The Lemon Tree Review
Jews and Arabs have been fighting for thousands of years. Palestine was a land without people for a people without land. Palestine was a desolate wasteland before the Jews came and made it prosper and thrive. All those myths and more I've grown up with all my life and never questioned - never thought to question - until recently.
I suppose I should start by putting my "liberal bias" on the table at the outset. I became interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through reading articles on [...]. I then searched around Amazon for some basic introductory works on the conflict. I've read a couple children's books (see my other reviews), one of which recommended this book. I never did find a book that both sides agree is "unbiased", but this seemed like the closest possibility since it is an account, largely in their own words, of two families - one Israeli, one Palestinian - and their encounter, conflict, and ultimate friendship because of a shared house and a shared history.
Sandy Tolan went looking for a way to humanize the story of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and he found the perfect narrative. Ahmad Khairi built a house of white Jerusalem stone on land in al-Ramla which his family had owned for generations. Most of his many children were born in that house. He planted a lemon tree in the backyard. In 1948, in a war known to the Israelis as the War of Independence and to the Palestinians as the "Nabka" or "Catastrophe", he and his family, along with most of the Arab populations of al-Ramla and many other Palestinian towns, were driven from their homes into exile - in Jordan, Gaza, and finally Ramallah. The house was declared "abandoned", the owners "absentee".
A few years later, seeking the stability of a Jewish homeland following the Holocaust, Moshe Eshkenazi, his wife and young daughter eventually end up in Ramle, Jewish street names having replaced the ages old Arabic names. They end up, of course, in the Khairi's house, enjoying the Khairi's lemon tree. But to the Eshkenazis, the property is simply abandoned, left behind by Arabs who were too cowardly to defend their own homes. Innocent young Dalia then grows up cradled in Zionist mythology. As a young girl, she climbs on the fence built by Ahmad Khairi and rips off the Muslim crescent he had placed there.
Still, young Dalia Eskanazi actually grows up to be tolerant and compassionate. She defends her darker skin schoolmates, she stands up for Palestinian rights and, in 1967, when a knock comes at her door, she answers it, allowing Ahmad Khairi's oldest son Bashir to see and explore his family's old house. The two form an intense connection both despite and because of their disparate yet shared histories. The most powerful scene of the book comes around 160 when Dalia and Bashir meet at his family's "temporary" Ramallah house and discuss the solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and we see, in stark terms, the insolubility of the conflict. The unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. For Dalia, despite her compassion and even her recognition of the wrongs done to the Palestinians, is still a Jew, born of Zionist parents and raised in Zionist culture. Israel is her homeland, the Khairi's house is her house. Leaving is not an option. For Bashir, born a Palestinian and nurtured in exile on Palestinian grievances, there is likewise no backing down. Palestine is his family's ancestral land, the house with the lemon tree is his house, and his lemon tree.
The book does not present any neat packages or tidy up any details. Tolan presents his subjects as realistically as possible, having exhaustively interviewed them and researched their history. We see them warts and all - sometimes sympathetic, sometimes not so much. Despite my inclination toward the Khairi's "side", for instance, I find their view of girls and women to be distasteful and I find myself "liking" the Eshkenazis better. The Khairis had to go through eight girls before they finally got their precious son, who immediately upstaged all his sisters. The Eskanazis, on the other hand, wanted a daughter and treasured her above all else from day one, never looking back with regret that they didn't have a son.
Still, though, the question of justice must outweigh personal likes or dislikes. The fact remains that the Palestinians were driven from their homes and lands to make way for a Jewish homeland. Of all people who should be sensitive about discrimination and persecution based on racial and religious factors, it should be the Jews. Yet I often found myself experiencing déjà vu as the Jewish government and their British and American allies treated the indigenous Palestinian people much as they were treated during the Holocaust - buses often serving the same purposes as trains in Europe.
But on the other hand (and I'm aware that I'm already out of hands), I can't approve of the tactics of the Palestinian fighters, any more than I approve of the same tactics used by the Israelis. Blowing up Israelis supermarkets is, perhaps, no worse than blowing up hotels, but it is certainly no better, and violence is only going to end up harming both sides. The book never confirms for us whether Bashir was or wasn't involved in the Supersol bombing or other terrorist activities. Dalia assumes he was, but Bashir never confirms it nor does Tolan present definitive evidence either way. If he was involved, it would be understandable. In addition to the pain his family has suffered, Bashir himself lost most of his left hand as a child playing with an explosive "toy" dropped by the Israelis. But Dalia is right that the Palestinians must renounce violence if there is to be peace. Palestinian violence, in addition to harming Israeli civilians, only works against the Palestinians themselves. For every act of Palestinian violence, the Israelis respond tenfold, and it keeps world sympathy (or at least Western sympathy) firmly on the Israeli side. The Israeli occupation of Palestine and their treatment of the Palestinians is an injustice on the scale of the Jim Crow laws in the American South. But it was more Martin Luther King, Jr. than Malcolm X who ended segregation.
In the end, both Dalia and Bashir are very sympathetic characters. Dalia gave up her parents house to become a kindergarten for Arab children and an Arab-Israeli peace center. She protests against Israeli excesses and defends the rights of Palestinians, although not the right of return. She believes in a two-state solution - Palestine and Israel living side-by-side in harmony. Bashir is also a sympathetic figure, not least in his friendship with Dalia. He advocates a one-state solution - a secular democracy with representation for all Jews and Arabs (and others). Although he may (or may not) have been actively involved with terrorism, I have to side with Bashir. Creating two ideologically opposite theocracies in a country the size of Israel-Palestine is not a solution to generate peace. Already, roads have been torn up, walls erected, families divided, all in the name of separating one religion from the other. But a secular democracy could - if both sides renounce violence and work together in good faith - moderate the worst of both groups and bring out the best for everyone. Demographically speaking, Israel is becoming more, not less, Arab. The Israelis would be well advised to deal with this reality quickly and equitably.
In sum, I highly recommend "The Lemon Tree" to anyone who wants an introductory or more in depth exposure to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The story of the shared house and shared history of the Khairi and Eshkenazi families gives a human face and understanding to the trove of historical background which illuminates the narrative. Whether you find the book "fair" or "biased", you will come away with new perspectives and, hopefully, a deeper understanding.
The Lemon Tree Overview
In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR's Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation. With a new introduction by the author. Sandy Tolan is the author of Me & Hank: A Boy and His Hero, Twenty-five Years Later. He has written extensively for magazines and newspapers, and has produced dozens of documentaries for National Public Radio and Public Radio International. He was a 1993 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an I. F. Stone Fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where he teaches international reporting. Praise for The Lemon Tree: "No novel could be more compelling...This book- will haunt you long after you put it down. And it will certainly be one of the best works of nonfiction that you will read this year."-Christian Science Monitor "A graceful, compassionate and unmuddied presentation of Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lives of an Arab and a Jew, strangers who forge a connection and a reconciliation while never veering from their passionate desires for a homeland."-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Quite simply the most important book I've read f
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Customer Reviews
Truth in the Lemon Tree - Jane M. Barricelli - Freehold, NJ
I read The Lemon Tree on the plane traveling to Israel & Palestine. All of the many conversations I had with both Palestinians and Israelis reflected the feelings of those in The Lemon Tree. Sandy Tolan made me feel as though I were reading fiction, however the reality was in the lack of conclusion to either the story in the book or to the situation in the lives of Israelis and Palestinians. I gave my copy of The Lemon Tree to my travel companions and have since purchased a second copy for myself. I admired the author's balance in presenting both sides of the problem with equal empathy. I realize now why a solution to this conflict is so illusive if not impossible. It was so much easier to understand the larger picture through the stories of real individuals whose lives were turned upside down by the conflict.
Good Read - Virginia W. Singletary - Panama City, FL
An interesting and informative, objective, study of the conflicts between the Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. Starting with an overview and coming down to two people.
Opening eyes - Sherrell B. Downes - Brookline, MA
Our book club selected the Lemon Tree for our monthly discussion. We all felt that our eyes had been opened by the author's balanced reporting about the issues of Israelis and Palestinians living in the same spaces. We have also felt much more sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian peoples and wondered why we did not understand this before. We admired the author for not trying to end the book with a neat solution. Instead, it is up to the reader to try to figure out what might happen next.
Congratulations to Sandy Tolan for artfully pulling together the complex histories of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and making the stories accessible to Americans.
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