Now They Call Me Infidel

The 2007 Sentinel paperback includes a new preface by Darwish and is listed as an English-language volume measuring 22 centimeters.[2] The memoir combines an account of her life with arguments about jihad, Arab identity, Israel, and American society.

Its chapters are titled "In the eye of the storm," "Growing up in Cairo," "Living in two worlds," "Marriage and family dynamics," "The invisible wall," "A new beginning in America," "The journey from hatred to love," "A second look after twenty years," "Jihad comes to America," "Arabs for Israel," and "The challenge for America."[2]

The sequence presents Darwish's transformation chronologically and thematically, moving from childhood in Egypt and Gaza through immigration and family life in the United States to her religious and political realignment.

Nonie Darwish was born in Egypt in 1949 and spent part of her childhood in Gaza.[3] Her father, Egyptian intelligence officer Mustafa Hafiz, organized and dispatched Fedayeen terrorist cells from Gaza to conduct attacks in Israel. He was killed in 1956 by an explosive package sent by Israeli intelligence.[5][4] After his death, the family returned to Cairo; in Darwish's account, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser urged the children to avenge their father.[3]

Darwish has described receiving antisemitic instruction in Palestinian schools and being taught to regard Jews and Israel with hostility.[4] She moved to the United States in the late 1970s, where encounters with Jewish colleagues and life in a freer society contributed to her reassessment of those teachings and her eventual conversion to Christianity.[3][4]

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Darwish began publishing books and articles about radical Islam and Arab culture. She founded Arabs for Israel in 2004 and became a lecturer, particularly before Jewish organizations.[4] Muslim opponents called her an "infidel" and a "traitor," and she received death threats; those labels informed the memoir's title.[3]

The chapter sequence frames Darwish's life as a movement between two social and ideological environments. Early chapters address childhood, Cairo, marriage, and the difficulties of living between cultures. Later chapters turn to her American experience, her rejection of inherited hostility toward Israel, the impact of the September 11 attacks, and the creation of Arabs for Israel.[2]

Darwish connects her pro-Israel position to her personal encounters with Jews. She said that her Zionist convictions were strengthened by "the decency, humanity and integrity of the Jewish people in the face of adversity."[1] She also reported maintaining friendships with about a dozen Muslim Zionists and said that she would not befriend Muslims who opposed Israel.[1]

The closing chapters broaden the memoir from personal testimony into political and religious commentary, presenting Darwish's arguments about jihad and what she views as the challenge posed by radical Islam to the United States.[2]

The memoir was the first of three books that Darwish drew from her life story, and it became part of the public platform through which she presented her religious conversion and support for Israel.[3] Its title encapsulates both that transformation and the hostility she reported receiving from Muslim opponents.

The physical book later became the catalyst for an unusual documentary encounter. Filmmaker Paz Schwartz recalled that former intelligence officer Eliezer "Gazi" Tzafrir went to his bedroom, returned with Darwish's book, and said that he had been involved in the operation that killed her father.[5] Schwartz subsequently brought Darwish and Tzafrir together in 2022. Tzafrir explained his role in transporting the agent who delivered the explosive package, while Darwish discussed the effect of her father's death; the two ultimately embraced.[5]

In that episode, the memoir functioned not only as Darwish's testimony but also as the object that connected her account with an Israeli participant's recollection of the events surrounding her father's death.

Darwish's broad assessments of Islam are personal and politically contested interpretations rather than neutral descriptions of the religion. She has argued that Islam is driven by envy of Jewish culture and violates the Ten Commandments in pursuit of jihad.[1] These statements should be understood as her views, even when they appear within an autobiographical account.

Her descriptions of childhood indoctrination are likewise presented through personal recollection. Ynet profiles report her claims that Palestinian schooling promoted antisemitism and hatred of Israel, while the book's catalog description extends similar claims to millions of Muslim children.[2][4] That broader generalization is not independently established by the cited material.

The title is sometimes confused with Ayaan Hirsi Ali's separate 2007 memoir, Infidel. Ali's book concerns her upbringing in a strict Muslim family, flight to the Netherlands, political activism, and subsequent death threats.[6] It is distinct from Darwish's Now They Call Me Infidel.