I don’t see any western saviour complex. America is portrayed as the oppressor that backs Israel. Israel is using America-made weapons to oppress the Palestinians. Ahmed succeeds because he’s a genius and uses his brilliant mind to break through the chains of Israeli and American oppression.
A Palestinian American wrote an article published in Aljazeera in which she attempted to show, among other false allegations, that I have a western saviour complex. Her arguments are all flawed. I submitted my response to Aljazeera in an attempt to correct her factual mistakes, but they refused to publish it. The fact that I know more about the Palestinians inside Israel than she does is just a reflection of the injustice of the situation.
The first hundred pages of The Almond Tree take place during the years 1955-1966. During that period, Ahmed’s village is under Israeli martial law. He is a Palestinian from inside the 1949 armistice lines. Israel didn’t occupy the West Bank until 1967 so he couldn’t possibly be from the West Bank as this critic claims. The vast majority of Palestinians inside Israel lived under Israeli martial law until 1966. The Palestinians inside Israel live under very different conditions than the Palestinians in the West Bank.