Table of contents

Contents
Preface ix
Foreword xv
Acknowledgements xxiii
Introduction xxv

A White Lie
1 / Childhood Days 3
2 / School Days 23
3 / Marriage 39
4 / Massacre 51
5 / Occupation 65
6 / Black September 87
7 / 1973 War 103
8 / Waiting for the Curtain to Rise 111

Chronology of Events in Palestine 129
Notes 149
Glossary 167
Bibliography 171

Description

The Women’s Voices from Gaza collection honours women’s unique and underrepresented perspectives on the social, material, and political realities of Palestinian life. In “A White Lie,” the first in this collection, Madeha Sheikh Hafiz Al Batta chronicles her life. Among her remarkable achievements, she established some of the first schools for refugee children in Gaza.

Reviews

"[A White Lie] should urge academics to consider whose voices they include and how they include them when writing about and theorising Palestine. It demonstrates the power of centring female voices and detailed histories to understand intersections between temporality, place, and gender and the material, social, and political realities of Palestinian life. " Olivia Mason, Gender, Place & Culture [Full review at https://doi. org/10. 1080/0966369X. 2021. 1971899]

"In A White Lie, Madeeha Hafez Albatta recounts her life as a teacher, mother and activist in Gaza... By preserving Albatta’s extraordinary life, this book makes a significant contribution to Palestinian history and politics." [Full review at https://albertaviews.ca/white-lie-womens-voices/]

- Nancy Janovicek, Alberta Reviews, 05/01/2021

“A White Lie is the first in a series of oral histories from a woman’s perspective living through events – modern history – occurring in Gaza and regionally. As history is usually written by old white men at the end of a certain epoch or episode in history, people’s voices, women’s voices in particular, are seldom if ever heard.” Jim Miles, Palestine Chronicles, August 4, 2023 [Full article at https://www.palestinechronicle.com/womens-voices-from-gaza-a-white-lie-book-review/]