Jamie Tarabay /

Jamie Tarabay grew up in Australia from Lebanese roots and lived for a time with her family in Berlin and Beirut. She landed in Jerusalem in 2000 with a grand dream to chronicle a vibrant new Palestine state coexisting with Israel in a more-or-less peaceful Middle East. Within days, she was in the streets for The Associated Press covering the eruption of a second intifada.

She crisscrossed the West Bank and Gaza, hitchhiking with Fatah gunmen and talking herself out of countless arrests, to hobnob with the people who lived a reality so often defined at distant negotiating tables. With fluent Arabic and a lot of humanity packaged within an Aussie hard shell, Tarabay’s specialty is getting people to tell her what they really think. For a time she traveled from Cairo, adding a broad perspective.

After the invasion, she spent five years in Iraq. At first, she worked for AP. Then National Public Radio hired her as Baghdad bureau chief. Now based in Washington, Tarabay covers Islam in America but, as usual in her business, she keeps a war bag packed and visas up to date.

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Up Close, It’s a Different Story

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