Khirbet Khizah was published right after the war of 1948-49. It is about a group of soldiers who are sent out on a clean-up operation towards the end of the war. And as long as we wage war and kill each other it will keep its relevance.

“we could also see how something was happening in the heart of the boy, something that, when he grew up, could only become a viper inside him, the same thing that was now the weeping of a helpless child.”

The book starts out with a handful of young soldiers who are sent to a Palestinian village. They either don’t know the specifics of their mission, or they are simply reluctant to talk about it. We get to know the soldiers a little bit. They are all very young. and just like typical young men they seem carefree, crack jokes and talk about girls. After waiting close to this village they go in and herd the inhabitants away to “their side” of the newly agreed border. They are collected on board trucks and driven away.Tensions run high and it seems like people might get killed at any moment. 

Towards the end of the book the narrator, an unamed soldier, sees the irony of it all. They are Jews, a people who had been exciled for millenia, and now they are forcing other people into excile.

“This was exile. This was what exile looked like.”

Even though he sees the wrong in this he doesn’t intervene. The soldiers justify their actions by talking about how much better they will use the natural recources. And for a moment they seem to see how bad this is, but then they revert to their banter and starts to talk about supper. The soldiers are not portrayed as evil by nature at all. They seem to be rather normal young men. They seem more to be cold and hard towards the Palestinians due to circumstance. Which is a point I think is important to remember. most evil deeds are committed by quite normal people in abnormal situations.  

The novella is short with less than 100 pages. I think I read it in two-three hours. It is well worth the read. 

Rating: 4/6

#KhirbetKhizah #SYizhar #IsraelPalestine 

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