Gate of the Sun

Taylor Fawcett Gate of the Sun

The infamous Arab-Israeli conflict over the “Promised Land”/territory of Palestine is an ongoing conflict between the two nations that has been in existence since the mid 1900s. As shown in a documentary viewed at the beginning of the year “Peace, Propaganda, and the Middle East”, different views are shown based on the two sides of the conflict and their allies. In the United States of America, we are swayed to believe that Palestinians are evil doers, constantly dropping bombs and planning suicide missions against innocent Israeli citizens. This bias is presented because the United States of America is an ally of Israel and has supported Israel since times of conflict occurring in the mid 1900s. The novel Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury illustrates a different view than one Americans commonly see. Gate of the Sun presents the story told from the Palestinian point of view, through a narrator, Khalil, caring for his adopted father, Yunes, who is a Palestinian refugee who suffered from the outcomes of the Arab-Israeli conflict in its early stages.
It all started when in September of the year 1947, Britain announced that the mandate of Palestine would be terminated on May 15, 1948. Both Arab and Israelis had been living under the British mandate, dealing with British government and rulings. When Britain deserted the land during this time, however, chaos broke loose between the two occupying groups of people.
According to a previous resolution put forth by the United Nations, a part of the land of Palestine was allotted to Jewish citizens. When Britain announced its desertion of the land, though, Jewish forces deemed it necessary to begin fighting and to try and secure their lands. There was, of course, resistance from Palestinian citizens living in the lands, as it had been their land since the times of their ancestors. Israeli forces, such as the Haganah and Irgun, overwhelmed Arab forces. These acts of violence on the Palestinians caused Palestinians to flee their lands. Those who fled numbered to be about 400,000 at this time.
One of the most important incidents in Palestinian history occurred during this time. A Palestinian town called Deir Yassin was massacred by Israeli forces between April 9-11, 1948. Deir Yassin had been located conveniently between Jerusalem and the Jewish area of Tel Aviv, and was desired by the Jews to be taken over and converted into Jewish lands. A month earlier, Palestinians living in Deir Yassin had signed a peace treaty with the neighboring Israeli town of Givat Sha’ul. The takeover of Deir Yassin had begun with rebel groups, but then the Haganah got involved. Any resistance to the takeover was put to death, including women, children, and men over the age of 60. Boys and men were paraded down a main road called Jaffa Road to Israeli citizens applauding the success that they believed they had just won. The boys and men were then executed. The act was done publicly because both sides of the conflict desired the rest of the world to know. For the Palestinians, this was a cry for help; for a way out of the terrors that they had been involved in as the under dog since Britain had left. For the Israelis, this was a warning to other Palestinians to get out before it got any worse. Israelis would also put actors in Palestinian cities to act as fearful Palestinian citizens. They would warn their “fellow” citizens into fleeing their homes so that the Israelis could take over their lands even easier. Deir Yassin was the starting point for the huge dispora of Palestinian refugees out of Palestine and into neighboring Arab lands where they would be kept in refugee camps.
In the days following the massacre at Deir Yassin, 700,000 to 900,000 Palestinians had left their homes. Palestinian rebel groups also took the liberty to engage in attacks on other Israelis. With the British abruptly abandoning the land that was still technically a British responsibility, it left no government, but the two sides to fend for themselves. On May 14, 1948, just one day before the British formally terminated the mandate, Israel declared its independence and it was immediately recognized by allies USA and Soviet Union.
Out of this came the first Arab-Israeli war, lasting from May 15, 1948 to December, 1948. It resulted in a huge defeat of Arab forces and an expansion of the territory that Israel was able to call its own. All dreams of a Palestinian-Arab state thought up by the United Nations were crushed. After the war, Israel, along with its allies Egypt and Transjordan, gained lands of Palestine. This left even more Palestinians to be refugees. During the spring and early summer of 1948 during the time of the war, the flee of Palestinians turned into a “mass exodus” (Cleveland 359), with Palestinians dropping everything, whether it be businesses, homes, or families, to flee and get out of Palestine and away from Israeli rule. Any and all Palestinian villages in Israeli territory were destroyed. Israelis gave themselves the right to level these towns, in addition to towns that were inside Arab lands that Israel had no political control over. The character of Yunes in Gate of the Sun had to deal with these troubles and hardships that the Palestinians dealt with first hand. He was a survivor of the horrible treatments that Israelis inflicted upon Palestinians once the land was taken over. His wife, for example, was stopped by Israeli troops because she was pregnant. Hoping that they would find out Yunes’ habitation, the troops tortured her. She heroically lied, claiming that she was a prostitute and had no knowledge of the father of her child. Yunes was saved by his wife from execution by Israeli troops. Yunes and his wife are prime examples of all that the Palestinians had to go through during the time of the Israeli occupation during the mid 1900s. While Yunes and his wife were able to find comfort in each other with secret meets at a cave called Bab al-Shams (or Gate of the Sun), they still have to deal with oppression, poverty and misery that all Palestinians had to deal with. They had to live through massacres of villages, just as it happened during the real Arab-Israeli conflict. Although the book is fiction, it gives a proper and accurate account of all the horrors and hardships that Palestinians were forced to go through.
In conclusion, Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury outlines the true horrors that were inflicted upon Palestinian citizens due to the British termination of the mandate of Palestine and the Israeli takeover. This conflict still exists today. Through this novel, one is able to see an a fictional but accurate account of the side of a Palestinian dealing with the grueling sufferings that were dealt with.