3/04/2017

Headline March 05, 2017/ ''' *THE ATTACK* BY YASMINA KADRA. '''


''' *THE ATTACK* 

BY YASMINA KADRA '''




''IF I LOCKED YOU UP, IT WAS SO YOU COULD TASTE HATE,'' Dr. Amin Jaafarari's captor says in the-

Extraordinary graphic novel version of- Yasmina Kadra's  ''The Attack.''

''Anything can happen if you scratch at someone's self-esteem. Especially if they are feeling powerless.''

This is not just a simplified explanation of the complex motivations of a suicide bomber. These words, in a sense, exemplify the brutal cycle of the Middle East tragedy:

*Injustice leads to powerlessness, to frustration to rage, and finally to acts of violence that undercut any attempts at peace or reconciliation*.

Except this time, Dr.Amin  -an Israeli Arab surgeon whose wife, Suhem, mysteriously disappears down the rabbit hole of radical extremism and violence  -is being held in a darkened room by Palestinian  radicals in the West Bank city of Jenin

Not by the  Shin Bet,  the Israeli Security Agency  

He has embarked on a quest across the  Occupied Territories to try to unravel how and why his wife  blew herself up   along with innocent bystanders on a crowded  Tel Aviv  street.

*His voyage  into the abyss  starts in the emergency room at the hospital where he works, desperately trying to save victims of a  suicide bomber, before discovering  through Israeli friends that it was his wife who in fact murdered and harmed all these people*.

The genius of  ''The Attack''  , writes the master researcher, Janine Di Giovanni is while you are led, Odysseus-like-

Through the back streets and alleys of Bethlehem and Jenin, meeting radicals and thugs, families who have turned violent out of deep resentment and frustration-

People whose homes are bulldozed by Israeli soldiers, you are following Amin's inner journey in real time. *You are also descending into the rabbit hole*.

What incident prompted Sihem to turn from a wife, beautiful and bright, into a killer?

How did Amin lose his own Arab identity by closing himself off to the tragedy of those living in Gaza and Jenin while he pursued a secular, noninvasive life, safely cocooned in the hospital?

Or, as one of the radicals tells him,.........'Now.....you have experienced a bit of the horrors that your job has protected you from.''

There is no grand finale,  no morality play, no lesson learned on the ''Israeli-Palestinian''  conflict in these pages.

There is, in fact, no judgment of who is wrong and who is right. There is just the deep sense of loss, horror, bereavement and finally, shock.

''I have no intention of...........taking down the group,'' Amin says to his best friend, Kim, a  Jewish surgeon, of his quest to find out who indoctrinated Silem

*''I just want to know how the love of my life excluded me from hers.''*

''The Attack'' is not even the story of how radicals take up arms, or why Sihem strapped on that explosive vest  -was it out of love for another man, or was it her own true calling ?

''The Attack,'' ultimately, is a story of lost innocence.

On one of his endless wanderings, this time through an olive grove near Bethlehem, Amin meets an old Jewish man, a friend of his father's.

''All Palestinians Jews are a bit of  Arab and  Israeli  Arabs cannot deny being a little bit Jewish,''  he muses. The old man agrees with him, but asks: 

''So why is there so much hate in the same lineage?''

With respectful dedication to Loic Dauvillier for his written work, and to Glen Chapron for illustration. And to Yasmina Kadra for the brilliant work.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Israel and Palestine

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!   -the Ecosystem 2011:


''' The Blackouts '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless

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