In heels across the Middle East

Ksenia Svetlova - Israeli journalist, Arabist and orientalist, political analyst. She was a member of the Knesset. The book “In Heels in the Middle East” begins not with a war, but with a child’s admiration for the ancient East: the pyramids, the mask of Tutankhamun... But very little time passes - and the author finds himself not at a museum showcase, but in the very center of events, in a dangerous and often not very predictable world. Svetlova travels to Gaza, observing the withdrawal of the Israeli army, to Ramallah during the intifada, to Cairo and Damascus, to Beirut, Bahrain, Tunisia, to the Persian Gulf on the eve of the Iraq War. She is an observer, but not an observer from the outside - she is inside the events. And often he finds himself at the epicenter, as once in Tahrir Square. On the pages of the book there is not only big politics and famous names.

You will see here the deceased opponents of Israel - Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Ahmed Yassin - and the living Abu Mazen. But, just as important, you will meet people here from the heart of the people. An Iraqi businessman on a plane, a Bahraini taxi driver, university students in Manama discussing hijabs and pop stars, or a Palestinian journalist, in a conversation with whom you have to hide your own identity for the time being. The reader will also remember the author’s stay on an American helicopter carrier at the beginning of the 2003 war. At the moment when planes bomb Baghdad, American Pie 2 is shown in the ship's canteen, and young soldiers eat popcorn. This is a collision of reality and its perception: the Middle East is a space of paradoxes, “normality” against the backdrop of disasters.

“In Heels in the Middle East” is not only a chronicle of the turbulent years when regimes collapsed and new conflicts were born, the continuation and development of which we are now witnessing. Before you is a book - a journey with an intelligent and knowledgeable guide with his own view of what is happening. This is a very personal view of the journalist on a very complex region, which is usually described through wars and ideologies. And reality is woven from the destinies of people, conversations in markets and universities, chance meetings and many details, without which it is impossible to understand anything.