Book review: “Not Everyone Can Throw Stones”

In 1963, Arjan's father Walid El Fassed arrived in the Netherlands along with 65 other Palestinians from Nablus as a migrant worker. He eventually fell in love with and married the girl next door, Maretje Vermeer. During Israel's initial census after seizing the West Bank in the June 1967 War, Walid was in the Netherlands and thus he became "displaced," like tens of thousands of other Palestinians who were abroad at that time.

Walid and Maretje's son Arjan was born 35 years ago in Vlaardingen, a small provincial town in the Netherlands. Inter-religious marriages were not common at the time, and almost unthinkable when one partner was Muslim, making El Fassed's family a unique one.

In one of many poignant moments in the book, El Fassed tells the story of a visit with his father to Nablus. His father shows him their family's house, built in 1918 by El Fassed's great-grandfather Salim El-Fassed and his two brothers. The original tile floor that was produced in their family's factory is still there. Arjan El Fassed and his father Walid were in Palestine to attend the marriage of their cousin Nidal, the son of his father's sister Enaya and uncle Bassam Shaka'a, who was the mayor of Nablus in the 1970s. The description of the journey is mixed with childhood memories, supported by historical facts and details from media reports and other publications.

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