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Scar
Of David.com
 The
Scar of David is historical fiction about a Palestinian
family from the village of Ein Hod, which was emptied of its
inhabitants by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948. It
is told in the first person by Amal, who is born into that
family in a UN-administered refugee camp in Jenin, where her
family would eventually die waiting, or fighting, to return
to their beloved Palestine.
Set in lap of one of the 20th century’s most intractable
political conflicts, this novel weaves through history,
friendship, love, frayed identity, terrorism, exhaustion of
the spirit, surrender, and courage. Three massacres and two
major wars provide five corners to this novel:
Sabra and Shatila, Southern Lebanon, 1982;
US embassy
bombing, Beirut, 1983;
Refugee camp of Jenin, West Bank, 2002;
The Naqbe, Mandate Palestine, 1948; and
The Six Day War, Middle East, 1967.
During the family’s eviction from their ancestral village,
Amal’s brother Ishmael is lost in the mayhem of people
fleeing for their lives. Just a toddler at the time, Ishmael
is raised by a Jewish family and grows up as David, an
Israeli soldier. During the 1967 war, Amal’s eldest brother,
Yousef, comes face to face with David, his brother the Jew.
Yousef recognizes his brother by a prominent scar across
David’s face. The title of this story takes its name from
this scar, and assumes other layers of meaning as it is
told.
The end is the beginning: terrible suffering packaged by
Western press into perfidious sound bites like “the Middle
East Conflict” and “War on Terrorism.” But through the
course of this story, a would-be suicide bomber is given a
name, face and life of a man pushed to in comprehensible
limits; an Arab girl of pious and humble beginnings escapes
her destiny and lives the “American Dream,” which her soul
cannot bear; an Israeli man becomes tangled in a truth he
cannot reconcile, and his identity can find no repose but in
the temporary anesthetic of alcohol; and a nation of
destitute refugees, living under the general label of
“terrorists,” emerges in the context of an unredeemed
history. This story reveals Palestinians in the fullness of
their humanity as they teeter on the margins of life against
a cruel military occupation, a corrupt leadership, an
indifferent international community, and the undaunted will
to take their place among the nations as human beings,
worthy of human rights and the basic dignity of heritage.
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