This essay analyzes S. Yizhar's novella Khirbet Khizeh (Ibis Editions, 2008), examining its treatment of exile, irony, narrative consciousness, and the political and literary dimensions of Israeli identity. The paper explores Shulman's afterword and its unintentional irony regarding fiction and historical reality, the novel's depiction of Arab and Hebrew language as instruments of nation-building, the narrator's internal semantic conflict, and the pivotal epiphany around the concept of exile. It also addresses Yizhar's use of ambiguity in military command and his broader commentary on the Israeli War of Independence and the displacement of Arab peoples.
Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar, specifically the Ibis Editions publication, concludes with a striking intended irony. This irony is revealed through David Shulman's afterword, which connects the 1949 novel to modern peace activism in the Palestinian-Israeli region. On page 131, Shulman describes protesters carrying signs in both Arabic and Hebrew — for the benefit of soldiers, villagers, and the press alike — bearing the slogan "No More Khirbet Khizehs" (Yizhar, De Lange & Dweck, 2008). The intention behind this slogan was that events like the one depicted in the novel would never be repeated. However, because Khirbet Khizeh is not an actual place or historical event, the irony lies in the fact that this fictional occurrence could never be replicated — because it never truly happened. In invoking it as a real precedent, Shulman inadvertently creates a confusion between reality and fiction through his unintentionally ironic message. In essence, the novel stands as an example of political critique embedded in literature.
The novel's apparent transparency stems from its straightforward structure and narrative. Its ability to portray both individual struggle and the birth of a nation makes it a fundamental work of Israeli-themed literature and a document relevant to the founding of Israel. The way the story unfolds, and particularly its use of Hebrew alongside depictions of the Arabic language, functions as a means of asserting and establishing the identity of the state of Israel.
A telling example of how the Arabic language is perceived within the novel appears on page 97, where the narrator observes that the soldiers "could not comprehend much of what the Arab was saying, as the harsh guttural consonants of the Arab's pronunciation appeared exaggerated and odd, like sounds in and of themselves" (Yizhar, De Lange & Dweck, 2008, p. 97). This passage reveals the cultural and linguistic distance the novel constructs between the Israeli soldiers and the Arab inhabitants.
Conflict is also present throughout the novel, though it is not conflict in the traditional sense — not a conflict of interests or between characters. Rather, it is a conflict rooted in semantics. This is clearly illustrated on page 22, when one of the soldiers remarks: "This here, this isn't a war, it's a children's game" (Yizhar, De Lange & Dweck, 2008, p. 22). The events of the so-called "war" do not, in the minds of the soldiers, resemble a war at all — they feel more like a game. This semantic conflict is also embodied in the narrator, who is constantly questioning, with that questioning arising from the novel's first-person voice.
To understand this more precisely, the conflict or questioning within the narrator is better described as a split within the consciousness of the narrator, rather than a split of that consciousness. Simply put, it signifies a monologue in the guise of a dialogue. Ultimately, what was initially framed as a child's game is brought back to its reality — a war — as stated plainly on page 88: "This war."
The narrative centers on the routine evacuation of an Arab town or village, with the narrator experiencing increasing emotional turmoil and stress surrounding the concept of "war." By page 104, the narrator arrives at a kind of epiphany over the word "exile": "Something struck me like lightning. All at once everything seemed to mean something different, more precisely: exile. This was exile. This was what exile was like. This is what exile looked like" (Yizhar, De Lange & Dweck, 2008, p. 104). Considered in its historical context, the author uses exile as an epiphany for the narrator because Israel came into existence precisely through the negation of exile.
In essence, the negation of exile conferred the right to wage war, to push back the Arab people, and to exist as both a nation and a people. For two thousand years, the Jewish people had experienced exile. As explained on page 109, the Jews were themselves the original refugees, and to reclaim home — or to return the label of "refugees" to the Arabs — is to negate any guilt or negative feeling about the war and the actions required to reverse exile. To rectify the exile of the Jews, therefore, an additional exile is imposed upon the Arabs. The Arabs were once the masters of the land, but now the Jews had become the masters.
The book also addresses ambiguity in military command. On page 8, it is shown that "anything was possible" even when events were planned and foreseen. Through the highlighted, interruptive repetition of the phrase "it said," the author creates a clear fracture in the novel's structure. This technique shows the reader that what is planned and foreseen cannot always come to pass. It is a strong example of Yizhar's use of semantics and his deliberate manipulation of word structure — a technique he employs throughout the novel and one that is essential to note.
"Ambiguity in command and Yizhar's word structure"
Yizhar, S., De Lange, N., & Dweck, Y. (2008). Khirbet Khizeh (1st ed.). Jerusalem, Israel: Ibis Editions.
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