On the Hills of God

Rating:
Summary: A plight of a country ...
Review: Ardallah .. the land of God .. I really don't know if it exists... but it is where our story takes place in Palestine. The book describes the events that preceded the war of 1948, how the Jewish people settled by force, how the Palestinians reacted and what the Arabs did.. if anything!! It illustrates their humiliating and appalling exodus from their country.
I have heard a lot about it and studied history books, but nothing is compared to the telling of its own people ... to go back in time ... hear and see their miseries ... nothing I can say will express the feelings and confusion of a country... the feelings of entrapment and loss!

A 17 year old Yousif, who like any boy of his age is looking forward to graduate and declare his love to Salwa, is totally crushed and transferred to another world of harsh reality and bloodshed. He fights with everything he has to get his love back and tries to do the same for his country. His vision and the future he foresees is a path of peace to return to his motherland! Hope and optimism penetrate through the clouds of war and death .. of a people who still sacrifices and survives under more than 50 years of violence and oppression.

Fawal describes his country in the most beautiful way ..you can imagine it in front of your eyes even if you haven't been there..portraying its green vast hills, the valleys, the olive and pine trees, the orange orchards and Jerusalem .. a tragic holy land!

Rating:
Summary: An intense novel about what is feels like to lose your home.
Review: I love this book because it was asy to read and it offers a glimpse at Palestinian life during the 1947-48 war in Palestine, something one rarely finds in popular American culture. It tells the story fairly and accurately of the life on one Palestinian and the Palestinian Christians, Muslims and Jews around him as Palestine experiences the great catastrophe of 1947-48. Well done!

Rating:
Summary: A journey back in time!
Review: I teared for Jerusalem as I got deeper into this book. It is a crucial read for anyone interested in the Palestinian-Israeli war, but more important, for anyone interested in Life, in truth, and in super writing. "On the Hills of God" is the story of Palestine in 1947-48, through the eyes and Life of a Christian Palestinian surrounded by Moslems and Jews. The characters are fictional, the town is fictional, but Ibrahim Fawal somehow manages to incorporate all the truths and all the facts in a well told novel. I did not live those years, but my Grandparents were married in Palestine in March of 1948, and when I asked her about incidents I read in the book, my Grandmother, teary eyed, told me that it was so. She told me about the daily terrorist acts against the Palestinians accounted in the book. And I was able to follow her through the streets of Jerusalem that the author paints so vividly. The characters may be fictional, but the rest is fact, the rest is a compelling truth. It is the story of an exodus, it is the story of Palestine, it is the story of the Jews that were also forced into the ways of Zionism. Read this book if you want a truthful account of what happened in 1947-48 in the form of a beautifully written novel. I guarantee that you will be transported back in time, and when you wake, your outlook on the region will have changed.

Rating:
Summary: Opened my eyes
Review: Like most Americans, my knowledge of Middle East history is sparse. Most of what I know has been learned through traditional news sources: newscasts, newspapers and magazines. Based on this input, all my life I thought Palestinian was a synonym for terrorist.

I've always been puzzled about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict; Why are the Palestinians so fanatical and determined? Why are Arabs angry with Israel? Why is there always the constant threat of war in the Middle East?

My questions were answered not through the review of a dry history text, instead, I learned the story of the Palestinian exodus by reading this wonderful piece of historical fiction and was entertained and educated at the same time. I can't ask much more from a book than that.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoy a great read and learn some history at the same time!
Review: On the hills of God is first a great read. Fans of novels that can carry you away to another culture and time will be fascinated by this book. It is the fictionalized story of three high school friends, and their families and the true, mostly unknown (by most Americans and Europeans) history of Palestine from slightly before WWI through the Nakba "catastrophe" as the Palestinians call their great violent expulsion from their land, homes and heritage orchestrated by Zionists and the West.

Best of all, it is a great story, engrossing, funny and sad.

Rating:
Summary: Palestinian and Israeli conflict through a teenager¿s eyes
Review: On the Hills of God is set 50 years in the past, yet is written with such heartfelt fervor that readers will be sucked into the story, as if it were happening in the present. The teenaged narrator, Yousif Safi, gives voice to Palestinians who have lost a way of life because of politics, war, appropriation, and injustice that all continue to the present. Ending on a note that makes peace a hopeful eventuality, this book should attract a wide audience.

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Summary: Christian Arab Voices No Longer Silent
Review: The Arab-Christian voice is no longer silent On The Hills Of God. Finally, one can read about al-Nakba, the Great Catastrophe, from the viewpoint of an Arab Christian. This first novel by Dr. Ibrahim Fawal, a native Palestinian and professor of film and literature, is one step towards lessening the dearth of literature written from the Palestinian perspective in general and from the Arab Christian perspective in particular. Fawal has produced a thought-provoking book that is basically a first-person account of events that forever changed global politics, told by one of 3 friends, (a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim) who relates the role each of them plays in the uprooting of their multi-religious, multi-ethnic society. The author gives a very personal, human face to the main characters (drawn as composites of his contemporaries) as he describes the destruction of a centuries-old way of life by a virtually 100% foreign-born army in its relentless push for control of land, water and economic resources. One can read the first-hand account of the mass exodus of frightened people from Haifa and Tel-Aviv, and the beginning of more than 50 years of exile and dispersion. These events set the stage for the dramatic drop in Christian population from 60% to 2% of Palestinian society. This is an excellent starting point for a more balanced understanding of Middle Eastern politics without hype or extremism, and led me to investigate related works, like Dr. Edward Said's "The Politics of Dispossession," Thomas Friedman's "From Beirut to Jerusalem, " etc. Also check out Dr. Fawal's latest offering, "Youssef Chahine," examining the filmography of one of the Arab world's greatest movie directors.

Rating:
Summary: Christian Arab Voices No Longer Silent
Review: The Arab-Christian voice is no longer silent On The Hills Of God. Finally, one can read about al-Nakba, the Great Catastrophe, from the viewpoint of an Arab Christian. This first novel by Dr. Ibrahim Fawal, a native Palestinian and professor of film and literature, is one step towards lessening the dearth of literature written from the Palestinian perspective in general and from the Arab Christian perspective in particular. Fawal has produced a thought-provoking book that is basically a first-person account of events that forever changed global politics, told by one of 3 friends, (a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim) who relates the role each of them plays in the uprooting of their multi-religious, multi-ethnic society. The author gives a very personal, human face to the main characters (drawn as composites of his contemporaries) as he describes the destruction of a centuries-old way of life by a virtually 100% foreign-born army in its relentless push for control of land, water and economic resources. One can read the first-hand account of the mass exodus of frightened people from Haifa and Tel-Aviv, and the beginning of more than 50 years of exile and dispersion. These events set the stage for the dramatic drop in Christian population from 60% to 2% of Palestinian society. This is an excellent starting point for a more balanced understanding of Middle Eastern politics without hype or extremism, and led me to investigate related works, like Dr. Edward Said's "The Politics of Dispossession," Thomas Friedman's "From Beirut to Jerusalem, " etc. Also check out Dr. Fawal's latest offering, "Youssef Chahine," examining the filmography of one of the Arab world's greatest movie directors.

Rating:
Summary: Hills of Whose God?
Review: This book is both entertaining, compelling and educational at the same time. Its a rare combination in literature today. If you take the time to read this book, you will never see the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the same light again. This story will transform you and leave you wondering why the world sat by and let this atrocity happen.