Abstract
This paper examines Ibrahim Fawal’s novel On the Hills of God (1998) as a narrative of Palestinian dispossession, exploring how the novel documents the Nakba (the catastrophe of 1948) and the experiences of Palestinian Arabs who were forcibly expelled from their homeland with the establishment of the state of Israel. Drawing on postcolonial theory and the concept of settler colonialism, the paper argues that Fawal’s novel constitutes a counter-narrative to the hegemonic Zionist discourse that has sought to erase Palestinian memory and justify Palestinian displacement. Through the story of Yousif Safi and his family in the fictional town of Ardallah, Fawal narrates the transformation of a prosperous Palestinian community into refugees, preserving the Palestinian collective memory and asserting the legitimacy of the Palestinian claim to their land.
Keywords: Ibrahim Fawal, On the Hills of God, Palestine, Nakba, dispossession, settler colonialism, postcolonial literature, Palestinian literature
Introduction
Ibrahim Fawal’s On the Hills of God (1998) is a landmark work of Palestinian-American literature. Set in the fictional Palestinian town of Ardallah, the novel follows the coming of age of Yousif Safi against the backdrop of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the establishment of the state of Israel. The novel documents the transformation of Palestinian society in the final years of British Mandatory Palestine and the catastrophic events of 1948 — the Nakba, or catastrophe — in which approximately 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes and became refugees.
Fawal, who was himself born in Palestine and experienced the events of 1948 as a child, brings a personal and collective memory to the novel. On the Hills of God can be read as an act of witness and an act of counter-memory: it preserves in narrative form the experience of a community that was dispossessed, and insists on the reality and legitimacy of Palestinian claims to their homeland against the dominant Zionist narrative that has sought to deny or minimize Palestinian presence in, and attachment to, the land.
Zionism as Settler Colonialism
The novel can be analyzed through the lens of settler colonialism — a form of colonialism in which the colonizing power seeks not merely to exploit the resources of the colonized territory but to replace the indigenous population. As scholars such as Loomba, Masalha, and Rodinson have argued, the Zionist project in Palestine exhibits the classic features of settler colonialism: the displacement of the indigenous population, the appropriation of their land, and the construction of a new settler society on that land.
Fawal’s novel makes this colonial dimension explicit through its depiction of the systematic process by which Palestinian Arabs are dispossessed of their land, homes, and community. The novel traces the gradual escalation of Zionist military activity in Ardallah and the surrounding region, culminating in the massacre at Deir Yassin and the military conquest of Palestinian towns and villages. The expulsion of Ardallah’s population is depicted not as the result of orders from Arab leaders (as Zionist discourse has historically claimed) but as the direct consequence of military force — guns, tanks, and the threat and reality of massacre.
The World That Was Lost
A significant portion of On the Hills of God is devoted to depicting the life of Palestinian society before the Nakba: the relationships between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Palestinians, the culture and economy of Palestinian towns, the aspirations and daily concerns of ordinary Palestinian families. This detailed depiction of the world that was lost serves multiple narrative functions.
First, it establishes the reality and the value of Palestinian civilization — countering the Zionist trope of Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Second, it creates the emotional foundation for the reader’s experience of the subsequent dispossession: we know and care about this world, and therefore we understand what its destruction means. Third, it preserves in literary form the memory of a way of life that was destroyed, performing the important work of cultural memory for the Palestinian diaspora.
Yousif’s relationships with his Jewish friend Isaac and with his beloved Salwa provide the novel with its human center. The friendship between Yousif and Isaac represents the possibility of coexistence between Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine — a possibility that the violence of 1948 forecloses. Isaac’s eventual participation in the Zionist military operations against Ardallah is experienced by Yousif as a personal betrayal, giving human face to the larger political tragedy.
Violence and Dispossession
Fawal does not shy away from depicting the violence through which Palestinian dispossession was accomplished. The massacre of Palestinian civilians at Deir Yassin — carried out by Zionist paramilitary forces in April 1948 — is a pivotal moment in the novel. The news of Deir Yassin spreads terror throughout Palestinian communities, and Fawal depicts the intended effect: the psychologicalbreaking of Palestinian resistance through the demonstration of what would happen to communities that did not flee.
The rape of Hiyam is presented as a symbol of Palestine being victimized by invaders. As Robin Ostle writes in his foreword to the novel: “The culmination of the book is rape, pillage, the slaughter of innocents, and forced migrations — all the usual and predictable consequences of the exercise of brute force in the place of compassion, reason, and compromise” (7).
The novel’s account of the exodus — the moment when Ardallah’s population is forced to leave at gunpoint — is among the most powerful passages in Palestinian literature. Fawal’s description of the masses of refugees walking through the mountains, many falling dead along the way, draws on the testimonies of those who lived through this experience. The comparison to “a human carpet” conveys the scale and the dehumanization of the forced displacement.
The Journey to Exile
The final section of the novel follows Yousif and his family on their journey into exile. The description of the refugees’ arrival at Transjordan — a bare, hostile landscape utterly unlike the fertile valleys of Palestine — emphasizes the irreplaceable nature of the homeland that has been lost. Fawal contrasts Yousif’s fresh memories of Palestine — “its oranges and olives and balmy weather,” the “golden summer nights in Ardallah” — with the bleak landscape of exile, making clear that no substitute homeland is possible.
The novel ends with Yousif’s vow to return: “The conscience of the world must be pricked, awakened. And we will do it. This is not an idle promise…We shall return…I promise you this for the sake of all of us who have been dispossessed — the…babies who journeyed and died from thirst, the dead we left along the trail…We shall be delivered. We shall return” (Fawal 445-6). This vow, which echoes the collective Palestinian commitment expressed in the phrase “al-awda” (the return), gives the novel its political and emotional conclusion.
Counter-Narrative and Palestinian Memory
On the Hills of God functions as a counter-narrative to the hegemonic Zionist discourse that has sought to erase Palestinian memory and justify Palestinian displacement. As Said has argued, the Palestinian struggle is in significant part a struggle over narrative: the right to tell one’s own story and to have that story recognized as legitimate. Fawal’s novel contributes to this struggle by preserving the Palestinian experience of 1948 in literary form, making it accessible to readers who have no direct knowledge of these events.
The novel invalidates the Zionist claim that Arabs left their villages voluntarily because Arab leaders ordered them to do so. Through its detailed depiction of the military conquest of Ardallah and the forced expulsion of its population, the novel demonstrates that the majority of Palestinians fled or were driven out under the force of guns and tanks. Hundreds of Arab villages were depopulated and destroyed, their houses blown up or bulldozed.
Fawal’s novel stands against the hegemonic discourse of Zionism in its timelessness, securing the survival of the Palestinian memory. The novel, with its documentation of Palestinian displacement, dispossession and exile, forms a unique masterpiece that stands in defiance to the totalizing discourse of Zionism. Taking into consideration the Zionist claim of reinstating the Jews back into history, Fawal’s novel, in its struggle against the Zionist discourse, constitutes the re-entry of the Palestinians into history, rather to the narrative, by virtue of filling the void of information in the dominant historical record.
Conclusion
Ibrahim Fawal’s On the Hills of God is a significant contribution to Palestinian literature and to the broader tradition of postcolonial writing. Through its detailed and humane depiction of Palestinian life before the Nakba and its unflinching account of the violence and dispossession of 1948, the novel performs the essential work of preserving Palestinian collective memory and asserting the reality of Palestinian civilization and the legitimacy of Palestinian claims to their homeland. As a counter-narrative to Zionist discourse, the novel insists on the right of Palestinians to tell their own story and to be recognized as subjects of history rather than objects of other people’s narratives.
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