It is a well written book that is of course biased heavily towards the Jews but still has merit for anyone trying to understand the Middle East. ( )

Leon Uris was a well respected novelist although the Haj falls short of any glory whatsoever. The book is riddled with gross indecencies stereotyping Palestinians and glorifying the Jews. The book always portrays Muslims as ruthless people with the inability to rationalize. The worse the character the more and more shameless they become in their womanizing and other indecencies. Even the Haj himself, meant to be the character caught in the middle of this crisis is not immune from these gross indecencies. Gideon Asch (the main Jewish character) suffers from none of these problems and at worst may have a small drinking problem. As a Jew (and as an American at that) himself it is presumptuous for Uris to claim to have any insight into the Arab populations views on Palestine. His biases are just too great to tell an effective story from the other point of view.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2JNWW5Y... ( )

3497. The Haj, by Leon Uris (read Nov 6 2001) This is a 1984 book, laid in the years 1944 to 1956 in Palestine. It is of course very pro-Israel and holds up to justified condemnation the hate fostered among Palestinians and other Arabs against the Jews, but I found it very readable and telling an exciting story till towards the end when it sort of descended into farce. This is the fourth Uris book I've read, having read Trinity (21 Dec 1977), Exodus (28 Dec 1993), and Battle Cry (23 Jan 2000). I did not like Trinity nor Exodus, and I thought this better than them, though not as good as Battle Cry. ( )

"Examines the tragic history of the Middle East in an epic tale that recreates the turbulent era from World War I to the early decades of the existence of the state of Israel."

The story of a Palestinian family from the 1920's to the 1950's. It took me forever to get into it, as I could not relate to the characters at all, they remained one-dimensional for a very long time. But interest in the story kept me going, it is written well. ( )