Daughters of Jerusalem

Bitterness, blood-feuding and hate have been the ingredients of much fiction concerned with the Arab-Israeli conflict, and this novel about the love affair of Jamila, a Christian Arab, and Ben-Ami, an Israeli kibbutznik, has little to offer of novelty or tension. Ben-Ami, having taken part in an attack that leveled Jamila's home, determines to rebuild it and discovers that Jamila's father and his own, now dead, had been close friends. His mother, however, repudiates the girl and any association with her familyunderstandably, it turns out, in view of the fact that Jamila's violently anti-Zionist brother Douad attempts to kill not only Ben-Ami but an Arab girl cousin who works for a Jewish contractor. The implausibility of the events, the naivete of the Israelis and the stock vindictiveness of most of the Arabs leave the reader little chance for serious involvement. (March 12