A trial in Bethlehem.

The Collaborator of Bethlehem (An Omar Yussef Mystery) (2006) is Matt Beynon Rees' take on life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories ( I use this term following the lead of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice amongst others. Other terms are also used). In many respects, the book is a fictional exploration of themes Rees wrote about in his 2004 nonfiction work on life in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Cain's Field." Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East. Rees was born in South Wales and was, until recently, the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for Time magazine.

Rees' main innovation in employing the detective form is to set the story in the harsh world endured by the Palestinians in the West Bank, territory under the military occupation of Israel, albeit with some cities and towns under local Palestinian control. He focuses on the Palestinian city of Bethlehem--a place which has important associations not only for Muslims but also for Christians and Jews. Indeed, it's worthwhile canvassing Bethlehem's history because the setting is absolutely crucial to the story Rees tells.

Bethlehem is located approximately 10 kilometres south of Jerusalem with a population of about 26,000. The city is the traditional birthplace of Jesus and is inhabited by one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, though the size of the community has been reduced in recent times through emigration. The city is the site of the famous Church of the Nativity. During the Christmas season, Christians from all over the world make a pilgrimage to the Church. The Church is the setting for a key encounter in the novel between the detective hero and a Palestinian gunman who holes up in the Church to hide from the Israeli Forces.

Bethlehem has been captured and placed under the control of a number of invaders over the centuries. It came under the control of the Ottoman Empire in 1517. The British assumed control in 1917, and Bethlehem was to be part of an international zone under the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine. Jordan annexed it in 1948. It was next occupied by Israel in the Six-Day-War of 1967. Bethlehem's status was dealt with under the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza in 1995. This provided for a withdrawal of Israeli troops from the city and the assumption of administrative and military control by the Palestinian National Authority.

The Second Palestinian Intifada commenced in 2000, and during this uprising, Bethlehem's infrastructure and tourism industry suffered extensive damage. It was a major combat zone in 2002. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) besieged the Church of the Nativity where about 200 Palestinians, including a group of militants, sought refuge. The siege lasted 39 days. Nine militants and the church's bell ringer were killed. On April 8, 2002, BBC News reported that the Vatican issued a stern warning to Israel to respect religious sites in line with its international obligations. In Britain, foreign officer Ben Bradshaw described Israeli actions in the area as "totally unacceptable."

Turning to The Collaborator of Bethlehem, readers looking for a dramatization of the role Israel plays in the West Bank will be disappointed. Israeli soldiers are shadowy figures in this mystery. They enter Bethlehem late at night and carry out a targeted assassination of a Palestinian militant. The novel does not explore the pros and cons of this assassination, nor the policy of targeted assassinations in general terms. One does get the sense of the terror that would no doubt ensue should the IDF fire on one's house because a suspected militant is hiding out on or near the property. I was left to wonder about the need for the IDF to assassinate the character Louai Abdel Rahman. A policy of targeted assassinations clearly puts innocent bystanders at risk. Couldn't Abdel Rahman, who was said to have killed a settler, be taken into custody and tried in a court of law? Concerned readers may want to consult human rights reports, such as the Amnesty International Report of 2001 entitled "Broken Lives--A Year of Intifada." At p. 33, Amnesty states: "The UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions emphasize that extra-judicial executions are never allowed, not even in time of war." The Report describes, over several pages, a number of targeted assassinations which in some cases involved the deaths of bystanders.

In The Collaborator of Bethlehem, the implacable involvement of Israeli soldiers and their ability to act without oversight is brought home in a short exchange. As Dima, the wife of Abdel Rahman, observes her dead husband, her brother-in-law Yunis tells her not to disturb anything and to leave the place for the police to investigate." The Israelis", she shouts, "assassinated your brother." She rhetorically asks whether the police are going to go and arrest the Israeli soldier who fired the shots.

Following the assassination, the Israelis leave the stage. The plot focuses on the clashes between Palestinians, centering on the allegation that the character George Saba, a Christian, was a collaborator who led the Israelis to Abdel Rahman's hiding place.

Saba is introduced to the reader during a chance meeting with his old school teacher, Omar Yussef. Yussef is a "teacher of history to the unhappy children of Dehaisha refugee camp." He teaches at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency Girls School. Saba was a favourite pupil of Yussef's--admired for his honesty and integrity. He is a dealer in antiques who coaxes Arab and Persian wood back to its original warm gleam. He sells most of his antiques to Israelis passing his shop near the bypass road to the settlements.

Unfortunately, when Abdel Rahman is assassinated, there is a pressing need for the authorities to quickly arrest a suspected collaborator. The novel paints a portrait of a society which is dominated by the Muslim majority and where Christians face discrimination and are easy scapegoats. As Saba is a Christian living in the vicinity of the shooting, he is easy prey because, as a member of the Christian community, he lacks membership in a powerful clan that might seek revenge for any wrongful act done to one of its members by the authorities.

After Saba is arrested and charged with collaborating with the IDF, his friend Omar decides to investigate who really acted as a collaborator in a desperate effort to save him. The odds are clearly stacked against Omar. He visits his friend Khamis Zeydan, the Bethlehem police chief, and asks how Zeydan can keep an innocent man in jail. The chief replies that the jail is in Bethlehem, Palestine. It's not in Copenhagen or Amsterdam. The rule of law clearly doesn't operate in this forbidding place.

The absence of fairness and due process for the accused is emphasized repeatedly as the plot unfolds. The bleak prospect Saba faces, even though there is no tangible evidence linking him to the crime, is evident when Omar visits Saba's lawyer. The trial has been moved up to that very evening, clearly not giving the defence adequate time to prepare. Omar tells the defence counsel that he has information about the death of the militant that will help his case. The defence counsel tells Yussef that he doesn't understand that nothing can save his client. The lawyer explains that someone has to be the fall guy, and he's not prepared to go up against the weight of the community. The vast majority are convinced that Saba is the guilty party. The gutless lawyer explains to Omar that in State Security Court, defence attorneys are supposed to consider the state and security first. If a collaborator gets away with it, the Israelis will find it easy to recruit more. So, it becomes necessary to punish someone for collaboration. It becomes clear to Omar that this will be the case even if the accused isn't really a collaborator; even if the police have failed to act diligently to discover the true culprit.

The ensuing trial is a farce. Sadly, Saba has no chance of being acquitted. Omar sees that the trial is a staged drama: scripted and contrived. Counsel for the defence actually states in court that the accused is willing to plead guilty. The Judge sentences him to death by firing squad.

Rees paints a disturbing portrait of a community whose citizens are victimized in several ways: by the IDF; by Palestinian gunmen who operate as a law unto themselves; and by a corrupt and incompetent government and legal system. If Rees' depiction of Bethlehem is indeed an accurate one, we can only hope that a new government, with help from the international community, will work to establish the rule of law, the presumption of innocence, and other legal safeguards.

Robert Normey is a lawyer with the Constitutional and Aboriginal Law Branch of Alberta Justice in Edmonton, Alberta.