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Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between
Gaza Mom Palestine Politics Parenting and Everything In Between Author:Laila El-Haddad With Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between, El-Haddad takes us into the life of a busy Palestinian journalist who is both covering the story of Gaza and living it-very intensely. This book is El-Haddad's self-curated choice of the best of her writings from December 2004 through July 2010. She was in Gaza City... more » in 2005, watching hopefully as the Israelis prepared their withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. She covered the January 2006 Palestinian elections-judged 'free and fair' by all international monitors; but then, she watched aghast as the Israeli government, backed by the Bush administration, moved in to punish Gaza's 1.5 million people for the way they had voted by throwing a tough siege around the Strip. As the casualties and privations they suffered soared, Gaza's people found that Israel's much-bally-hooed withdrawal of 2005 had led to something very different from what they had hoped for...
El-Haddad was not only covering Gaza's situation as a journalist and correspondent. She was also living them, including by trying to explain the ongoing events to her own young children. In 2006, El-Haddad left Gaza to be with her husband in the U.S., but her beloved parents stayed behind. In the book she recounts the angst of a person stranded outside her homeland when it was came under intense Israeli assault at the turn of the year 2008-2009-- though she was also able to publish and amplify the experiences of her parents as they cowered in central Gaza City under Israel's harsh, 22-day bombardment.
In the book we watch El-Haddad's young children growing up. She tells us about her life as a journalist and a media activist, including her involvement in the many new Palestinian-rights initiatives that emerged after Israel's late-2008 attack on Gaza.« less