Reading List

January 10, 2010

The Haj by Leon Uris

Leon Uris is dead. He passed away a while ago. In my formative years – 18-25 – he was a well known writer. In particular, he was known for writing Exodus, a story about the Zionist movement into Israel. I read that a long time ago. I remember that I enjoyed it. So when I was rummaging through the “free book” shelves at the library, I came across this book by Leon Uris, The Haj, and decided to take it.

Okay, it was an okay story. This one is about the Palestinians that were made refugies by the Zionist movement in Isreal. I think that it is relatively accurate of the events. It really opened my eyes about what happened. In fact, the Jews did not kick the refugees out of Israel. They invited them back onto the land. But the Arab nations refused to recognize the Israeli state and so, they would not allow the Palestinians to negotiate with the Jews. They wanted the Palestinian refugees to be a hate tool for the rest of the world against the Jews. Interesting that in today’s world that is still the case.

Surely, even though this is a story about the Arab reaction, Leon Uris is definitely against the Arab reaction in Palestine. He explores the Arab psyche and their long held customs and their lack of unity amongst themselves. It filled in a lot of historical gaps for me because the events happened before I was cognisant of the world - yet they had so much to do with the world events of today.

So can I recommend this book? It is dated – of course because it was written 40 years ago. It does explain a lot about the Arab world – in a historical fiction way. It is well written. There are some graphic scenes which I think are not needed – and in many cases may be exaggerated.

I liked it but it was not a “compelling read”. I actually started reading it months ago, and set it aside to read two other books before I finished it.

I would say it is only average. No it is not on the 501 list.