Beaufort

Israeli American journalist, screenwriter, and producer Ron Leshem released his first novel, Beaufort, in 2005. Originally published in Hebrew as אם יש גן עדן, or If There's a Heaven, the novel was translated into English in 2007. The novel follows a group of soldiers tasked with guarding a symbolically important but tactically useless fortress in Lebanon during the last months before Israel forces withdrew from that position. Told from the point of view of the group’s young, macho leader, who does his best to keep up morale in an untenable situation by whatever means possible, the novel is generally seen as an antiwar narrative. Beaufort has won high critical acclaim, receiving Israel's 2006 Sapir Prize for Literature and the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize for Military Literature. A movie adaption of the novel, also titled Beaufort, won many awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Before summarizing the novel, it would be helpful to present its historical background. In response to ongoing Hezbollah rocket shelling from South Lebanon, Israel Defense Forces invaded Lebanon and captured Beaufort Castle, an ancient and mostly ruined two-acre fortress at the top of a hill. Although in the aftermath, it became clear that the army’s orders were to avoid taking the castle, Beaufort quickly became a symbol of heroic Israeli military achievement. Because of the optics, the IDF was forced to hold onto this position despite its relative vulnerability to Lebanese attacks until the eventual Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. After interviewing the IDF soldiers who were in Beaufort during the last months of its occupation, Leshem wrote a fictionalized account of the last commando unit to be stationed in the fortress.

The novel’s narrator, 21-year-old infantry Lieutenant Liraz “Erez” Liberti, pours out his story in an unstoppable flow of language. His thoughts are often scattered and digressive in a way that approaches stream-of-consciousness. Through his narration, we get a sense of Erez as sexist, self-consciously obsessed with machismo, gung-ho about the war against Arabs, and proud of his working-class background. At the same time, undergirding Erez’s bravado is the sense that although he, in theory, commands the 13 young soldiers stationed in Beaufort under him, the claustrophobic, anxiety-provoking environment could cause any of them to snap at any time.



The situation the men find themselves in is hellish—Erez calls it “a cage of ugliness right at the center of heaven.” On the one hand, the landscape is beautiful, and nothing really happens most of the time, their days filled with boredom that can only be relieved through gallows humor, displays of cocky masculinity, and braggadocio about sexual conquests. On the other hand, the tension is constant, and all the men are on edge all the time because they are surrounded by a nearly invisible enemy that often launches unpredictable and unforeseeable terrorist attacks. Adding to these periodic flashes of panic are orders from headquarters, which assign the group pointless-seeming missions that put them unnecessarily in harm’s way—for instance, displaying a supply of mannequins in ways meant to deceive Lebanese forces into assuming there are more IDF soldiers in the fort.

Because of this contrast, the unit develops incredibly strong and interdependent bonds with each other—feelings that can never be openly revealed, but that inform everything the men do. At the same time, the experience shapes and changes them in irrevocable ways, if they manage to survive at all. Bayliss, a deeply observant man who comes to Beaufort committed to observing all the rituals of Judaism, gradually loses his faith. Spitzer, a budding musician, regales the men with passages from Shakespeare—in particular, from Henry V, the play most philosophically concerned with war. After Spitzer recites a portion of the work, 19-year-old Zitlawi, goes one better, making up a modern version of the speech on the spot, complete with meter. Full of promise, Zitlawi is killed in a missile attack.

The men are so cocooned that they eventually develop their own small world with complex rituals of behavior and with its own argot. Erez encourages the others to talk as much as possible, filling any silence with his own logorrhea. We hear everything from stories about childhood, lies about impossible accomplishments, big dreams and hopes for the future, and, of course, constant patter about women and sex. Erez hopes that this is enough to keep morale and discipline going.



At the same time, in Israel, public opinion about the occupation of Lebanon is shifting, as more and more people—even some in the army—declare the conflict to be pointless. As this mood makes its way to Beaufort, Erez worries that everything they have suffered in the castle has been for nothing and that in response, disillusioned members of his unit “might possibly, in a crucial moment, fail to follow me in an attack.”

In one section of the novel, Erez feels the discord between his life in Beaufort and the opinions of regular Israelis firsthand. During a furlough, he returns to his home in Tel Aviv but is unable to adjust to normal life. He dumps his girlfriend for no particular reason, then feels depressed anger at civilians “drinking mango and banana smoothies, having a great time. I really hoped I'd feel part of it, flow with the new rules, play along, get used to it. But it didn't happen.” After a near-fight in a bar, he returns to Beaufort.

The climax of the novel happens during the last days of the occupation. The Beaufort unit is ordered to evacuate the castle, but not before mining the entire place so that Hezbollah can’t recover it. At the same time, the terrorists who have already killed almost half of the original unit members are determined to kill as many more as possible for their own propagandistic purposes. In the end, after setting up the mines, the IDF unit spends one last incredibly tense night amid the explosives and shelling. The next day, they leave the position after blowing up their camp.