Author:Yasmina Khadra

Translated from French by John Cullen

ISBN: 0-385-51748-3

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is the focus of Yasmina Khadra’s The Attack.  Some attacks are targeted against hate mongers and others take their evil sweet revenge on innocent children.

The narrative opens with a missile attack on a fugitive cleric known to spew hatred.  The main protagonist, Dr. Amin Jaafari, was at the wrong place at the wrong time and is caught in the inferno!

Khadra flashes back to a span in the life of Dr.Amin Jaafari.  He is an Israeli Bedouin Arab, a well- respected surgeon, integrated into the Israeli society, living in the suburbs of Tel Aviv together with his beloved, intelligent and modern wife of 15 years, Sihem.

When a suicide bomb explodes in his neighbourhood killing a number of innocent Israeli children and maiming several other people, he has to do what he can to save the victims. After several hours in the operating room, he is exhausted and falls asleep. He is rudely awakened to the news that his beloved wife, Sihem,was the suicide bomber.  He falls into the abyss of despair and incomprehension. How could someone as sweet, intelligent and loving kill innocent children?!

Questioned by the Israeli police and ostracised by his neighbours, Dr. Jaafari attempts to put the pieces together. In his lonely trashed apartment, he sifts through old pictures and one picture in particular retains his attention. Although Sihem is smiling, her eyes have an expression of irremediable sadness and death.

His nearly impossible task of understanding the terrorist mentality takes him to the organized crime machine of the Islamist militants. He recognises in their eyes the same look of despair and death Sihem had in her picture. Dr. Jaafari is tortured by the Islamists in their quest to have him join them in their killing organization. But he is in a quandary. How could a surgeon, who saves lives, kill in the sorry name of revenge?  Unfortunately, Khadra leaves the question hanging in the air.  There is simply no answer to such horrible insensitivity.

Instead of rebuilding their lives as Jewish refugees of Arab lands did or using the millions they were given to reconstruct their lives, the terrorists choose to kill innocent children in the name of revenge!

Khadra’s longing for the land of Palestine is obvious. How the Israelis take their own revenge is likewise unjust, but they do not kill innocent people!

What would you want them to do when suicide bombers attack innocent citizens? Khadra balances the prickly questions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a very diplomatic way.

Incidentally, Yasmina Khadra which means Green Jasmin in Arabic is the nom de plume of the author. Green is the color of the flag of Palestine and the Jasmine is perhaps a peace offering? He is a former Algerian army officer called Mohammed Moulesshoul and lives in France.

The English Translation by John Cullen is superb.

The Attack is a must read thriller for all the parties concerned. Perhaps they will see that revenge is not the answer, it is but a spinning wheel to hell!

 The above review was contributed by:  Lily Azerad-Goldman: Artist: CLICK TO VIEW Lily Azerad-Goldman's Reviews