IMM Mathilda: A Bethlehm Mother's Diary

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is wants to know the truth of this miserable occupation, how it's destroying the daily lives of Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike. Alison Jones Nasser writes with honesty and passion about how the curfews, road blocks & military violence affect her life and those of her family and her neighbors. It's a sad and shocking story that illustrates the suffering of all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It is the story that is not heard in Newsweek magazine or on CNN. It is the truth that all Americans need to hear. Thank you, Alison, for writing this book!!

In IMMMATHILDA ALison Jones documents the daily experiences of an American woman living in Bethlelhem, in the West Bank of the Occupied Territories of Israel. THe title IMMMATHILDA signifies her marriage into an extended Palestinian family, after some travel, living in a kibbutz, following three years of Peace Corps service in Senegal, West Africa, where I met and knew her as another PC Volunteer. In identifying herself in her E-mail correspondance as Immmathilda she is following the custom of "Palestininan women referring to themselves using the name of their eldest son....thus, Imm ( = Mother of ____)" Alison is the mother of three daughters, the oldest being Mathilda. These daughters define her existence, her struggle, and her commitment to record daily experiences as their legacy. As a wife and mother Alison reflects deep concern for her family, for young Palestinians who have given up hope, for older Palestinians who have lost their homes and olive groves, all who have suffered from decades of deprivation and humiliation under Israeli Occupation. Will George, her husband, get through the checkpoints safely from a job he might still have? Can she dash to the market with others during an unexpected arbitrary curfew without being shot? How to console a 78-year-old woman sitting on a doorstep, wearing thick black-rimmed glasses and wearing a traditional embroidered robe, left homeless because her house has been shelled, who asks, "Why are they," meaning the Israelis, "doing this to us?" Alison is particularly disturbed about how her daughters and their friends are affected every day with fear for themselves and their families. She writes, "Phoebe, aged 2, came home from daycare a few days ago, cocked her fingers like a gun, and with her babysmile said, 'This is to shoot Israelis'" She describes a drawing made by Mathilda depicting Apache helicopters in the sky shooting down Palestinians. Always the question remains "Will this ever end?" For insight into the daily lives, humiliations, endurance of Palestinians under Israeli Occupation, I firmly recommend this book.

We are fed so much information every day on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that we no longer know how to judge what is true and what is not. We sense we are not getting the whole story from the major news networks and newspapers, that "something is wrong with this picture", and yet how do we begin to sift through all the competing perspectives? How do we begin to understand the situation on a genuine human, as opposed to a political or religious, level? Begin with this book. While we may feel unable to identify with Palestinians or their struggle and while we may feel that Middle Eastern culture and values are very alien to our own, we can very easily identify with the common concerns of parents and children as they try to simply live their lives from one day to the next. This book uses the universal experiences of raising and caring for children, of sending them to school and trying to keep them safe, to transport us into the incomprehensible world of military occupation - checkpoints, curfews, daily encounters with armed soldiers, and the terrifying experiences of all-out war. And it transforms what was previously alien to us into the all-too-real experience that is Life in Palestine. This book spoke to me as a mother, as a Christian, as a teacher, and as a human being. It should be read by every American who thinks they know or care what is going on in the Middle East, by every American who wants to know more, and by every American who thinks this conflict does not have anything to do with them. In short: required reading.

If you want to know the truth! A honest day to day struggle of a mother trying to live, with curfews lack of food and money and still find the strength to get up every day. If you are not sure what to believe about the situation in Palestine? This book is the truth. I could not put it down.

If you're interested in a personal view on the crisis in the Middle East, "Imm Mathilda" is a definite read!Alison Nassar shares both the simple joys and overwhelming obstacles of a typical Palestinian family living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. It's all in "Imm Mathilda" -- the truth about survival under curfews, checkpoints and confiscations.