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A post by Maynard

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
(II Peter 3:10)

Does anybody remember Arthur Koestler? He’s best known for Darkness at Noon (maybe you read it in high school?), which stands with classic anti-totalitarian books such as George Orwell’s “1984”.

One of Koestler’s lesser-known novels, Thieves in the Night: Chronicle of an Experiment, was written in 1946. It tells the story of pre-war Palestine, when the region was under British jurisdiction in the wake of WWI (it had previously been under control of the Turks). For the moment, the world seemed set to accept a small autonomous Zionist state, as asserted in the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations mandate. With the rise of Nazism in the 1930’s, it became clear the European Jews were in peril; however the British found it politically expedient to slam the door on Jewish immigration, as declared in the infamous White Paper of 1939. Indeed, one of the Nazi justifications for the extermination of the Jews was that expulsion wasn’t an option; nobody was willing to take them.

I find it useful to read books from an earlier era. Current books necessarily reflect the prejudices and agendas and implicit assumptions of the day, including the stuff that “everybody knows” that should perhaps be challenged. I appreciate a book that has stood the test of time; it will transcend petty politics and cast light on greater truths. What was going on in Palestine in the 1930’s? Who was shooting at whom, and why? Koestler’s novel portrays a close-up view of the volatile region. Koestler should know; there was a period when he worked on a kibbutz.

As the story opens, a small group of settlers are moving in a convoy towards the place they will build their kibbutz. Their guide gives them the background:

“The land which we are going to occupy, about fifteen hundred acres, was bought by our National Fund several years ago from an absentee Arab landowner named Zaid Effendi el Mussa, who lives in Beirut and has never seen it. It consists of a hill on which the new settlement, Ezra’s Tower, will be erected, of the valley surrounding it and some pastures on nearby slopes. The hill is a mess of rocks and has not seen a plow for the last thousand years, but there are traces of ancient terracing dating back to our days. In the valley a few fields were worked by Arab tenants of Zaid Effendi’s, who live in the neighboring village of Kfar Tabiyeh. They have been paid compensation amounting to about three times the value of the land so that they were able to buy better plots on the other side of their village; one of them has even built himself an ice factory in Jaffa.

“Then there is a Bedouin tribe which, without Zaid Effendi’s knowledge, used to graze their camels and sheep each spring on the pastures. Their Sheikh has been paid compensation. When all this was settled, the villagers of Kfar Tabiyeh suddenly remembered that part of the hill did not belong to Zaid, but was masha’a land, that is communal property of the village. This part consists of a strip about eighty yards in width running straight to the top of the hill and cutting it in two. According to law masha’a land can only be sold with the consent of all members of the village. Kfar Tabiyeh has 563 souls disturbed over eleven hamulles or clans. The elders of each clan had to be bribed separately, and the thumb-prints of each of the 563 members obtained, including the babes’ and the village idiot’s. Three villagers had emigrated years ago to Syria; they had to be traced and bribed. Two were in prison, two had died abroad, but there was no documentary proof of their death; it had to be obtained. When all was finished, each square foot of the arid rock had cost the National Fund about the price of a square foot in the business centers of London or New York.

“It took two years to finish these little formalities. When they were finished, the Arab rebellion broke out. The first attempt to take possession of the place failed. The prospective settlers were received with a hail of stones from the villagers of Kfar Tabiyeh and had to give up. At the second attempt, undertaken in greater strength, they were shot at and lost two men. That was three months ago. You are making today the third attempt, and this time we shall succeed. By tonight the stockade, the watch-tower and the first living-huts will have been erected on the hill…”

Although it broadly justifies the Zionists, this is not a simplistic tale of good guys and bad guys. It wrestles with the complex characters who struggle to forge a livable pathway through murderous times. It’s worth reading as both a compelling story in itself and as background to help explain the current hostilities. Ideas and leaders have come and gone, but the situation hasn’t changed much.

To my surprise, I see “Thieves in the Night” is not currently in print. But this, and all books ever printed or imagined, are only a few clicks away.