Palestine enters the manuscript not as a setting for events directly narrated there, but as a historical and political reference in Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s account of an interrogation in Jordan. He invokes it to explain his view of the conflict surrounding him and the uneasy alignment he sees among the people questioning him.

A Political Reference in Jordan

During his first interrogation in Jordan, Slahi considers the interrogators’ apparent relationship to the Palestinian cause. He reasons that Palestinians would not naturally be expected to work for Americans against people he understands to be helping them. His account places Palestine within a wider argument about political allegiance, rather than depicting the country itself.

Slahi’s Historical Framing

Slahi connects the conflict to the Israeli takeover of Palestine, which he describes as having occurred under British artillery fire and as having driven a large number of local people into neighboring countries. In his account, Jordan received the largest share of those displaced, and more than half of Jordanians were of Palestinian origin. These claims appear as part of his own explanation during interrogation, rather than as a separate historical survey.

Significance in the Narrative

Palestine gives Slahi a framework for interpreting the interrogators before him: he sees people associated with opposing sides of a political struggle acting together against him. The passage therefore makes the interrogation feel, in his telling, like an encounter shaped by alliances that contradict the identities and histories he invokes. Palestine functions here as a point of reference in his reasoning, not as a location the narrative visits.