What can fiction reveal that history and journalism leave hidden? Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright turns to the novel to explore the lives caught in conflict in Israel and Palestine.
His book The Human Scale uses narrative to confront the unequal ways lives are valued in this region, asking whether storytelling can expose truths that politics can obscure.
LAWRENCE WRIGHT: I started writing "The Human Scale," I guess many years ago because I spent so many years in the region. But I knew when I was writing this book that it was a dangerous book because people feel so strongly, one side or the other, and they're deaf to hearing any excuses or explanations for behavior from the other side. And that was a challenge. When things get black and white, that's when it gets really dangerous. Israel and Palestine are in a very black-and-white situation. It's all good or all evil. As a reporter, you can look into the eyes of the people you're talking to and try to evaluate what they're thinking when they say what they say. But you are not really gonna get into their brain. There's only one artistic form that allows you to do that. And that's a novel. For a novelist, it takes it another layer down. You get deep into the history and the imagination of your characters and their longings, their faults. You can portray them in a way in a novel that you can't any other way. And I wanted to open up spaces in the reader's mind that would allow them to see the humanity of people they don't normally sympathize with. I'm Lawrence Wright. I'm a staff writer for "The New Yorker" and the author of I think 15 books now, 11 of them, non-fiction, including "The Looming Tower," which was about Al-Qaeda and the rise of Al-Qaeda, and author of "The Human Scale."
- Deriving truth and meaning from fiction
- I've been in Gaza and I've been in Israel many times and always came away with a great sense of frustration because there are wonderful people on all sides, and yet they cannot seem to shed the hatred and resentment that they feel toward each other. I was in Gaza in 2009 after Operation Cast Lead, and the invasion by the Israeli Army was prompted by the fact that Hamas had kidnapped a young Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit, and they held him for five years and the Israelis never found him. And finally they traded a thousand Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli. That caused me to ask a question, which is, how does one life get to equal a thousand? I thought this devaluation and overvaluation of human life was in some way at the root of the fact that this conflict is so durable. When we weigh things in a scale that is so unbalanced, then it makes it really difficult for people to care for each other. If you are a thousand times more valuable than your opponent, then you're not likely to give them much credit. And seeing also, if you are one of those devalued lives, it increases the chance that you would take violent action against those who are more valuable in your view. "The Human Scale" shows the disparity in the value of lives in that region, which I think is basically one of the major problems in trying to resolve the conflict. People imagine that their lives are more valuable or that your opponent's lives are less valuable, but if you can't see the other as a human being, then it's a long way to try to get to peace. I mean, we've had the Soviet Union dissolve, Apartheid, and a Black man elected president, we went through Vietnam and two wars in Iraq. All of that is part of history. But this conflict keeps going on and on. And despite all of my research, I didn't really understand what was going on inside the minds of the people in the region. And I guess, frustrated by my lack of understanding why this conflict just continued, it was so durable year after year, I thought it'd be better to try to experiment with going into the mentality of the people that I'd met. As a reporter, you can look into the eyes of the people you're talking to and try to evaluate what they're thinking when they say what they say. But you are not really gonna get into their brain. There's only one artistic form that allows you to do that. And that's a novel. And a novel is the only way you can get in to a person's mind. You get deep into the history and the imagination of your characters and their longings, their faults, and so on. You can portray them in a way in a novel that you can't any other way. And I wanted to open up spaces in the reader's mind that would allow them to see the humanity of people they don't normally sympathize with. I decided I would write this novel set in the West Bank in Israel, and I wanted it to be an interesting story. I decided to make it a detective story, a murder investigation. The nice thing about crime is it allows you to explore society, dig deep, you know, uncover hidden layers. And that was what drew me to the idea of doing it as a mystery. So I had written a first draft and in February of 2023, I went back to the region more or less on a fact-checking adventure. And I came home, and then October 7th happened. And I was faced with a dilemma because it was such a deep wound in Israeli society, I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it 'cause there's this thin line between explaining and exploiting. And I knew that I was on a knife's edge in that regard. The only thing I could do is go directly into the tragedy and make it a part of the narrative. And it changed everything about the book. I know that some readers are afraid to read it because it evokes a lot of grief, but I think it's a truer story now because I've had to address things that I myself have been reluctant to confront.
- [Interviewer] What are some of those things?
- I was in Gaza in 2009, and this was right after Operation Cast Lead, which was a periodic Israeli invasion into Gaza to "Mow the grass," is the term used in Israel, to try to keep the terrorists down. And they are immensely destructive actions on the part of the Israeli Defense Force, but inconsequential in the long run because they never succeed in suppressing violence. And the bombing and the destruction that the Israeli Army left behind was devastating, but, of course, not like what you see now. But it was at the time I thought, "You know, this place is really devastated." One Sunday morning, it was July, it was hot as hell, and it was a Hamas summer camp for boys and all these kids, you know, wearing these little Hamas beanies and green handkerchiefs around their necks and singing Hamas songs in the courtyard of a school with a group of Hamas commanders in folding chairs. The night before, I was at my hotel and they had a little cafe on the rooftop and I was looking to see what I was gonna have for dinner. And I had seen the ocean right outside, you know, Gaza's on the Mediterranean. And it was this nauseating mix of green and brown because the Israelis had bombed the power plant and there was no sanitation, so it was all going directly in the ocean. So I thought, "Well, I'm not gonna order fish." And, but I knew they brought cattle through the tunnels, so I thought, "I'll order a steak." And the waiter said, "Would you like that well done or very well done?" I missed that cue, but I understood what he meant the next day when I was sitting in the classroom, when they finally brought me in after the Hamas summer camp, I was seated in a semicircle with a number of Hamas people and Khalil al-Hayya, who was a senior official in Hamas. The memory of that dinner the night before was making itself very present. And as I interviewed him, what was going through my mind is, "Just don't faint," because I was really lightheaded. Overhead, there was this ceiling fan doing this and couldn't stir the heat and the humidity, and suddenly I just fell right outta the chair. And I didn't actually lose consciousness, I just went slack. And some of the Hamas guys brought in, I don't know from where, a mattress and covered it with prayer mats and I laid down on the floor surrounded by all these dusty boots and continued reading my interview with Khalil al-Hayya, who was very kind to me. And yet he is one of the planners of October 7th, and he's now the chief peace negotiator for Hamas. If you can understand the nuances and the context of that story and the helplessness of an American who happens to be present, then you get a sense of how difficult this problem is and the complexities of the humanity that we're faced with. Well, this story in "The Human Scale," is it's a murder mystery. And the victim in it is Jacob Weingarten, who is the chief of police, the Israeli Police in Hebron, which is a major Palestinian city in the West Bank. Hebron itself is a character because it's one of the very first settlements in the West Bank. The settlement is Kiryat Arba and it looms above the Old City of Hebron. Hebron is a very old city and is historic, and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it could be a beautiful place like Jerusalem or something like that. But the weight of the occupation is so disfiguring. The shops are all closed, the trash is rarely picked up. The Old City has been virtually closed down by the Israeli Army, but the settlers from Kiryat Arba are in constant conflict with the Hebronites who are Muslims. After the murder, the deputy chief, Yossi Ben-Gal, takes over the investigation and he's like a lot of guys I met in Israel. He's a tough guy. He's, you know, spent years in the Israeli Defense Force During the Intafadas, he was one of the ones who broke the arms of the boys who were throwing rocks. His parents were Holocaust survivors. And he believed that Israel was the only place that will ever be safe for Jews. And so he had dedicated his life to protecting Israel. And into this comes an American of Palestinian origin named Tony Malick. His family is from Hebron, but he had never actually visited and he's arrested as a suspect, but it turns out he's in the FBI. He and Yossi joined together to try to solve this crime, which neither of them can do individually, but have to work together even though they hate each other. So, who would kill the chief of police in Hebron? Tony Malick and Yossi Ben-Gal are faced with, you know, the possible, you know, likely it's Hamas, but Hamas has many problems, one of which is not beheading people. That's ISIS and Al-Qaeda in its latter stages. It didn't look like a Hamas murder, but it could very well be. Another possibility is settlers. They were often at odds with the police and with the Israeli Army. And so that was a possibility. And there was a lot of crime going on too. You know, weapons were being sold from the Israeli Army to terrorists, a real drug problem in the territories. So there were numerous possibilities for suspects. And that's one of the nice things about writing a detective story, is you can explore the motivations of people inside the society and see what they're really thinking. Yossi's daughter Sara is a big figure in this story because she's disaffected by what's going on in Israel now. She's part of the protests, these mass protests that were taking place before October 7th. She loves her father, but is a little alienated from the politics of Israel. And she's living in Paris studying political science. Tony has a niece that he's never met, named Dina, who's getting married. And that really was the occasion for him to decide to come back to Hebron and get acquainted with family members he had never met. Her fiance is Jamal Khalil, who is really the only peacenik that you would find in Hebron. He's based on a real person, Issa Amro. I started my career as the race relations reporter covering the civil rights movement and he, he reminds me of the Freedom Riders and the, you know, the sit-ins at the lunch counters by people who knew they were going to get hurt, but they were willing to go out and make a statement. Issa was giving me a tour of the Old City in February of 2023 when he was assaulted by an Israeli soldier, unprompted, right in front of me, brutally assaulted. It has never happened to me before that I had a source attacked. And the fact that what astounded me so much about this incident is that I and a Belgian photographer were present, witnessing it. The photographer was videoing it. But it didn't matter to this young soldier who felt entitled to assault this guy for no reason at all. So anyway, that kind of violence sobered me up as a writer 'cause I realized I had to address it. I knew when I was writing this book that it was a dangerous book in some respects because people feel so strongly, one side or the other, and they're deaf to hearing any excuses or explanations for behavior from the other side. And that was a challenge. I had to find a way to write characters that readers would identify with, no matter which side they're on. And in my opinion, when things get black and white, that's when it gets really dangerous. And Israel and Palestine are in a very black-and-white situation. It's all good or all evil. And maybe if I could create that space, it would fill in with something other than hate. 'Cause there's so much hatred in that region. So if there was a little bit of nuance, then it would've added something to the effort for peace.
