This book of fiction based on factual events delves into the profound and disturbing themes surrounding the naqba (the Catastrophe), the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and again in 2002.
As I read this eloquently written, lyrical and thought provoking novel my thoughts travelled continually to Gaza where the genocidal acts against the children and families of the State of Palestine continue unabated .
The story follows the lives of the Abulheja family who, before the naqba, were living an idyllic life in a small Palestinian village called Ein Hod in 1941. The stage is set when the patriarch of the family, Haj Yehya, is preparing to harvest olives from the family’s orchard. There is a sense of foreboding of what is to come as the family load their old truck with their harvested produce of olive oil, almonds, figs, citrus fruits, vegetables and grapes. Yehya is concerned because one of his sons, Hasan, wants to travel to a distant market to sell their produce.
“You know I’d rather you not go all the way to Jerusalem,” Yehya said to Hasan. “Tulkarem is only a few kilometres away and gasoline is expensive. Even Haifa is closer, and their markets are just as good. Why make the trip?” But Hasan is keen to meet up with his best friend, a Jewish boy named Ari. Ari’s family had fled the Nazis in the 1930s and in spite of a growing divide between the Zionists and the people of Palestine their friendship had blossomed. The story of the friendship of these two young boys is one of lost innocence and is analogous to what might have been if not for the Zionist action in ethnically cleansing Palestinian people and appropriating their land. Decades later after the war had divided the two young friends, Hasan told his youngest daughter, Amal, with sadness and regret, about his Jewish friend Ari. “He was like a brother” Hasan said.
Yehya more than most has an insight into the motives of the Zionists in attacking the British who held the mandate in Palestine. Speaking to his wife he said “Don’t you hear the news every day? Zionists killing British and Palestinians every cursed day? They’re getting rid of the British so they can get rid of us and everybody’s too stupid to see it or do anything about it.” And so it was to prove.
Early on in the book we are introduced to a beautiful young Bedouin girl named Dalia with whom Hasan falls in love and in spite of his mother’s and the village women’s scorn for this willful and free spirited girl, he later marries. Dalia is unwilling to abide by the suffocating rules laid by her father and the village women. She is taught to ride a horse by a young Arab boy, in itself something forbidden. One day she secretly borrows the horse and is accused of stealing it by the boy’s mother. The village women are outraged and demand that she is forced to pay for yet another perceived act of defiance. Her father, feeling dishonoured, decides to cruelly punish his insolent daughter. He drags her to the centre of the village where he burns the hand with which Dalia led the horse away with a hot iron. Dalia refuses to be broken and instead of screaming or asking for mercy, shows her defiance “Dalia made no sound as the burning metal seared the skin of her right palm.....She gripped the torture in her hand and held it there with a clench of her jaw as tears streaked her face.” This refusal of Dalia to submit to the tyranny of her father and the village women is analogous to that of the Palestinian people who, in spite of the cruel unabated Zionist genocide currently taking place in Gaza, will never surrender their right to self-determination.
Susan Abulhava, an American Palestinian who has had personal experience of living under the Zionist colonialists, gives a unique and honest perspective of the harsh realities involved. Mornings in Jenin captivates you from the first page. It gives you an unforgettable and vivid insight into life in the Jenin refugee camp. It is beautifully written with a lyrical and poetic prose. It is unforgettable and deeply moving. If you are interested in knowing more about what lies behind the Palestinian conflict and the human cost of war in general, this book is highly recommended.
The author is Former School Principal Cambridge UK.
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