DEAD END SUMMER

Is equality essential for justice to prevail?

What happens if whole countries become lawless?

These are questions central to the plot that caused three men to move far away from each other, only to meet again one day, and face those existential questions head on.

Gavri, Chaim and Uzi were born as Israel became an independent country. They grew up in the Israel of the 1950’s, attended the same school, were involved with the same youth movement, and became close friends. However, thirty years later, in the summer of 1982, they find themselves as far away from each other as it is possible to be.

Gavri, who has become an influential photojournalist, is embedded with the Israeli troops that invaded Lebanon in the summer of 1982. He is covering the war there, and experiencing a country that has become lawless following years of conflict and civil war. Self-described as politically ‘leftist’, Gavri is horrified by the implications of a lawless society becoming a legitimate choice.

Chaim, moderately religious, has become radicalized over the years, and is now one of the leaders of the Settler movement in the Occupied West Bank. He finds himself entangled in a murder plot when a group of young Settlers plant a bomb that kills the mayor of a small Palestinian town.

Uzi has grown up to become a right-wing Jewish Nationalist and a prominent professional in ShinBet – Israel’s most powerful national security apparatus. A believer in the supremacy of ‘Law and Order’ in society, as well as in his personal and professional life, he is resentful of any attempt to manipulate his basic core values and is horrified by an attempt to place Settlers above the law.

During the summer of 1982, with war raging in Lebanon, and the cycle of Palestinian terrorist attacks reaching one of its peaks, settlers in the West Bank take matters into their own hands.

It is at this point in history that the three childhood friends meet again and are forced to make choices in the most dramatic of circumstances.

For more about Avner Tavori and a PDF of the original Hebrew edition of this book please visit:
www.avner-tavori.com/dead-end-summer