Guarding the Secrets: Palestinian Terrorism and a Father's Murder of His Too-American Daughter

by Ellen Harris

Book Overview

(Cliff) checked his watch. It was nearly eleven, about age time Tina had promised to meet him. As he looked up, there she was, bouncing along, waving to him as she left Wendy's. Just before midnight... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0025483358
• ISBN13: 9780025483354
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

An shocking story

Read this book to shed light on the fact that, yes, some cultures are simply less moral than others in truly horrific ways.

In light of 9/11

In the wake of the tradegy of 9/11 this book is eye-opening. It goes into detail about how this family/group operated here right under our noses.

Horrifying!

This true-crime story is written in the sensationalistic fashion typical of the genre. It grabs your attention right from the beginning and doesn't let go.The author describes the irony of Tina Isa's life: to any otherAmerican family she would have been cherished as a charming, friendly, hard-working teen...The author also describes the network of Palestinian terrorist groups living in the U.S. and the role they might have played... This story is gripping and very informative because the author did a lot of research and provides so much background information about the Palestinian culture, the lives of generations of the Isa family, the Abu Nidal terrorist organization and more....

Terrorism's broad inroads

This book starkly frames the force of hatred which overtook New York City and the world with the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It relates specifically to Zein Isa's November 1989 murder of his daughter, Palestina. The West Bank immigrant and his Brazilian wife co-conspired in the brutal St. Louis murder of their teenage daughter, whose friendships they believed had endangered their terrorist plans. In their search for terrorists, the Federal Bureau of Investigation inadvertently taped the actual killing. Zein Isa and his wife were sentenced to death.The book reveals much about the village life in the West Bank, where most families, according to Maria Zein, belong to radical military groups whose ultimate goal is to destroy Israel. Many West Bank residents are actually "refugees from other countries." According Maria Zein's account, her husband knew "men from Syria, Libya, Kuwait, Saudi." Maria Zein told the author that her husband had traveled from the West Bank village of Beitin, to Jordan, Syria, Libya and Bolivia. He lived undetected for years in the US, and also claimed to have lived in Europe. The book reveals twisted morals, which condone murder for the sake of family honor. It unmasks intense hatred that evolved into conspiracies to slaughter Jews, blow up the Israeli embassy in Washington and to murder Tina because she posed a threat to these plans. It also exposes the frighteningly broad inroads that the Abu Nidal terrorists have made into American cities and life. Alyssa A. Lappen

Gurarding the Secrets

In November 1989 in St. Louis, the FBI inadvertently tape recorded the entire episode of a teenage girl's being killed by her Palestinian father and Brazilian mother (the Feds were looking for evidence of terrorism, which they also found). In a ghastly eight-minute sequence, Zein Isa stabbed his daughter Palestina thirteen times with a butcher's knife as his wife held the girl down and responded to Palestina's pleas for help with a brutal "Shut up!" The killing ends with Zein screaming "Die! Die quickly! Die quickly! . . . Quiet, little one! Die, my daughter, die!" By this time, she is dead. Harris, a St. Louis television reporter, has done admirable spade work going through the court transcripts and interviewing everyone connected to the case in an attempt to piece together the interlocking stories of family murder and active support of Abu Nidal's terrorist organization. In addition, she successfully conjures up the small and exceedingly unpleasant world of Zein Isa and his family of rabid anti-Americans living right in the American heartland. The murder culminates their lives of frustration, greed, and vulgarity. Unfortunately, Harris spent more effort digging up information than she did writing the book; so the more-than-casual reader must read and reread its pages to piece together the sequence of events and the scope of the Isa family's involvement with Abu Nidal. Doing so repays the effort, however, for Harris has compiled a treasure trove of materials on two usually elusive subjects. Middle East Quarterly, September 1995