Crossing the Line

In Crossing the Line , journalist Mya Guarnieri recounts the story of a real-life Romeo and Juliet: herself, a Jewish American immigrant to Israel lecturing at a Palestinian university, and Mohamed, the son of a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In this timely memoir, Guarnieri chronicles how, despite the Israeli-built separation barrier that stood between them, the two journalists managed to meet, fall in love, and overcome both the external and internal obstacles that stood between them. With a reporter's eye for detail and a storyteller's knack for nuance, she details the political, cultural, and family problems the star-crossed lovers faced throughout their courtship. This is not only a reflection on her own story, however; this compelling memoir also offers an intimate look at daily life in Palestinian areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank; it explores the complexity of loving one's "enemy"; and it serves as a tortured love letter to the land and the two peoples that, paradoxically, nurtured Mya and Mohamed's relationship while simultaneously casting them out. In a dark moment in the long history of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians,Crossing the Line is a spot of light that imagines a different future for the two peoples. It is a universal story about the challenges of overcoming our innermost emotional barriers and making ourselves vulnerable to love.