Paul comments...This book troubled me - a lot.
The descriptions of the arab plight in Israel and the occupied territories is highly critical of the jihadi terrorists - but in a sympathetic way. Sort of, it's wrong, but what can you expect under the circumstances. He does not try to justify the bombings but is sympathetic to the causes.
His depiction of the assimilated, and successful, arab doctor who's wife becomes a suicide bomber is much less sympathetic. Sort of - wake up and look around, you can't escape from your heritage! He returns to his tribe and is treated with great sympathy as a mis-guided son who has come home. The lesson seems to be - it's bad to be a good arab in Israel.
His depiction of overall Israeli society is basically unsympathetic. The doctor's two best friends are Israelis but can't help him because they don't understand what's driving him. In addition, the author focuses on a number of incidents where the doctor, an Israeli citizen, is treated badly by strangers and colleagues. Later, after his wife blows up the restaurant killing nineteen adults and children, he is surprised that the police suspect him of collusion and that a gang beats him up and trashes his house. The sympathetic view of the arab plight does not extend to the innocent Tel Avians being killed by suicide bombs.
The book begins and ends with a moving description of an Israeli attack on a car carrying a islamist Imam who advocates suicide bombings. The clear message seems to be the Israelis are just as bad as the suicide bombers.
About the book...
Dr. Amin Jaafari, an Israeli Arab, seems fully assimilated into Tel Aviv society, with a loving wife, a successful career as a surgeon, and numerous Jewish friends. But after a restaurant bombing kills nineteen people, and it becomes apparent that his wife was the bomber, he plunges into the world of Islamic extremism, trying to understand how he missed signs of her intentions. Khadra (the nom de plume of Mohammed Moulessehoul) vividly captures Jaafari's anguish and his anger at the fanatics who recruited his wife. The Israelis don't escape lightly, either, as their army marches over law-abiding Arab citizens in an attempt to stamp out the militants. Khadra's writing has a tendency toward cliché, but the book's dark vision of the conflict is powerful
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