The Attack [Hardcover]

As I live in the Middle East I am drawn to this type of book to aid my understanding of some of the conflicts and to understand the human element; the cause and effect of events in this area.

The central character, Dr Amin Jaafie, is a leading surgeon at Tel Aviv's main hospital. He uses his skills to repair the damage caused by the conflict surrounding him and to keep himself distanced from involvement in events. Unfortunately his wife holds much more extreme views and blows herself up in a full restaurant.
As Jaafie is forced to confront this fact he starts to search for reasons why and clues that he has missed along the way.
This takes us all on an eye-opening journey into Bethlehem and Jerusalem, where his views and pacifism place him on the 'wrong side'.

I don't think I'd say I 'enjoyed' it, it's not a fun topic, after all, but I thought it was fascinating and illuminating.
I felt the repetition of parts of the prologue at the end, was excellent and I read the book with enthusiasm.

Peter Sutcliffe's wife had no clue that he was the Yorkshire Ripper, so I guess it would be possible that Sihem covered her tracks so effectively. It bothered me though that she carried the attack out on a restaurant full of children - how does that help the cause?

Unlike 'The Swallows of Kabul', this book was set in Israel rather than Afghanistan. I found that fascinating as I've recently read 'When the Bulbul Stopped Singing' - Diary of the siege of Ramalla (Palestine) in 2002 and 'When I lived in Modern Times' by Linda Grant - A Jew travels to Palestine after WWII to begin a new life.

My one complaint with the book may be down to the translation - I never felt that Jaafie seemed quite angry, grief-stricken or confused enough, he didn't drag me through his emotions alongside him. I was always a bit detatched, an onlooker.
So 4 stars rather than 5.
Will certainly read more by this author - my little ex-pat library has just got 'Sirens of Baghdad' in too and I intend to read that soon.

The concept of this book is excellent. From the moment I opened it I felt engaged. `The Attack' comes to mean many things throughout the book. Firstly though, it is the culmination of his wife being found in a local restaurant that has been bombed; her injuries typical of those of a suicide bomber. As a respected surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv (and an Israeli Arab) he is stopped frequently on his journeys home and now with this, his life is thrown completely into turmoil. It is revealed that he has played no part in her other life and that Sihem (Dr Amin Jaafari's wife) was not the woman he thought she was, or married.

I initially thought the author was a woman but then realised from searching (it does mention it in the book but I hadn't seen it) is a pseudonym and that Mohammed Moulessehoul is a veteran Algerian army officer. Having written six novels under his real name in Algeria the army then imposed unacceptable conditions and his work became censored. Following a refusal to do this his wife suggested he wrote under her name and this he did until leaving the army.

Throughout the book Amin Jaafari goes through many emotions and journeys. He picks up clues throughout via flashbacks or some new piece of evidence that comes to light from conversations. He journeys towards Bethlehem, stopping of at Jerusalem. He stays in Jerusalem at Kim's brother's house. Kim seems to be his only ally, a fellow Doctor at the same hospital with whom he has been friends with since university. She helps him and goes with him to Jerusalem, then letting his continue on to Bethlehem himself; where he is received as a very unwelcome visitor. He is confused that his wife is praised and revered for what she has done. Unable to come to terms with this he continues speaking with the people who may have been the last to see his wife, as well as those who she confided in.

I felt sad at what Amin Jaafari had to go through to find the truth. It puts a fresh perspective on all the items that have been played through the news over the last however many years. Unless you are unable to empathise you will feel angry and saddened by what you read, as well as full of questions. How could he not know what his wife was doing? What more does he not know about his own family? Who knew what she was doing and why didn't they tell him? The ending of the novel bears a stark resemblance to the prologue and is full of emotion. Again, you should have questions - is this the best for him? He goes through so much in the last few chapters of the novel you wonder how he could carry on.

It is a terrific insight into a culture I only ever see through the eyes of the media. The characters are all highly believable and I felt genuine emotion as I read this novel. I am a hard reader to please and often leave books unfinished; I could see myself reading this novel again in the future. I came across this novel through a book group and without it being chosen for a monthly read I doubt I would ever have known about it. There are a whole host of synonyms I could use to describe it. However, simply put, everything about this novel is brilliant. `The Attack' is really worth a read and then you can find your own reasons why the title has such significance throughout the novel.

Amin Jaafari is a hard-working and talented surgeon at a busy Tel Aviv hospital, two generations away from his Arab origins. He is wealthy, popular with his Jewish colleagues, and devoted to his wife Sihem. The novel opens with Amin taking charge of the chaos in the emergency room after a suicide bomber attacks a restaurant in the Hakirya district of Tel Aviv, killing 19 people including a group of schoolchildren at a birthday party. Subsequently Amin is stopped and searched four times by Israeli policemen on the way home. He only wakes up to his own misfortune when he learns that Sihem has been killed in the bombing and that her wounds correspond to those found on suicide bombers.
Amin refuses to believe that Sihem could have committed such an act of terror. He expects her to return soon from Kfar Kanna where she is visiting her old grandmother. Disbelief gives way to horror when Sihem's last letter, posted from Bethlehem, turns up in his post box. As a consequence of Sihem's attack Amin's life, ambition, values and friendships disintegrate. He locks himself up in a nightmare of drink and despair in which he reflects on every aspect of his life, nationality and marriage. A Jewish colleague, Kim Yehuda, calls Amin back from the brink. He retraces Sihem's last journey from Tel Aviv to Bethlehem and back again. There Amin is repeatedly beaten up: by the Shin Bet, his Tel Aviv neighbours and Palestinian militants in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Jenin that were under siege by the Israeli army. Nevertheless he clings to his belief that as a surgeon his fight consists in recreating life in the place where death has chosen to conduct its manoeuvres.
The Attack uses both suicide bombing and the fate of many Israeli citizens who are of Arab origin. These are the descendants of the Arabs who stayed in the country rather than go into exile at the formation of Israel in 1948. Like Amin Jaafari in the story, they have suffered discrimination and mistreatment but have also prospered, and are now squeezed between an tormented Jewish state and their rebel fellow Arabs in Gaza and on the West Bank.