Enter Ghost

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of wartime violence.

Enter Ghost takes place in Israel and the West Bank and explores different forms of Palestinian identity. The country of Israel was established in 1948. Various characters in the novel refer to the territory within those original borders by the shorthand “’48” or as being “inside.” Israel is bordered by Egypt to the south, Jordan to the east, Syria to the northeast, and Lebanon to the northwest. The establishment of those borders of the Jewish state resulted in the expulsion of approximately 750,000 Arabs from the territory, often under threat of violence by Zionist paramilitary groups like the Haganah. This event is known as the Nakba or “catastrophe.” After May 1948, the West Bank to the east of Israel and Gaza to the west of Israel were held by Jordan and Egypt, respectively. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied these territories as well as the Golan Heights in the northwesternmost tip of the country bordering Syria. Both the West Bank and Gaza are divided from Israeli territory by a large cement separation barrier and are discontinuous with each other. About a quarter of the West Bank is known as Area B, where Israel controls all movement of goods and people, but the Palestinian Authority has some governmental role.