Dr. Ghada Karmi visited the SF State campus Wednesday to read from and talk about her latest book “In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story.”

The title pays homage to the woman who looked after her when she was a child.

“Fatima was somebody who looked after me as a child, and when we left we left her,” she said. “I was devoted to her. I loved her very much.”

A Palestinian who was born in Jerusalem, Karmi and her family fled the country when she was only eight. Her book is a memoir of her life and the experience of leaving her home and never coming back.

“It describes the migrant experience and the experience of exile,” she said.

“A lot of it is historical,” she said. “Quite a lot of it has to do with me losing my homeland.”

The book not only chronicles the experience of being exiled from her country but the hardships of growing up in Britain and knowing she was different. As a Muslim, she said growing up in a non-Muslim society was difficult.

“It’s not nice to be a Muslim in Britain or here (the U.S.),” she said.

Karmi, who currently is a research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, said that her book is an easy read and would be great for anyone who would like to know more about the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is one group in particular that she thinks would benefit the most from reading her book.

“The people who I really want to read this book are the Jews because I don’t think they understand what it was like for Israel to be set up in my country,” she said.

In 1991, she returned to Jerusalem for the first time since she was eight and found the trip quite disheartening.

“It was dreadful,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it. I was miserable."

When she returned to the home she had left 48 years earlier, she found an American Jewish family living in it.

As far as the conflict is concerned she believes that things will get worse before they get better.

“The U.S. is very, very involved with Israel,” she said, “Only a change here can make a difference.”

“In the short term I see more disaster. More drudgery. More drama. More tragedy. Sharon has got a green light,” she said.

“In the long term, as far as Israel, I’m optimistic. Israel won’t survive. If I were Israel, I would be very nervous. Israel only survives by U.S. backing. They can’t depend on that forever,” she said, “Palestinians are full of hatred and anger. No state that lives like that can survive.”