In Arabia

By Anthony Voss

On Sunday morning, October 23rd, 1983, David Klein, an American, the Director of the University Hospital, is kidnapped from the streets of the city by Hezbollah, a militant force that emerged from the political chaos in Lebanon. Minutes later, he is forced by his kidnappers to watch a terrorist truck bomb destroy the barracks of the U.S. Marine peacekeeping mission in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and gravely wounding many more. Hezbollah then strikes the French peacekeeping headquarters, violently ending the lives of soldiers and Lebanese men and women.
In Arabia recounts the events leading to these assaults and follows their consequences through the eyes of six witnesses.
Four of the witnesses are Americans: Robert Maisel, an intelligence officer, who is the narrator; Tony Robson, a young Foreign Service Officer on his first posting in Beirut; Captain Terry Timmons, a special forces warrior who trains security forces in the techniques of urban warfare; and Klein, the hostage. Two are Arab women, both physicians. One is Shareen Khairallah, a Lebanese Christian, who returns to Beirut from medical school in Chicago. Her friend and colleague is Hind Khataeb, a Palestinian Muslim, a surgeon at Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem. Each perceives the kidnapping and the acts of terror through the prism of their culture, family, and history.
The witnesses are driven by duty and bonds of love, and they unite in a common cause to find and rescue Klein, the hostage.
What is Hezbollah? What drives them to acts of appalling violence? Difficult questions to answer in a world where tribal identity, religious faith, and the weight of history condition every political act.
In the months following the terrorist attacks, Western politicians will end the peacekeeping mission and order the Marines to retreat from Lebanon. Governments lose interest in the fate of hostages.
But the witnesses are relentless, driven by duty and love, and they refuse to abandon their friend. A years-long search to find and attempt to free David Klein will lead to a violent confrontation in a village of great antiquity in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0CLW22GQQ
• ISBN13: 9798989172740
• Release Date: October 2023
• Publisher: Bec Editions
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"