An Orthodox Greeting

 I sat down on a cold wooden pew, my fingers tracing the worn lines, the smell of wood and frankincense in my nostrils as my breathing slowed.
    ‘Pari lou is.’
   A deep voice. I turned to my right and saw a huge white-bearded figure dressed in black, an olivewood crucifix around his neck. I looked at him, opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t make the words come out.
   He spoke again: ‘Sabah al khair,’ and, when I still didn’t reply, ‘Good morning.’ I nodded.
   ‘Welcome to our Church. I am Father Vahan.’
   He smiled, his hands held together either in prayer or greeting.
   ‘Forgive me, but you appear troubled.’
   I looked at the richly decorated altar and around at the classical images, glittering Madonnas and Christs on the wooden panels around me.
Olives, Page 191

The Levant is at the core of the three ‘Revealed Religions’, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The latter of these, in every sense, was born in Mecca and Medinah, but it was in Jerusalem Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.

As a consequence, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria are crammed with memories of these religions over the past two millennia and more. There are places sacred to each and to all three. There are places of syncretism and, of course, of conflict and sectarianism.

This is also the land of the Eastern Empire: Byzantium. I have long been fascinated by the ebb and flow of the Eastern and Western worlds as they flowed and clashed around the Eastern Mediterranean, the collapse of Rome, the rise of Constantinople and then the fall of the great city to the Ottomans. Behind it all, the thread of religion is wound around everything, but the Christianity of the Levant is very different to the somewhat pusillanimous, slightly embarrassed and rather, well, British version of Christianity I grew up with.

The Orthodox Churches of the Levant are rather richer than the protestant churches of England, it has to be said.  As, indeed, are the Catholic ones – Eastern Catholicism is beholden to Rome but in aspects of rite and practice is notably more ‘eastern’. So Paul, wandering into an Orthodox Armenian church in Amman would be rather stunned by the splendour of it all even, as he is, beside himself with horror and self-doubt...

The Dead Sea and the Water Crisis

   We drove along the coast of the Dead Sea.
   ‘What was all the checkpoint stuff about?’
   ‘Security. That’s Palestine over there across the water. And Israel. So Jordanian security here is tighter than usual.’
   ‘I thought you were at peace with the Israelis.’
   She looked askance at me, an eyebrow raised. ‘Jordan is.’
   We passed a tall, square metal tower overlooking the flat expanse of lifeless water. I gestured toward it and asked,  ‘Lifeguard?’
   ‘Gun position. They’re not usually manned these days, but when they are they turn the guns away to face inland. So does the other side. Peace, you see?’
Olives, Page 57

It wasn’t until the ‘noughties’ the gun positions on the Dead Sea were turned to face symbolically away from Israel. These days there aren’t even guns on the towers, but there are still military checkpoints as you drive down to the Sea, the remarkable expanse of super-saline water four hundred metres below sea level.

The Dead Sea is almost miraculous, a great expanse of water so saline you just float around in it, a meniscus of mineral oil floating on the surface. You really don't want to shave just before going in, I can tell you from bitter experience. The Jordanian side of the sea is home to a cluster of resort hotels, my personal favourite being the Movenpick Dead Sea. Further down the coast from Amman, the road snakes back up the escarpment, giving a view of the extensive moonscape created by the potash extraction operation, at one time Jordan's principle source of income - the country has never been a wealthy one. At the top you'll find the town of Kerak, home to a great crusader castle - and one of many places where TE Lawrence reported spirited gun battles with the Turks.

But the Dead Sea is under threat. The constant draining of the Jordan has reduced the river to a fragment of its former self and so the Dead Sea is literally dying, its levels slowly dropping to the point where you can actually see moorings something like thirty feet up in the cliffs around the current sea. There has been extensive discussion of remediation measures, including the 'Red Dead' project which would see Jordanian/Israeli co-operation to pipe salt water from the Red Sea.

A similarly visionary scheme is actually under way, seeing water pipes laid from Wadi Rumm right up through to Amman, one of the measures being taken to try and address the very real water crisis Jordan faces - the very water crisis that forms the backdrop to Olives, in fact. Jordan is actually the world's fourth most water challenged country.

In Olives, Daoud’s preoccupation with the water shortage is founded squarely in the story of the regional conflicts born out of 1948 – the Levant (Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Israel, although the term ‘the Levant usually refers to the Arab countries of the Western Mediterranean) is desperately short of water. Israel’s annexation of the Sea of Galilee (known as Lake Tiberius on the Arab side) in the 1967 war (the ‘six day war’) ensured a major source of precious water for Israel – fed by rivers and aquifers from surrounding Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Part of the background to Pauls’ dilemma in Olives is that the book's Daoud Dajani is a wealthy Arab businessman with major business interests and connections across the region who is mounting a bid for the forthcoming privatisation of the Jordanian water network. Daoud’s consortium is being opposed by a British-led consortium which is focusing its bid on conservation and efficient distribution. Daoud’s bid is based on a brilliant and dangerous scheme – to tap the deep seasonal aquifers feeding Lake Tiberius, bringing more water to Jordan at Israel’s expense. Worse, by depleting the fresh water supply into Tiberius, he will ensure the remaining water is more saline – saltier and therefore less suitable for agriculture and drinking water.

Daoud’s bid obviously cannot be tolerated by the Israelis and unites both Israeli and British interests. The question Paul has to resolve is whether Daoud is a businessman acting within the law and meeting unlawful state-sponsored opposition to his brilliant scheme to benefit Jordan or whether he is a fanatic hell-bent on flinging the region into war.

“There can be no peace without resolving water problems and vice versa... it is water that will decide the future of the Occupied Territories and, what is more, whether there is peace or war. If the crisis is not resolved, the result will be a greater probability of conflict between Jordan and Israel, which would certainly involve other Arab countries.”
Jacques Sironneau, quoted in the NATO 2002 Report, ‘Water Resources in the Mediterranean. 

The battle to secure supplies of ‘the universal solvent’ in the Eastern Mediterranean is insoluble. There are too many people living off the land, distribution networks are often creaky and wasteful and the struggle to gain control of resources is constant.

The research on the water crisis that forms the backdrop to Olives is solid – there is, indeed, a major humanitarian crisis brewing in the area and Israel has indeed annexed a large number of water sources by constructing its security wall to encompass them, carving strategic tracts of land from the ‘1967 border’. Each twist and turn of the wall is a bargaining chip at best, a fait accompli at worst. Carving farms in half (as, indeed, the Dajani’s farm in Qaffin has been carved), the wall makes the most of the scant water resources in the West Bank. The source of Lake Tiberius’ wealth (or the Sea of Galilee) is, as outlined in Olives, a mixture of rivers flowing down from Syria and Lebanon and aquifers that rise up into the bed of the lake. According to NATO, 90% of the West Bank’s water is used by Israel and the distribution of water in the area is ‘unfair’ and ‘restrictive’.

The Demon Drink

   The Dajani house was in Abdoun, the wealthy part of West Amman. Aisha stopped the car at the top of the long, sweeping driveway and I tried not to stare at the huge villa with its pillared entranceway and imposing double doors. I felt like a slob.
   A woman stood in the doorway. ‘You must be Paul. Welcome. I’m Nour, Aisha’s mother.’
   She was in her late fifties, slim, elegant and pretty and I liked her instantly. Nour slipped her arm into mine and walked me into the house to meet the family, her manner easy and  intimate. Aisha’s sister Mariam was giggly, just seventeen and studying computer science at a private university. Ibrahim greeted me like the prodigal son and brushed away my attempts to thank him again for his help. He had a nasty Marlboro habit and I quickly discovered he made a natural comedy act with his wife Nancy, a wisecracking lady whose deep-etched laughter lines were somehow at odds with her sad-looking eyes.
   I was mildly surprised to be offered a beer: When Aisha and I had gone to dinner together, we had shared a bottle of red wine. We had been wrapped up in Ministry talk and I hadn’t asked her about when or how she drank. I had assumed her life at home, as a Muslim, would be teetotal.
Olives, Page 40

This aspect of the book has already caused considerable comment – the fictional Dajanis of Olives are 'sophisticated and Westernised'. They speak good English, too - although Ibrahim's is more accented. That's because he's older. And they drink alcohol. How could I have a good Jordanian/Palestinian family drinking alcohol? And why did I choose, one reader asked, to have them be 'non-practising Muslims'?

There are two answers, really. The Arab world’s relationship with alcohol is a complex one, with an enormous variety of attitudes expressed throughout the region. Clearly, the consumption of alcohol is prohibited in Islam and the vast majority of Muslims throughout the Arab World will not take alcohol.

However, some people drink on occasion, others will be tolerant of drinking and being in places like bars but not drink themselves, while (and I emphasise this) the vast majority will actively avoid alcohol and places where it is consumed.  Some people will drink and yet in other ways practice Islam, others will drink only in certain company or places - undercover drinkers. And some, as in other religions, do not practice their religion at all in any formal way and have a more secular outlook. As in so many things, while the most widespread practice of Muslims is not to drink alcohol, the region represents a kaleidoscope of belief and practice.

Attitudes to alcohol tend to soften with youth and sophistication. Many older men who do take drink in the Arab World take it in the form of Johnny Walker, which is to whiskies what Mercedes is to cars in the Levant. And Ibrahim is no exception. Aisha will drink socially on occasion, but she’s not a ‘drinker’ in the way Paul is, for instance. Paul's possibly a little too fond of the sauce. And Lynch, well...

Olives was originally written with a British audience in mind. I wanted to create a sense of empathy with the Dajanis in the book, particularly as we follow Paul’s journey to try and work out whether he believes in them as people, or whether he believes them capable of funding and even actively taking part in terrorism. I certainly wanted to avoid erecting barriers. And I also wanted to portray a sophisticated, wealthy family in West Amman. I have often been a guest in such houses and I have been offered drink. It's important the fictional Dajanis be more secularly minded as otherwise Aisha wouldn't have got within a million miles of Paul.

And so I chose to create an environment where Paul is surprised at the family’s openness and tolerance and at how welcome he feels with them, despite his innate alarm and suspicion at Daoud’s dark manner. It is Daoud who is more conservative and protective.

In doing so, however, I have not been 'untrue' to the spirit of the region or its people. It's not bandied about precisely because of the prohibition, it's not by any means widespread practice, but a number of people in the Levant do drink. And that's not about the British public being shallow, it's about reflecting a reality that was at the same time a narrative convenience to the author.