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Summary
Chapter Sixteen
Ari, Dafna, and the other young settlers fight with the Arab people in their strategic kibbutz. One night, Dafna is kidnapped and killed. The Arab people expect retaliation for her murder, but it never comes. The young fighters at kibbutz Ha Mishmar are so determined that they fend off the Arab people against all odds and start farming the hilltop.
P.P. Malcom is an army major who joined the British intelligence agency when the mufti’s revolt against Jewish settlers began. He became a Zionist after living in Palestine for a time. Malcolm hates everything about the British military, and he convinces Ari to fight instead of remaining defensive. He forms a group called The Raiders and Ari joins. Under Malcolm’s leadership, The Raiders crush the mufti’s revolt. The British army soon lose patience with Malcolm, and he is made to leave Palestine, but he has taught the young generation valuable strategic skills.
The new British General Arnold Haven-Hurst puts The Raider unit on trial, and Ari goes to Acre jail for a time for defending his own homeland. The British blame the three years of the mufti revolt on Jewish immigration. As a result, the British close off immigration on the eve of WWII.
Chapter Seventeen
The Maccabees retaliate against the British for sealing the Jewish people inside Germany. Ben Guiron, the head of Yishuv Central preaches peace, but now even the disciplined Haganah want to fight. Barak goes to London to try to reverse the blockade on immigration but does not succeed. Ari is sent to Berlin to smuggle Jewish people out and meets Jewish families who are desperate for visas.
His strategic skills maturing, Ari comes up with a plan to make the Nazis help Jewish people get into Palestine because it will make the British look bad. He stays till the last possible minute getting children out of Berlin. Ari and Barak return to Palestine, broken hearted. When the war starts, Jewish people want to join the British Army but the War Office refuses to give them formal training and keeps them off the front lines.
As the war rages, the Germans try to throw the British out of the Middle East so that they can eventually take over this part of the world. The mufti and Hitler begin working together. The British ask Yishuv Central to form guerilla units to help fend off the Germans. These units are the Palmach, the striking arm of Haganah. Ari decides to join this group. He meets Zev, Joab, and David when he joins.
Chapter Eighteen
Ari helps organize the new Palmach, using the strategies he learned from Malcolm. Then he takes a special intelligence assignment with the British Army to prepare for an anticipated springtime invasion by Palestinian Arabs. With the help of Ari’s elite group of soldiers, Ari holds off an invasion. Ari is made a major in the British Army.
The Yishuv garners wartime glory for their bravery and skill, but it is hidden from public view by the British. The British begin winning the war, and in spite of the help of the Jewish people, the British do not reinstate Jewish immigration. The Haganah and Maccabees are furious and bloody fighting between the Britain and the Palestinian Jews begins. An Anglo-American commission is formed to answer the settlement question. They British say they will help only if the Jewish armies are disbanded. This condition is refused. The Haganah begin blowing up important locations for the British Army, including the British headquarters at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Chapter Nineteen
The children of Exodus celebrate Chanukah. David tells them Judah Maccabee’s story. Kitty decides to go with Karen to Palestine.
Analysis
During the violence at the strategic border settlement, the skill that the Jewish forces have developed in their secret militia embarrass the Palestinian Arabs and enrages Haj Amin. When Dafna is brutally murdered in the renewed violence, Ari is changed forever. He becomes stoic to the point of being inhuman, never speaking Dafna’s name again. This event creates the unemotional Ari that Kitty will meet years later. Ari does not react in anger to Dafna’s murder but practices his ingrained restraint and self-discipline. Dafna’s loss only deepens Ari’s resolve to achieve freedom and emboldens the warrior that will achieve so many strategic victories. Ari is the hero of the story partly because he is able to integrate his father Barak’s and uncle Akiva’s diametrically opposed positions and personalities. He knows the need to fight and will do so with reckless abandon when called upon, but he is able to practice restraint when necessary for the benefit of the overall cause. Even after losing his beloved Dafna to anti-Jewish violence, Ari is able to control his rage, unlike his uncle Akiva who is consumed by it. Ari has become every bit the intelligent and steady man his father is, but carries the same useful rage of his uncle.
Malcolm’s part in the narrative, riddled with war and bloodshed, provides a foil to the incompetence of the British. The mufti’s revolt is making the British look ridiculous and exposing the fact that they have no business occupying a place with such a complex history. Malcolm’s sincerity in wanting to help the Jewish people is easy to believe since he began with the same pro-Arab sympathies as so many other British soldiers but became a zealous Zionist after living in Palestine. He mocks the conventional wisdom of the British miliary strategy and envisions a free Israel won as a result of brute force as opposed to negotiation and restraint. Though Ari is a natural born leader, he decides to follow Malcolm because he shrewdly recognizes that Malcolm can teach him what he needs to know in order to avenge Dafna’s death. Malcolm’s offensive victories with The Raiders is a hugely important and influential moment. It strips the Arab people of their complacency when the group ruthlessly terrorizes them, but moreover gives the Jewish forces practice in proven methods of warfare. The lessons Malcolm teaches the Jewish people will be carried forward from this point onward in the conflict. For Ari personally, the experience with Malcolm is a turning point as well. Not only does Ari learn Malcolm’s valuable methods, but when Ari is made to stand trial and receives prison time for defending his land, he also becomes embittered against the British specifically, and his anger festers.
Ari reaches another level of maturity as a man and as a soldier as World War II rages. He is sent to Berlin shortly before the war with the order to get as many Jewish people out of Germany as he can. This brings him face to face with people who know they are being hunted. This moves Ari deeply and he learns how influential he can be on individuals whose lives are literally on the line. His devotion is evident as he stays as long as he possibly can getting people out of Germany. He even displays a shrewd sense of politics by playing the Nazis and the British off each other in order to benefit the Jewish people. Ari proves to be a no-nonsense, bold, and effective political leader and organizer.
Despite Ari’s skills, and his seeming destiny as a major player in Israel, Ari is a simple farmer at heart. Though he has spent his entire life surrounded by conflict and weapons, or perhaps because of this fact, he yearns to live peacefully on his land. For a time after coming back from Germany, Ari is able to do this. He thus indignantly refuses when Avidan and Barak ask him to fight for the British in World War II. Ari also feels betrayed by the British, not just for personal reasons but for the many failures of their occupying forces over the years. In fact, far from being inclined to fight for the Allies, Ari’s disgust for the British and anger over Dafna’s death are enough to drive him to join his uncle’s Maccabees. But it is Ari’s love and respect for his father that keeps him from doing so. Just as Barak respected his father so much that would not initially attend Lovers of Zion meetings, Ari also restrains himself out of respect for Barak. It is partly out of this love and respect that Ari eventually relents and agrees to fight for the British. But this decision also reflects Ari’s brutally practical side. He recognizes ultimately that no matter how much he hates the British, the Nazis are a far greater and existential threat. Once again, Ari displays the rare ability to think dispassionately about a situation in order to analyze it and take action in the most effective way possible, regardless of his personal feelings.
