Unveiled: How An American Woman Found Her way through Politics, Love and Obedience in the Middle East by Deborah Kanafani Simon and Schuster Free Press simonsays.com

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Arafat Unveiled
David A. Andelman 02.07.08, 4:50 PM ET



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Giving For Peace In The Middle East

Unveiled: How an American Woman Found Her Way Through Politics, Love and Obedience in the Middle East by Deborah Kanafani (Free Press, 2008, $25).

On Oct. 7, 1985, four heavily armed terrorists boarded the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro as it was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said in Egypt. It developed into, even by today's terrorist standards, quite an appalling event--the hijackers shooting an elderly, disabled American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, in cold blood--just because he happened to be Jewish--then pushing him overboard, still in his wheelchair.

The four hijackers were members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a violent offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat, and then based in Tunisia. CBS News sent me there to interview Arafat, who claimed, incredibly, that the PLF was just a rogue splinter group.

The next day, when one of Arafat's minions knocked on my hotel room door and proposed an interview by telephone with the mastermind of the hijacking, Abu Abass, any illusions about Arafat were promptly dispelled. Abass had just fled the Achille Lauro for Yugoslavia, after a brief transit stop in Italy.

Half the world was looking for Abass, and Arafat's people had his phone number in Belgrade (this was long before the days of cellphones, when one could really be reached just about anywhere). OK, I got it: Arafat was not quite as squeaky clean as he made himself out to be.

That's the theme of Unveiled, an exceptional new memoir by a woman who was married for years--miserable years, by all appearances--to the man who quite successfully and all but single-handedly perpetuated the image of Yasser Arafat as a man of peace, consumed with a quest for the independence and prosperity of his beleaguered people, the Palestinians.

Certainly, as Kanafani points out, he had some good intentions. He did indeed want the best for his people. And no doubt he had the far-from-envied task of attempting to reconcile wildly divergent views of the most effective way of achieving these goals. Yet at the same time, Arafat hardly appears the selfless, high-minded statesman and man of peace who would share the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, then promptly devalue it.

No, he was a hypocrite who would stand by while Marwan Kanafani kidnapped their children. Under shariya (Islamic) law, he had the "right" to do so; women in the Muslim world have few rights when it comes to their families, and indeed, most other things. Certainly there have been enough horror stories published of wives who were similarly abused by their Muslim spouses.

Yet this is not, by any means, typical--either of that genre or of the vengeful tell-all that has become so popular by divorced spouses of public figures. Instead, Unveiled is a fascinating tale of loves and opportunities lost. It takes us inside the inner workings of the Palestinian territories and into the drawing rooms of many of those who are laboring so hard against such high odds for very high stakes indeed: the independence of the Palestinian people and a homeland they can call their own.

Hers is also the tale of scores of women Kanafani sought out or ran into on her travels through New York, Washington, California and across the Middle East, including the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. These are women--brave, strong, often brilliant women--who sought nothing more than respect and the freedom to believe and act as their Western peers, without the straightjackets in which Muslim law and practice confines them.

Indeed, this is the heart of the book. And while her own personal tale is perhaps the most heartbreaking of all--how she was excluded from the lives of her children, forced, as an outsider, to watch them grow up without her, her nose pressed against the glass--at the same time, she has now fulfilled her pledges to these other women whose lives intersected her own.

She has told their story, and now it is up to us, her readers, to act. At the end of the book, in lieu of an index or bibliography, is a 14-page list of websites of "Palestinian and Israeli Organizations Working for Peace." She exhorts us simply to "do further research."

Frankly, it's the least we can do to right the wrongs Deborah Kanafani has experienced and chronicled in Unveiled.

David A. Andelman, former Paris correspondent for CBS News, is Executive Editor of Forbes.com and author of A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.

Davos Timeline

Oil at $100?

Tuesday, January 8th – New York, NY

Details: This will be a 60-minute taped interview with Terry Gross. for NPR Fresh Air. The interview will begin at 10:30 AM.

For Airing Date please contact Fresh Air directly at freshair@whyy.org

Tuesday, January 15^th
8:30 AM                      Interview with WGVU in Michigan

This will be a 10-minute taped interview on the Morning Show with Kevan Chapman & Shelley Irwin.  Airing date TBA

9:30 AM                      Interview with WMBR Radio in Boston

This is a 25 minute taped interview on Radio with a View with Dave Goodman & Marc Stern, to air on Sunday 1/20.

11:30 AM EST             Interview with KVON in Napa, CA
8:30 AM PST               Contact: Jeff Schechtman, 707-252-1440; studio number: 707 257.6397
This will be a 30-minute taped interview to air later that morning on KVON’s Morning Edition.

Wednesday, January 16^th
8:35 AM                      Interview with WCAB Radio in North Carolina
This will be a 15-minute live interview on “Mornings with Jim Bishop.”

10:00 AM                    Interview with WCCO Radio in Minneapolis

Details: This will be a 20-minute taped interview for The Jack Rice Show.

10:45 AM                    Interview with KMOX Radio in St. Louis

This will be a 10-minute taped interview to air later in the week on “Total Information AM” with hosts Doug McElvein & Debbie Monterrey.
11:05 AM                    Interview with Accent Radio

This will be a 15-minute live interview on “The Right Balance.”
.

Tuesday, January 22nd – New York, NY
7:00 PM                       Event with the Borders on Park Avenue
                                    461 Park Ave.
                                    New York, NY 10022
Contacts: Pam Georgiana & Daryl Mattson
Contact at store: Alfonso Friscia, 212-980-6785

Wednesday, January 23^rd – New York, NY
8:50 AM                      Interview with WITC Radio in Connecticut
This will be a 10-minute live interview on WTIC’s Mornings with Ray & Diane.

10:00 AM                    Interview with WATD Radio in Massachusetts

This will be a 3-6 minute live interview on WATD’s Morning News Show.

Friday, January 25^th – Washington, DC
12:00 PM                     Event co-sponsored by George Washington University’s Elliott School for International Relations & Georgetown University’s Women in International Security
                                    1957 E Street, NW
The Lindner Family Commons, Room 602
Washington, DC 20006
Saturday, January 26^th – Maryland
3:00 PM                       Event at the Urbana Regional Library
                                    9020 Amelung Street
                                    Frederick, MD 21704


Sunday, January 27^th
2:00 PM                       Event at Borders in Friendship Heights
                                    5333 Wisconsin Avenue NW
                                    Washington, DC 20015


Monday, January 28^th – Washington, DC
  Luncheon with AWC-DC (Association of Women in Communications, DC Chapter)
                                    Location: Tivoli Restaurant
                                    1700 N. Moore St
                                    Arlington, VA 22209
Contact: Lynn Osborne, 703-241-2121, lynn.osborne@adinsights.net
                                    Details: There will be registration & networking from 11:45 to 12:15, then the lunch and program will go from 12:15 to 1:15.    This event is open to the public, but is by RSVP only.

Thursday, February 15th, New York
EXIM RADIO


Thursday, February 21^st – Los Angeles, CA
7:00 PM                       Event at Borders in Westwood
                                    1360 Westwood Blvd.
                                    Los Angeles, CA 90024

Tuesday , March 4th - Los Angeles
Dr. Millers Hour (live TV interview) 6 to 7

Thursday, March 17th - San Diego
Borders 7pm
Mission Valley
1072 Camino Del Rio N
San Diego, CA 92108


Date TK – Cleveland, OH
Possible event with CAMEO (Cleveland American Middle East Organization).

Interview with Deborah Kanafani | Macleans.ca

Jan 23, 2008 ... Magazine. Interview with Deborah Kanafani. American Deborah Kanafani talks to Kate Fillion about marrying a PLO leader, divorcing him--and ...
www.macleans.ca/homepage/magazine/article.jsp?content=20080122_095552_4512 - 64k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Newsday

American author unveils life in the Middle East

BY JENNIFER BARRIOS

jennifer.barrios@newsday.com

February 1, 2008

Deborah Kanafani's life could be a fairy tale. She grew up on Long Island in the 1950s, shuttling between her mother's cozy home in Island Trees and her father's lavish, "Great Gatsby"-style house in Kings Point.

She briefly dated a prince she met while cruising on the Queen Elizabeth 2 nearly becoming royalty herself until she decided the relationship wouldn't work.

And, after becoming the wife of a high-ranking Palestinian statesman in 1982, she rubbed shoulders with Yasser Arafat, the late leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

But after her marriage to Marwan Kanafani crumbled, he kept the couple's two children at his home in Ramallah. Deborah Kanafani quickly realized that, as a woman and a non-Muslim, the Palestinian state did not recognize her right to her son and daughter, instead allowing her former husband to control their destinies.

Kanafani wrote about her experiences in a new book, "Unveiled: How an American Woman Found Her Way Through Politics, Love and Obedience in the Middle East," released last month.

At first, Kanafani said, she intended to write about the women she met while married to her powerful husband - a relationship she described as "suppressive."

"I was really not allowed to do much or pursue my own life," she said. "When I decided to get a voice back for myself ... I then wanted to find out how the other women were so strong and how they fought the forces around them that were similar to the forces around me, and how they had succeeded."

The couple lived in New York and Washington, D.C., where Deborah Kanafani sat in as her husband strategized with diplomats. When the marriage failed in the mid-1990s, she moved with her kids to California while Marwan Kanafani left for Ramallah. After sending her children to visit their father, she was shocked to learn that Sharia law allowed him to keep them and deny her custody.

She moved to Ramallah, the only way she could see her children. She spent three years there, and said she witnessed the chafing restrictions of Sharia law. Some women were not permitted to hold jobs without their husbands' permission. Others were murdered in so-called "honor killings," in which members of a woman's family killed her over real or perceived instances of sexual conduct outside wedlock. Kanafani could not visit her children without her husband's approval.

During that time, the women she interviewed for her book - including Arafat's wife, his mother-in-law and Queen Dina of Jordan - showed her how they survived amid repressive regimes and the expectations of a patriarchal society.

"And they, in telling me their stories and their struggles, I think gave me a lot of strength," she said.

The book took 10 years to research and write. She's now working on a film about the life of Queen Dina, who for seven years was prohibited from seeing her young daughter after her divorce.

Marwan Kanafani eventually allowed the children to return to the United States as the second intifada broke out, engulfing Ramallah. Both kids attended college, while Deborah Kanafani splits time between Manhattan and Los Angeles.

But Kanafani's thoughts often turn to the women she met during her struggle. She said she hopes the book will serve to help them.

"I realized that the struggle wasn't just my struggle there ... it was about a much bigger picture," she said. "And I saw that I could be a messenger for them."

THE FREDERICKPOST

American Unveils Mideast Experiences in Book

January 24, 2008 - 10:32am

Deborah Kanafani

Deborah Kanafani

Deborah Kanafani gave her mother, Barbara Marks of Frederick, an advance copy of her first book for Christmas.

She hid it under Marks' mattress so she couldn't read it until Kanafani had returned home to New York.

"Unveiled: How an American Woman Found Her Way Through Politics, Love and Obedience in The Middle East" was published last week by Simon and Schuster, Free Press. The book combines autobiography and interviews with the wives of Arab leaders.

Kanafani describes her marriage to Yasir Arafat's senior advisor and spokesman during the 1994 'Declaration of Peace,' and life in the Middle East after her divorce when, under Islamic law, she lost custody of her two children.

Kanafani, a Lebanese-American Christian, met her husband, a soccer star turned Palestinian official, at the United Nations when she was a graduate student at Adelphi University. The marriage introduced her to diplomats, dignitaries and international leaders, but left her bereft of her independence.

After her divorce, Kanafani went to the Middle East in 1997 to write a book on the wives of Arab leaders. While her children Deanna, then 12, and Tarik, 10, were visiting her ex-husband on the Palestinian West Bank, he claimed custody.

When violence escalated in 2000, the children were evacuated to Jordan with the help of the U.S. State Department and flown back to the U.S.

"From '97 to 2000 it was very tough, and she did her best to keep in touch," Marks said. "I was worried I wouldn't see my grandchildren again."

Today, Deanna is headed for law school and Tarik works in Los Angeles.

Barbara Marks has lived here for 13 years with Kanafani's stepfather, Alan Marks. Kanafani also has two siblings in Montgomery County.

During her years in the Middle East, Kanafani formed friendships with Suha Arafat, Queen Dina of Jordan, and other wives of Arab leaders. She ran conflict resolution programs for Palestinians and Israelis.

While trying to regain custody of her children, Kanafani said she found strength in the women whose lives she documented. She believes her book will show the world a different side of the Middle East.

"I don't think people see men and women from Palestine, for example, as human beings. Any time they are seen it's always (in the context of) war or conflict and the result of that has been de-humanize people."

A one-hour interview with National Public Radio's Terry Gross is expected to air soon and Simon and Schuster named "Unveiled" one of its top 10 books for 2008. The author has great dreams for what her work can accomplish.

"I hope that when people meet the characters in my book, all the women and men committed and working hard for peace that I have met, they will start to believe that peace in the Middle East is possible, too."

by rcassie@newspost.com (Ron Cassie) @ The Frederick News-Post