacobs was an ordinary Lebanese
American college student from Long Island, New York. By the
end of the decade, she would bear witness to the making of
international history. Her story begins in graduate school:
through a series of chance encounters, young Deborah was
introduced to Marwan Kanafani, a dashing former soccer star
turned high-ranking Palestinian diplomat who was working at
the United Nations. A political dynamo with movie-star
charm, Marwan swept Deborah off her feet and into a marriage
that kept her in the company of diplomats, dignitaries,
world leaders, international glamour and intrigue. Although
exciting, this lifestyle also isolated Deborah increasingly
from her independent, American way of living, creating a
rift that would end their marriage. Marwan's profile was on the rise, and with it came a number
of crucial connections for Deborah: while his involvement
with the PLO intensified, eventually resulting in his
appointment as senior advisor and spokesperson for Yasir
Arafat, she formed friendships with such women as Suha
Arafat, Queen Dina of Jordan, and other women married to
Arab leaders. After her divorce, when these women agreed to tell their
stories of struggle and survival for a book, Deborah
traveled to the Middle East to record them, planning to join
her children, who were on the West Bank visiting their
father. To her shock and horror, he refused to return the
children to her. Deborah stayed in the Middle East for several years to be
near her children, finding strength in the women whose lives
she documented and whose incredible stories are told in this
book. She was eventually able to arrange the return of her
children when they were evacuated to another country during
a Palestinian uprising. The story of her journey,
intertwined with those of the wives of the Arab leaders,
takes the reader into an otherwise inaccessible and
cloistered world populated by larger-than-life characters
living out all-too-human dramas. Culture, politics, and family collide in this gripping
front-row perspective of the Middle East conflict and of the
courageous women working behind the scenes for peace and
challenging the patriarchal traditions of their homeland.
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