Wild Thorns War

Among others, war is labeled many things, such as: cruel, wasteful, vicious and brutal but to Sahar Khalifeh in Wild Thorns war is absurd. The following text is a book about war between the Palestinian and Israeli communities, as well as a war within the Palestinian community. Wild Thorns illustrates the parallel absurdities that result from idealism and pragmatism and while though a novel, it provides accurate historical insight.
The internal controversy of Wild Thorns boils down to a singular question: how can the Palestinian people survive under occupation? The two primary approaches are represented through Usama and Adil, two cousins. Usama is a young idealist returning from the Gulf with strong beliefs that survival and political independence

Adil is Usama’s contradictory part, he is a pragmatist due to necessity, primarily branching from the responsibility for his family’s material survival. By his definition, survival means food on the table, and if that means association with the Occupation than it is an association he is willing to make.
There is a higher level in which the conflicts between Usama and Adil stand. Usama is a former emigrant that worked in the Gulf and has formed a body and soul connection with PLO. He lacks a real connection to the people of Palestine, in fact, he rather despises them and their materialism. The revolution is everything to him, to the point that he is willing to blow up family members if he feels he can accept the loss. Adil lies on a polar plane. He is stranded on a less-rewarding dilemma of keeping a large family financially stable. His responsibility to the family overweighs other options, so much that he is willing to work as a laborer in Israel if that is what is necessary. Adil is pragmatist not out of choice, but out of necessity to deliver food to the table. Adil is not the only one who faced limited economic opportunities in the West Bank. A high inflation and

It is nationalism that motivated Usama and Basil to demolish their family. Nationalism killed Zuhdi and failed to provide a practical solution to the daily issues and instead fed absurd chimera to the naïve and gullible. What we see is a form of retired solidarity and social fragmentation where the poor mistrust the wealthier, and the wealthier despise the poor. At a broader historical level, Wild Thorns delivers a palatable explanation for the inaction of Palestinian society under Occupation until the late 1980s. A division arose between Israeli’s and Palestinians which forced dependence, isolation and partial hostility from the most anxious to riot the Occupation, which made matters worse. The political response to the Palestinians was in a sense: those who couldn’t resist by sacrificing didn’t, and those that could did. Survival within Will Thorns crumbles down to navigating the many conflicts afoot occurring on occupied territories. By attempting to live in the area, all fought the Israelis. Even those like Adil fight to keep their families fed, and passively, by working in Israel and maintaining his family’s lives in good health, he was opposing the Israelis. But at the same time, Palestinians were fighting each other over things like leadership, strategy, and the means of resistance. It was the fight for nationality that made those that