A good description of the book in this review:"In this sweeping, tautly written dynastic novel, we follow the entwined destinies of two families - one Arab, one Jewish ... behind the complex passion-filled drama in which historic figures mingle with vivid fictional characters, lies the unresolved tragedy of Arab-Israeli relations." Publisher's Weekly, June, 1981THE OFFER
A novel by Jesse Lasky, Jr. and Pat Silver (Pat Silver-Lasky)
First published by Doubleday & Co, Inc. Garden City N.Y. 1981
SYNOPSIS
Reviewers have called The Offer the Roots of the birth of Israel. 'The sweeping, tautly written dynastic novel is timeless as history, yet current as today's headlines. The story of a moderate Arab and a moderate Jew, Mohamed Hammadi and Judah Nouari - who try to remain friends and partners while their families tangle in complex historical hostilities - unfolds through the high-conflict lives and entwined destinies of two generations of the families.'
For a century the Hammadis and the Nouaris shared a partnership, a friendship, and a homeland. Overnight, they shared only hatred when they clash over the fate of Palestine and Israel. The growth of Zionism, Nazism, betrayals, seductions, madness, and modern history keeping the compelling plot moving at a fast clip and offers a large supporting cast of friends and enemies who range from the decorative and good to the troublesome and evil.
It begins in 1843, when an Arab boy leading a donkey meets two Jewish boys dragging a cart along the dusty road to Jerusalem. A partnership is born which grows as generation succeeds generation, to a word-wide banking empire. The empire reaches its zenith under Mohamed Hammadi and Judah Nouari. Through two world wars and the liberation of Palestine from the Turks, they lead their enterprise and family friendship into what seems an unshakeable alliance. But a dream is growing which, when it takes on reality, will cause an irreparable rift between the families and between Arabs and Jews generally: the dream of the Promised Land.
Through the complex passion-filled drama, historic figures mingle with vivid fictional characters in the unresolved tragedy of Arab-Israeli relations. The vividly emotional and factual story is backed by multi-perceptions of both sides.
Judah Nouari and Mohamed Hammadi are in Paris in 1895, young men training as bankers so they can carry on their families' Jerusalem-based trading empire. Judah however is soon caught up in Zionism, thanks to his infatuation with earthy activist, Zosia - whose violent death becomes his long-time inspiration. (Only decades later will Judah learn that Zosia, secretly married, was just using him.) And while Judah weds a Zosia-substitute (her cousin Ruth) Mohamed marries chic Jacqueline, who turns out to be a manic-depressive nymphomaniac. (Her first child is actually fathered by a blackmailing pimp.)
But even more serious problems arise at home as World War I arrives; Mohamed's volatile cousins Yassir and Tariq are arrested for anti-Turkish terrorism; pragmatic Mohamed sells arms to the Turks while Judah joins Ben Gurion's Zion Mule Corps to fight along side the British;
And during the Post War Mandate, with the Turks no longer the common enemy, Arab-Jew tensions mount; Judah's brother Ben is an early 'Kabbutznik' (no Arabs allowed). Mohamed's cousins lead Al Fatah attacks on Jewish settlements. Ben is killed by the British, (their spy is Judah's mistress) while smuggling in illegal immigrants. So finally even Judah (who loses an arm in an Al Fatah bombing) joins the Hagana. But after World War II - during which those Al Fatah cousins help to rescue Judah's estranged wife and son from a death camp - he is horrified by Irgun terrorism, and has a stroke when he learns that his son (and Mohamed's daughter) are involved in the King David Hotel bombing.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.