Over the past few days, I have spent my spare time at work reading up on the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Don't panic, I'm not about to launch into a boring history lesson! I just have a few thoughts bouncing around that need an outlet.
I'm reading a novel by Richard North Patterson called Exile, and it is this that has inspired me to learn more about the tragedy that is the Middle East. This is the synopsis of the book:
From one of America's most compelling novelists comes the mesmerizing story of a lawyer who must defend the woman he loves against a charge of conspiring to assassinate the prime minister of Israel. David Wolfe's life is approaching an exhilarating peak: he's a successful San Francisco lawyer, he's about to get married, and he's being primed for a run for Congress. But when the phone rings and he hears the voice of Hana Arif — the Palestinian woman with whom he had a secret affair in law school — he begins a completely unexpected journey. The next day, the prime minister of Israel is assassinated by a suicide bomber while visiting San Francisco; soon, Hana herself is accused of being the mastermind behind the murder. Now David faces an agonizing choice: Will he, a Jew, represent Hana — who may well be guilty — or will he turn away the one woman he can never forget? The most challenging case of David's career requires that he delve deep into the lives of Hana Arif and her militant Palestinian husband, both of whom have always lived in exile. Ultimately, David's quest takes him to Israel and the West Bank, where, in a series of harrowing encounters, he learns that appearances are not at all what they seem. Culminating in a tense and startling trial with international ramifications, Exile is that rare novel that both entertains and enlightens. At once an intricate tale of betrayal and deception, a moving love story, and a fascinating journey into the lethal politics of the Middle East, this is Richard North Patterson at his most brilliant and engrossing.
Of course, Patterson is a novelist first and foremost, not a historian or an expert in political relations. He is, however, a former a trial lawyer, and has been involved in various advocacy groups in the US. His intricate understanding of the legal system along with his thorough research into all aspects of the topic at hand gives him an excellent platform on which to build an understanding of complex issues for the common man. In short, he not only explores every angle of his story, but he is also able to tell it in a way that is accessible to his readers without oversimplifying the case.
He has been my favourite author ever since I read No Safe Place in college, and without fail his books have challenged me to increase my awareness of some of the big challenges that are being faced by the modern world. When I picked up Exile, I was a little daunted. Like most of us in the Western world, my experience of suicide bombings, territorial occupation and Right of Return is limited to a few newspaper headlines, and even then I tend to skim them only briefly, all the while thinking: Oh, it's just another day, another drama in the Middle East.
Without ever having delved into the histories of the Jews and Palestinians other than what I learned in school, I always thought that it was kind of cheeky of the Jews to just demand that Palestinians relinquish their land because God had promised it to them. As one of the main characters in the book quips at one point: "Since when did God become a real estate agent?" But it is obviously far more complicated then that, and this book has really opened my eyes to the human factor behind the stories of these two groups of people and the terrible sufferings they have inflicted on each other.
The way Patterson lays out both sides of the issue equally means that most readers are unlikely to pick a side. I have 200 pages left, and already I know I could not say whether I think the Jews or the Palestinians are right; instead I am saddened by the seemingly insoluble conflict. I wonder how different I would feel if I was a Jewish or Arab South African reading this; I've never thought about that before.
I've spent a lot of time researching key terms that are not fully explained in the book: Shin Bet, Intifada, Fatah, Hamas, Al-Aqsa...... all names and entities which never penetrate more than the first layer of my consciousness when I hear the news report at night. I could replace these terms with many others of different geographies: Zanu (PF), MDC, Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe or Sharia Law, Janjaweed and Al Saddiq Al Mahdi for Sudan. How many times do we hear the words that make up our perceptions of war and conflict, but have nothing to attach them to?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that reading this book, and others by Patterson or writers like him, makes me feel like a very small fish in a very big pond. And I think that is a good thing to keep in mind as we muddle through our own lives, with our own struggles and our own consequences. I'm glad I made the effort to expand my understanding of this complex world just a little bit.
I'm reading a novel by Richard North Patterson called Exile, and it is this that has inspired me to learn more about the tragedy that is the Middle East. This is the synopsis of the book:
From one of America's most compelling novelists comes the mesmerizing story of a lawyer who must defend the woman he loves against a charge of conspiring to assassinate the prime minister of Israel. David Wolfe's life is approaching an exhilarating peak: he's a successful San Francisco lawyer, he's about to get married, and he's being primed for a run for Congress. But when the phone rings and he hears the voice of Hana Arif — the Palestinian woman with whom he had a secret affair in law school — he begins a completely unexpected journey. The next day, the prime minister of Israel is assassinated by a suicide bomber while visiting San Francisco; soon, Hana herself is accused of being the mastermind behind the murder. Now David faces an agonizing choice: Will he, a Jew, represent Hana — who may well be guilty — or will he turn away the one woman he can never forget? The most challenging case of David's career requires that he delve deep into the lives of Hana Arif and her militant Palestinian husband, both of whom have always lived in exile. Ultimately, David's quest takes him to Israel and the West Bank, where, in a series of harrowing encounters, he learns that appearances are not at all what they seem. Culminating in a tense and startling trial with international ramifications, Exile is that rare novel that both entertains and enlightens. At once an intricate tale of betrayal and deception, a moving love story, and a fascinating journey into the lethal politics of the Middle East, this is Richard North Patterson at his most brilliant and engrossing.Of course, Patterson is a novelist first and foremost, not a historian or an expert in political relations. He is, however, a former a trial lawyer, and has been involved in various advocacy groups in the US. His intricate understanding of the legal system along with his thorough research into all aspects of the topic at hand gives him an excellent platform on which to build an understanding of complex issues for the common man. In short, he not only explores every angle of his story, but he is also able to tell it in a way that is accessible to his readers without oversimplifying the case.
He has been my favourite author ever since I read No Safe Place in college, and without fail his books have challenged me to increase my awareness of some of the big challenges that are being faced by the modern world. When I picked up Exile, I was a little daunted. Like most of us in the Western world, my experience of suicide bombings, territorial occupation and Right of Return is limited to a few newspaper headlines, and even then I tend to skim them only briefly, all the while thinking: Oh, it's just another day, another drama in the Middle East.
Without ever having delved into the histories of the Jews and Palestinians other than what I learned in school, I always thought that it was kind of cheeky of the Jews to just demand that Palestinians relinquish their land because God had promised it to them. As one of the main characters in the book quips at one point: "Since when did God become a real estate agent?" But it is obviously far more complicated then that, and this book has really opened my eyes to the human factor behind the stories of these two groups of people and the terrible sufferings they have inflicted on each other.
The way Patterson lays out both sides of the issue equally means that most readers are unlikely to pick a side. I have 200 pages left, and already I know I could not say whether I think the Jews or the Palestinians are right; instead I am saddened by the seemingly insoluble conflict. I wonder how different I would feel if I was a Jewish or Arab South African reading this; I've never thought about that before.
I've spent a lot of time researching key terms that are not fully explained in the book: Shin Bet, Intifada, Fatah, Hamas, Al-Aqsa...... all names and entities which never penetrate more than the first layer of my consciousness when I hear the news report at night. I could replace these terms with many others of different geographies: Zanu (PF), MDC, Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe or Sharia Law, Janjaweed and Al Saddiq Al Mahdi for Sudan. How many times do we hear the words that make up our perceptions of war and conflict, but have nothing to attach them to?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that reading this book, and others by Patterson or writers like him, makes me feel like a very small fish in a very big pond. And I think that is a good thing to keep in mind as we muddle through our own lives, with our own struggles and our own consequences. I'm glad I made the effort to expand my understanding of this complex world just a little bit.
1 comment:
I'm curious to read it now. Thanks for the synopsis of Exile :)
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