illusion-of-return.md (11189B)
1 +++ 2 title = "The Novel of Palestinian Disillusionment" 3 date = 2024-11-01T17:25:51-07:00 4 updated = 2024-12-14T15:09:50-08:00 5 [extra] 6 book = "The Illusion of Return" 7 author = "Samir El-Youssef" 8 finished = 2024-10-23 9 rating = "★★★☆☆" 10 +++ 11 12 **Author's Note:** I write everything in a conversational tone, so I 13 doubt anybody reading this will notice much difference, but this review 14 was originally a presentation. It is one of two I gave in Russell 15 Berman's wonderful [Zionism and the Novel]. It was first written in [iA 16 Presenter]. The title I have given the review here on the website was 17 taken from our syllabus. For another artifact of my work in the class, 18 check out my review of [Waking Lions]. 19 20 ## Let's begin 21 ~~Alright close your laptops and let's do this for real.~~ To get you up 22 to speed, let me tell you succinctly everything you need to know about 23 the book. 24 25 Let us start with the fact that it's semi-autobiographical. Though it is 26 a novel, and elements are fictionalized, the life of our protagonist 27 broadly echoes the trajectory of our author. 28 29 Which is a great intro to our 30 31 ## Brief List of Characters 32 33 Beginning with our Author-Protagonist. He's Palestinian, born in 34 Lebanon, and lives in London. He has no name! We do know a lot about him 35 though. 36 37 Ali has the same origin story, lives in the US, and is drug buddies with 38 the protagonist. Ali is the closest of the bunch to the protagonist, 39 because the other two basically thought that the protagonist wasn't 40 mentally up to snuff. 41 42 Maher has the same origin story as well. He is also a Communist. 43 44 George is a Lebanese Christian, still in Lebanon as far as we know, and 45 a big fan of abstract philosophy (specifically Heidegger). He is the only non-Palestinian of the bunch. 46 47 ## That's the Gang Of Four 48 In the prologue, we witness the protagonist approaching the fifteenth 49 anniversary of his departure from Lebanon. He gets a call from Ali, who 50 has a layover in London on his way from the US back to Lebanon, and he 51 wants to say hello. This throws the protagonist into a whirlpool of 52 emotions, as he had pretty much severed contact with his past up until 53 this point. 54 55 The real meat of the novel is narrated to us in a series of flashbacks 56 to the last night the gang of four spent together, revealing 57 progressively more and more about their overlapping lives and 58 relationships. 59 60 Finally, in the prologue, we get to witness the discussion between the 61 protagonist and Ali in the Heathrow Airport and a little bit of the 62 latter's perspective on things. 63 64 And, before we address the fun socio-political commentary of the novel, 65 we can take a small more-mundane dive into one of the big questions of 66 the course: 67 68 ## Is The Personal Political? 69 El-Youssef answers clearly that, whether we like it or not: yes. 70 71 The stories in this book are deeply tragic. 72 73 Our protagonist had a sister named Amina. Amina was physically abused by 74 her other brother Kamal, and ends up killing herself. The protagonist is 75 haunted by her memory, and his family refuses to even say her name. 76 77 Obviously, this is deeply tragic. It also exists in a political context! 78 Amina shoots herself after Kamal sees her kissing a man and threatens to 79 kill her himself for dishonoring the family. The freedom of women in 80 society—regretfully, a political issue. The man Amina was kissing was a 81 fellow member of a Palestinian resistance movement. Her family found her 82 membership in that deeply troublesome, primarily because of their 83 uniform of military fatigues. After her suicide, the movement covers up 84 the cause of her death and honors her for dying in the fight against 85 "the Zionist enemy." All deeply political! 86 87 Ali's had a brother Sameh. Sameh was gay, and because of this a faction 88 of Palestinian militants forced him into working for them as some form 89 of punishment/conversion therapy (obviously political). Sameh is 90 eventually caught smuggling arms into Israel and shot. The IDF traced 91 his dead body and the van he was driving back to Ali in Lebanon, and 92 force Ali to become an informant. Super political! And of course, very 93 personally tragic! Ali and his brother are made pawns and stripped of 94 their agency. When his brother is eventually killed, Ali experiences a 95 mix of emotions—he is devastated, but also grateful because of the shame 96 that Sameh's sexuality brought upon him. Super horrible! 97 98 You'll also note that unlike the other three, Maher's intro didn't have 99 a note about what he's currently up to. That's because, on the night at 100 the cafe that we witness, Maher is kidnapped and murdered. He is 101 kidnapped and murdered in part for political reasons—he's a 102 communist—but also for the personal implications that political fact has 103 created—his assailant is the bereaved son of a man who's factory was 104 destroyed at the hands of a communist revolutionary Maher helped 105 radicalize. 106 107 George hides his personal struggles, for political reasons. His family 108 lives together, but he reveals to the protagonist on their walk home 109 from the cafe that his parents have been divorced since he was a child. 110 He has struggled with love for his whole life, having grown up in an 111 ice-cold household. But he can never reveal any of this, or stir up any 112 great troubles or emotions, because of his precarious position in the 113 community: a Christian amongst Muslims, a Lebanese amongst Palestinians, 114 a third party caught in a Judeo-Islamic war. Not seeking to anger any 115 dangerous people with guns, he lives a life disconnected from his 116 personal struggles. 117 118 In this book, and in real life, the personal world has profound 119 political implications and vice versa. 120 121 And now for the fun part. 122 123 ## Palestinianism 124 I made up this word, and its going to live on the screen while we talk 125 about what El-Youssef wants us to learn and believe. Because this book 126 is a commentary on the Palestinian right of return. There's significant 127 and explicit commentary on it within the book—the protagonist wrote 128 (sort of) a thesis on the subject—including this lovely nod to the 129 audience: 130 131 > "'It's a one-way journey!' he told me," said Ali, "'As for those who 132 > claim to return to a place where they never were,' said Bruno, 'they 133 > are simply confusing the symbolic and metaphorical with the possible 134 > and actual.'.... [T]here is no such thing as the right of return... I 135 > shall write [this] as an essay or a story, which I could call *The 136 > Illusion of Return*. 137 138 Now, last year, in a wonderful course that I do not really recommend 139 anybody take because it's quite boring and not that wonderful called 140 [HISTORY81B: Making the Modern Middle East][HISTORY81B], I read a book 141 called [*The War of Return*]. Unlike the course, this I highly 142 recommend. It was written by two prominent Israeli leftists and contains 143 an in-depth history that is largely unknown, and records some important 144 oddities related to the right of return and the issue of Palestinian 145 refugees. 146 147 History in 1948 must be judged within its context, and not against 148 modernity. Much was different back then, and population exchange and 149 territorial partition were viewed as legitimate ways of solving ethnic 150 conflicts in ways that they are perhaps not any longer. We can see this 151 happening all over the world and at a much larger scale than in the 152 Levant, such as in Greece and Turkey or India and Pakistan. So the 153 illegitimacy—or even unique nature—of the circumstances surrounding 154 Israel's founding and the birth of the Palestinian refugee issue is 155 suspect from that perspective. 156 157 And beyond that, Palestinian refugees have been treated radically 158 differently from any other class of people. They are in fact not 159 governed by the UN committee that deals with refugees, but by their own 160 UNRWA—which you have likely heard about in the news recently. (As an 161 aside, it's not incorrect to say "their own" in that sentence, as the 162 vast majority of UNRWA employees since its inception have been 163 Palestinians). They are hereditary where no other refugee group is, 164 creating 5 million refugees from an initial displacement of around 700K. 165 Their status is not surrendered when they gain citizenship to their new 166 host countries, leading to Jordan's population being majority (~70%) 167 Palestinian refugees. The entire population of the West Bank and Gaza 168 have been considered refugees since 1948, despite living in territories 169 allocated for their own future state. The "refugee camps" that most of 170 them live in—and into which three of our four main characters were 171 born—look far from the camps of the standard Western imagination, but 172 are in fact fully built-out neighborhoods attached to or themselves 173 forming major cities (see: Beirut and Jenin, respectively). 174 175 Furthermore, attempts to resolve the refugee issue by traditional 176 means—resettlement, economic empowerment, and rehabilitation, as seen 177 elsewhere (including some of the UN's most successful projects, such as 178 the reconstruction of Korea)—have been intentionally shuttered. Please 179 see these two quotes: 180 181 > The refugee issue, claim Schwartz and Wilf, is cynically manufactured 182 > and perpetuated by Arab leaders. 183 184 > And let's face it... the Arab countries are not the most hospitable 185 > places, especially for Palestinians. 186 187 This first quote is actually from [a book report][*The War of Return*] I 188 wrote on *The War of Return*, and the latter from El-Youssef in *The 189 Illusion of Return*. 190 191 The issue of Palestine can be resolved. States can be formed, and given 192 borders. But the right of return—this is crazy important, and something 193 I realized in reading *The War of Return*—does not refer to the ability 194 of Palestinians to immigrate to the future territory of a Palestinian 195 state (presumably in the contemporary West Bank and Gaza) but rather to 196 the whole territory that once comprised the British Mandate, including 197 the modern State of Israel! 198 199 This is the issue of Palestinians, not Palestine. And the broader Arab 200 world does not want to resolve it. Because resolving it means closure. 201 It means continuing forward in time. It means that Jews will have 202 sovereignty over a slice of the Middle East. 203 204 Our protagonist begins many things throughout the book, but never 205 finishes them. He also struggles with time and presence, doubting 206 whether the past really happened at all. His parents left Palestine for 207 Lebanon, and he left Lebanon for London—but try as he might he cannot 208 truly move on. The world around him forces this anti-closure upon him, a 209 relic of his past—Palestinian-Lebanese Ali—literally showing up on his 210 doorstep as he arrives at his anniversary of emigration. 211 212 But he is wise enough to know that you cannot undo the past. 213 214 Which! Brings us to: 215 216 ## The Jewish Question 217 Though not the one you're familiar with. El-Youssef doesn't believe in 218 return. The Jewish question I pose to you all now is thus: how can we 219 reconcile this position with the reality of Israel—a return that worked? 220 What, if anything, makes the case of the Jews different? 221 222 [Zionism and the Novel]: https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?q=COMPLIT37Q 223 [iA Presenter]: https://ia.net/presenter 224 [Waking Lions]: @/reading/waking-lions.md 225 [HISTORY81B]: https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?q=HISTORY81B 226 [*The War of Return*]: @/reading/war-of-return/index.md