Sélim Nassib

Can a love story bridge the ineluctable chasm between two peoples? The novel answers this perhaps overly naive question in the negative. And it does so by retracing a bewildering affair: the relationship between Golda Meir, an authoritative Israeli prime minister in the early 1970s, and Albert Pharaon, scion of a wealthy Palestinian family. The book traces the history of the nascent State of Israel from 1917 (the year of the Balfour Declaration, in which the British Empire declared itself in favor of the establishment “in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”) through the 1948 war, as a result of which the State of Israel was founded and the exile of over seven hundred thousand Palestinians began. The novel’s opening is remarkably evocative. On one side is Golda, still a young woman, in the kibbutz. The Zionist ideal of a demanding, communal life is admirably epitomized in the vigor and courage of the young Golda: > so luminous, so self-assured and confident, an olive tree flourishing in a barren land . On the other side is Albert, an “exquisitely cultured man of the world” for whom “nothing in social life is enticing enough to tear him away from his sweet idleness.” If Golda personifies the unstoppable force of an idea, fueled by despair and the memory of persecutions, Albert effectively represents a landowning caste who watch the Jewish immigration with stunned disbelief, confounded by their mad determination to forge a state, and are above all alarmed by socialist ideology, which might nurture “strange aspirations” among the perpetually exploited Palestinian peasants. Disparate as they are, Golda and Albert meet, feel drawn to one another, and carry on a clandestine, intensely carnal affair for several years. At the root of their relationship, however, lies a misunderstanding. For Albert, their bond is logical and possible. The fact that one is Palestinian and the other Jewish presents no obstacle to someone who has always lived in a land where numerous communities coexisted without friction. For Golda, the barrier of nationality is insurmountable. In a conversation decisive for the future of their relationship, when Albert urges her to acknowledge that Jews will have to live alongside Palestinians, Golda shouts in fury: > we came here so we would no longer depend on anyone, do you understand? There is no other us but us . The sacred tenets of Zionism (“becoming masters of our own destiny”) prove stronger than any love. And so the two lovers > throw themselves upon each other, collide, clutch desperately, surrendered to an irresistible urge to tear one another apart, so that nothing remains of them or of their impossible relationship . The love story between Golda and Albert stands as a metaphor for the tragic fortunes of two peoples. The most evocative part of the novel is the section leading up to Golda and Albert’s encounter. Up to this point, the narrative remains open to unpredictable developments. The reader expects the author to delve into Golda’s personality: wife, mother, lover of many men, vigorous idealist, political figure, leader of her people. Was the affair with Albert merely the diversion of an intensely sensual woman, or did it answer, instead, an unconscious need to break free from the cultural and social molds of her Jewish identity? Were there contradictions within Golda’s world, or merely the whims of a woman of power? Through Albert, could Golda have been the “Prince Charming” who cast the Palestinian people “into modernity like shrimp into boiling water,” yet paving the way for eventual coexistence? The narrative abandons this potential trajectory, perhaps for lack of documentation or out of reluctance to strain historical reality too far. Instead, it focuses on the figure of Albert—languid, indolent, and inconsequential. And this is a pity, for the narrative loses its allure, turning into the chronicle of a man’s decline whose ending was already written in the preface, in his very character. Why not read it? It is a fragile narrative: it adds nothing to our understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it lacks intrigue because it fails to probe the central figure, that of Golda.