John Corey is my favorite Nelson DeMille character but I think this may be my new favorite book of his. By The Rivers Of Babylon is amazing, an adventure story that also acts as a meditation on war and peace, a glimpse into battle strategy, a rumination on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (and other political truths about the Middle East) and, most importantly, a character study. A peace delegation heading from Israel to New York is attacked by terrorists and, soon, the passengers -- diplomats, soldiers, intelligence officers, politicians and one pain-in-the-ass rabbi -- in addition to the flight crew are stranded in the Babylonian (read: Iraqi) desert, with an army of Palestinians closing in to take them hostage. With limited supplies and little chance of rescue, the civilians have got to dig deep and become the warriors they really don't want to be if they're to survive. Spoilers...With such a mishmash of characters, ideologies are bound to clash, and they do here. Miriam Bernstein of course favors diplomacy and non-violence, while Jacob Hausner, the security chief, wants to annihilate the terrorists. The conflict is over whether it is more important for the Israelis to hang onto their lives or their souls. And the answer isn't an easy one, as both methods are flawed. Take, for example, Teddy Laskov's actions. In the beginning, he has a bad feeling about the Lear jet and his instincts tell him to shoot it down but he remembers Miriam asking him not to show any aggression lest he disrupt the peace accords. But his inaction allows the terrorists to enact their plan to down the planes. If he had taken action instead of waiting, everything would've been avoided. At the end, however, he swears not to make that mistake again and he fires on everything that moves. Because of this, he kills Hausner, one of the good guys. There has to be a happy medium between diplomacy and war, but where exactly that line falls is difficult to determine and, really, doesn't have a blanket answer. I also really enjoyed the discussions of battle tactics. The Israelis are poorly equipped compared to the Palestinians, so they have to ration ammunition, food, water and battery power. To make up for this, they construct various traps for the terrorists, and the results are much like you hear in accounts from Vietnam. Then there are the disagreements on how to conduct their war. Hausner wants to be as aggressive as possible, while Burg, the intelligence man, wants to be more considered and manipulative (with the soldier, Dobkin, caught in the middle). When it comes to dealing with their own, however, Burg is much more ruthless, wanting to execute Miriam and another woman for falling asleep on watch. The one thing Burg and Hausner agree on is that they have to keep the bureaucrats in check lest they ruin any chances for survival (and I love Hausner's line: "Cursed are the peacemakers, for they shall make the next war harder to fight"). The Arab-Israeli conflict is shown with a certain amount of complexity. Although DeMille's sympathies clearly lie with Israel, the Palestinians are humanized as much as possible. The army surrounding the plane is made up of men and women who lost loved ones in Israeli bombing raids. They're angry, and they have a reason to be, and that makes them ripe for the pickings of an opportunistic terrorist like Ahmed Rish (who, interestingly, is not a Palestinian but an Iraqi using the Palestinians to further his own cause). You almost feel bad for them late in the book when they want to turn back in the wake of mass casualties and Rish spurs them on by executing anyone attempting to flee. And Hamadi, Rish's second-in-command, makes his last act one of mercy, sparing the life of someone who wouldn't hesitate to kill him and showing that Palestinians are capable of working toward peace as well. I also liked all the political hand-wringing between Israel and Iraq over being able to see if the delegates were even in Iraqi territory. The gung-ho part of you wants them to go in anyway, but the reality is that it could trigger a war with Iraq, which Israel doesn't want. They're in a terrible position where almost anything they do will have grave consequences. But, as always, it comes down to the characters, and DeMille excels at making you care about these people. Hausner and Miriam, the star-crossed lovers, are of course the highlights (and I felt terrible that they really couldn't be together), but I also really liked Burg and Dobkin. I felt really bad for Laskov too. Everything he did was motivated by love for a woman who didn't love him back. Even the annoying rabbi had a bit of color to him, telling Hausner he was making such a big deal about religious ritual in part because it gave the people a sense of normalcy to keep them from losing their heads. He got me to agree with him, which I didn't think I would. Of course, his deplorable opposition to those who wanted to kill themselves before being captured and tortured to death made me hate him. But I like that he wasn't a cookie-cutter character. Ahmed Rish wasn't the most interesting villain in literary history (although I think it's difficult to make Muslim terrorists interesting since they're so single-minded and psychotic; DeMille, to his credit, does a better job later on with Assad Kalil in the Corey books), but he's scary and evil so he works as an impending threat. Even the Prime Minister was kinda funny and felt like a real person instead of just a stock background player. By The Rivers Of Babylon is a great one, both of its author, its genre and its medium.
In 586 B.C. the Babylonian Empire overthrew Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple. The resultant desecration of the temple and the capture of the citizens into slavery in Babylon are among the most significant milestones in the history of the Jewish people and the entire Middle East. After Babylon was overthrown by Persian King Cyrus, 50,000 slaves were freed to return to Jerusalem and to re-build the temple. This story is a fictional account of modern day mid-east intrigue that begins with 2 supersonic Concords take off loaded with passengers representing Israel and Palestinian political leaders with their staffs, headed for a mid-east peace conference at the U.N. Militants who want to disrupt the peace conference succeed in shooting down one of the planes and, through a series of ingenious piloting decisions, the second manages to crash land in the area that is the ruins of that ancient city of Babylon. Readers who have an understanding of this mid-east history will especially appreciate this fictional tale because many of the characters are developed with reverence for the history of the landing site/battleground.An enjoyable read, especially for those who appreciate mid-eastern history.
What do You think about By The Rivers Of Babylon (2015)?
Peace mission Concorde hijacked to Babylon. An Arab-Israeli peace mission to New York is plotted against by Ahmed Rish, an ex-pat Palestinian who sabotages two Concordes bound for El Al during their construction in France. Hidden shaped charges are employed to hijack the Concordes once airborne and one of the birds is destroyed in midair to prove the point. The hijacked Concorde is led to Babylon by Rish in an accompanying Lear, where the bird crash lands upon a plateau that becomes the Israeli
—Will
This is my first time reading this author. There were elements of the story that I really liked, such as the Israeli setting, characters, and the premise of the story. However, I felt that the delivery was a little hollow. The characters were underdeveloped and some of the action in the story was obviously added just to connect the plot line. I struggled to understand exactly which characters were the protagonists as they were recklessly killed off one by one. Their connections to each other were frail and tenuous. As the carnage ensued I began to wonder how there was anyone left to fight. The story seemed almost to be told from the vantage point of a spectator, rather than a narrator developing a story. I will try this author again, and hope for improvements.
—April
Jews and Arabs not getting along?!?!?! Who would have thought of that for a book? At least Nelson DeMille works hard to keep it interesting. ***SPOILERS (AND POLITICAL COMMENTARY) FOLLOW******BEGINNING HERE***I think that this book could be good reading for anybody who is naive enough to think that we can ever have peace in the middle-east. The only way we will see peace is thru superior firepower and alot of dead Arabs. I have alot of respect and love and hate for the nation of Israel, and thos
—Brandon
