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Hope vs. Hopelessness

Introduction

The book wild thorn by Saher Khalifeh shows a picture of the life of the Palestinians based in the West Bank of Nablus, occupied by the Israelis. The story in the novel is, focused on the Al-Karmi family, particularly Usama, The Palestinian expatriate who is idealistic and has just come back from Kuwait, and is, assigned a resistance mission, which is blowing up the busses of Israelis that take the Palestinian workers and laborers from the Israeli factories in Tel Aviv.

The story also narrates the story of the cousin of Usama, Adil who is a Palestinian laborer placed and working at an Israeli factory for providing for his ailing father and family. It is through the two main characters of the novel, that the story gives a realistic and view of life that is uncompromising under the occupation of the Israelis and an issue faced by both the Palestinians settled abroad and those living in the Occupied Territories. This Arabic novel published in 1976, and dramatized the reaction of the Palestinian nationalists to the occupation of the Israelis of the West Bank, a move that turned numerous of their compatriots into nomads who commuted to alien territory for their jobs.

The events in the book are taking place in the West Bank area occupied by the Israelis after five years of the Six Day War that took place in 1967. Usama is a Palestinian who for years worked abroad and then returned to his homeland. The story of his return includes numerous tales of him being humiliated at the border.

He is astonished by the changes he sees around himself, is back to fight with the occupation and struggle with the thought of his cousin and friend, Adil who has given up on his family farm and works as a laborer on the inside land of the Israelis. He is shocked by the reality of his fellow citizens under the occupation who eat the Israelis bread, work at their factories and are learning their words, which is incomprehensible for Usama. He sees how hopeless his fellow citizens are and is shocked at their hopelessness.

Usama is in disdain by watching his fellow Palestinian residents and expresses this after watching an older woman trying to argue at the border with an Israeli army officer, he thinks “Effendi? Effendi! She called him! Usama almost reached out to slap the woman's black-swathed head. How can you use that word? Why the tears, woman? …Save them for what's going to keep on happening as long as there are people like you around” (Wild Thorns 18).

The changes have been, presented in the novel of the Palestinian society by Saher Khalifa as illuminating and original, the Palestinians shown as a polarized society who work abroad in the oil states, those who work on the inside on Israeli territory, the intellectuals and the upper and middle class some of whom collaborated with the Israelis and some refused. There has been a ...