What would Israelis do if every Palestinian between the river and the sea disappeared at once?
That is the premise of a newly-translated novel, “The Book of Disappearance,” by Palestinian writer Ibtisam Azem (translated by Iraqi novelist and translator, Sinan Antoon, and published by Syracuse University Press). Originally released in Arabic in 2014, Azem’s story is primarily narrated by two individuals: Alaa, a young Palestinian who is grieving the recent death of his grandmother and haunted by the memories of the Nakba and its aftermath she shared with him; and his friend Ariel, an Israeli journalist who struggles to reconcile his belief that the occupation is wrong with his unexamined conviction that the circumstances surrounding the founding of the state were just.
https://972mag.com/ibtisam-azem-book-nakba-israel/144351/