playing with soldiers

Author's name: Tariq Asrawi

This novel sheds light on a segment of Palestinian life in the 1980s, during the Intifada, in which the "neighborhood," with its stories and people, plays the starring role, as the young men have their own mischievous and hesitant presence in the face of life's forbidden questions.

One day, two boys from the Jenin neighborhoods agreed to place a bag containing a damaged radio in the path of Israeli army patrols. They would then extend a wire from the bag to the side of the road, making it look like a suspicious object capable of confusing and panicking the soldiers. “And that’s how we play with them,” Ziad said. In that neighborhood, the boys play many group games, such as soccer, ball, and seven stones, but their favorite game has always been playing with the Israeli soldiers.

This novel is about play as a patriotic act, an act of resistance, even if it didn't seem that way at the time.