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Popular Culture Review
vivor who wants to find and punish the terrorists before his superiors launch a
heavy-handed military reprisal which will take the lives of many innocent Pales
tinian women and children.5
The novel’s center begins to shift when Charlie is recruited. Kurtz, as the
grand inquisitor, exposes the shallow nature of her political views, which were
most likely a rebellious persona to compensate for the adolescent scandal which
disrupted her family life. Taking on the voice and role of Michel, Joseph makes the
case for the Palestinian people. Joseph tells Charlie that Michel’s family was from
Hebron and that his father refused to leave the land when Israel was created in
1948. Yet, these efforts to live in harmony with the Israeli population were not
reciprocated. Michel’s grandfather was murdered by Zionists, and in 1967 when
Israeli tanks rolled into the village, the family fled across the Jordan River. Joseph
as Michel concludes, “From the moment of our arrival in Jordan we had become
stateless citizens, without papers, rights, future, or work. My school? It is a tin
shed crammed to the roof with flat tires and undernourished children.” Western
nations, such as Britain, are also blamed for the fate of the Palestinian people. As
an incensed Joseph/Michel proclaims,
The British gave away my country to the Zionists. They shipped the Jews
of Europe to us with orders to turn the East into the West. The old British
colonizers were tired and defeated, so they handed us over to the new
colonizers who had the zeal and ruthlessness to cut the knot. Don’t worry
about the Arabs, the British said to them. We promise to look the other
way while you deal with them.
This Palestinian polemic is, of course, delivered by a Jew posing as a Palestin
ian. However, the fact that her Israeli lover so well articulates the Palestinian cause
only adds to Charlie’s (who may be viewed as representing those in the West who
remain unaligned) sense of confusion. For Joseph concludes by remarking that the
Palestinians are any easy people to love.6
While many of the Western European Palestinian sympathizers with whom
she comes into contact are presented as decadent, Charlie’s commitment to the
Palestinian people is forged by her sojourn at a Palestinian camp in Lebanon. In
addition to receiving military training, Charlie is introduced to Michel’s sister
Fatmeh. Politically militant, Fatmeh has lost three brothers, a lover, and a sister in
the conflict with Israel. But she continues to serve as a nurse to the camp’s children
and welcomes Charlie as a sister. The camp’s military commander Tayeh explains
to Charlie that the Palestinians are anti-Zionists, but not anti-Semitic, for antiSemitism is a Christian invention. Charlie also falls in love with the children of the
camp, who hold her hand while teaching her to dance and sing their songs. Follow-