Martyrs’ Crossing: Fiction that Makes Israel-Palestine personal
Christine Kindberg
Global issues rarely have a human face, which is why they’re easy to dismiss. In the novel Martyrs’ Crossing (Ballantine Books, paperback, 2002; 336 pages), dismissal is no longer an option—there are names and faces to people caught on both sides of the horror of a West Bank checkpoint.
This book, by former Jerusalem correspondent Amy Wilentz, is a fast-paced introduction to the way Israeli-Palestinian politics translate into the lives of people caught in the crossfire. Wilentz intimately reveals what it is like to live and breathe the desperation most Americans only read about from a distance. Although not a complete picture, this novel is a great place to start for people who are not very familiar with the situation in the West Bank and Israel but would like to feel like they are there.
Wilentz’s novel focuses on a Palestinian mother, an Israeli soldier, and the guarded checkpoint that divides, and ironically unites them in a crisis. Marina Raad is a Palestinian woman who grew up in the U.S., moved to Ramallah, and is dealing with the complexities of daily life in the occupied West Bank—including the difficulties of trying to get her asthmatic son into Jerusalem for emergency medical attention. Ari Doron is the Israeli commander in charge of security at the entrance into Israel, under commands not to let anyone across—not even for an emergency—because of deadly bus bombings in Jerusalem. As a result, the child dies and both sides must deal with the situation as they may.
The checkpoint where Ari and Marina meet is the centerpiece of the novel and the source of the book’s title. The real-life nickname of this checkpoint is “Martyrs’ Crossing” because it has been the entrance point into Israel for a significant number of Palestinian suicide bombers. The novel begins and ends at this checkpoint focusing on the desperate (and often hopeless) struggle for life on both sides of the crossing—for Israelis as well as Palestinians. Wilentz’s novel shows the development of two martyrs of her own, connected to this checkpoint, though neither is the expected type. One is the Palestinian toddler who dies in his mother’s arms for lack of medical attention. The other is the promising Israeli soldier trying to come to terms with what happened on his watch.
Through these characters and others, Wilentz shows a full spectrum of the people involved in this issue and gives faces to a variety of perspectives, spanning generational, geographical, ideological, and national approaches. Wilentz characterizes people as distinct as a compassionate Israeli soldier, a young and charismatic Hamas leader, an Israeli government official missing the military’s ‘glory days’ of 1967, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem displaced in 1948, a calloused Palestinian Authority leader, a Palestinian lawyer desperate for simple justice, a hardened Israeli soldier, and a Palestinian intellectual enjoying the comfort of Massachusetts.[1]
Despite the benefits of providing a wide spectrum of viewpoints, in the end Wilentz’s characters feel like a roll call of perspectives she felt readers needed to understand the complexity of the situation. This is not a novel of polished storytelling. Wilentz seems eager to bring attention to a cause through a decent story, easily-readable but not written with much subtlety or refinement.
As another warning, Wilentz is not ‘balanced’ in her portrayal of the situation. Most of the novel takes place in the in the West Bank, primarily focusing on Palestinian characters. The humanity of the Israeli side rests almost solely on the character of Ari Doron—none of the other Israelis are portrayed sympathetically with the worst caricatures portraying the Israeli soldiers and administrators.”Even with these flaws, Amy Wilentz does provide significant insight into the Israeli-Palestinian situation. She shows that individuals from the two sides can have connections, but also shows that with the way things stand there is no room for hope. Both sides are riddled with corruption, cynicism, and ingrained hatred. Leaders on both sides ruthlessly manipulate media for political ends to the disregard of individual tragedies. In the end, the novel seems to suggest that the only release is death, or escape to the neutral land of America for the lucky few who can leave. This sense of hopelessness is abrasive, but it does give an accurate portrayal of the despair of this situation.
Martyrs’ Crossing by Amy Wilentz is a good novel for readers looking for a new experience of an important issue. Through an engrossing plot and believable (if at times superficial) characters, Wilentz provides insight at a variety of levels, on a much more personal scale than a newspaper article. As such, it shows in story form some of the complexities of this situation for people who have heard a lot about it, but do not understand many of the concerns involved.
[1] I think the only major groups of people Wilentz did not represent are Israeli settlers illegally living in the West Bank and American Evangelicals in militant support of the secular state of Israel.
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