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From the pages of OUTLOOK |
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Book ReviewOutlook, July/August 2007 THE LEMON TREE: AN ARAB, A JEW AND THE HEART OF THE MIDDLE EAST. Bloomsbury, U.S.A., New York, 2006. By Sandy Tolan. Reviewed by Larry Haiven The “Six-Day War” of 1967 has just ended. For a time Palestinians from the now-conquered West Bank are able to travel in Israel proper. With both trepidation and hope, a 25-year-old man from Ramallah decides to go to Ramla, between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He wants to see if his old house, the one in which he was born and from which he and his family fled in 1948, is still around, to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of a place he has not seen for two decades. His cousins, on a similar mission, are denied entry to their family homes by frightened or irate Israelis. But when, joined by his cousins, he rings the doorbell of his destination, a 19-year-old Israeli Jewish woman answers and invites the Palestinians in. The Israeli woman serves them refreshments in the garden and the young man sees a lemon tree that his father, who built the house, had planted in 1936. The tree and the house, combined with the irony that neither are available to him, form the central metaphor of the book. Thus begins a very unusual friendship between Dalia Eshkenazi and Bashir Khairi. Indeed, it is not so much a friendship as a respectful, friendly but very troubled relationship. And it is through that relationship and the stories of Dalia and Bashir and their families that author Sandy Tolan tells the story of the Israeli-Palesinian conflict. This is a book especially valuable for those newly approaching the dispute or those whose support for Israel blinds them to reality. Written like a novel, but unerringly non-fiction, it weaves back and forth between the larger political events of the Middle East and the personal dramas of two families. Every major event that happens on the larger stage—the Nakba/War of Independence, the Suez War, the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the First Invasion of Lebanon, the First Intifada, the Oslo Accords, the Al-Aqsa Intifada—also happens to the protagonists. We see not only where they were and how these events affected them, but also what they thought and think about them. But the book is also very useful for those, like myself, who think we know more than enough about the conflict. Its historical thoroughness and its narrative sweep, combined with incisive character studies of the two protagonists, deepens anyone’s appreciation of the subject. While Tolan is decidedly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, he is able, simply through telling Bashir and Dalia’s stories, to show both sides of the story. And that is no small accomplishment. While they do embody and reflect the experiences and attitudes of their compatriots, neither of the protagonists is “just an ordinary” representative of their people. Bashir Khairi was (although he never explicitly verifies it) a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-Leninist and secular organization founded by Christian Palestinian Dr. George Habash. The PFLP was the second largest organization in the Palestine Liberation Organization but more radical than the dominant Fatah. In the current clash between Fatah and Hamas, the PFLP has gone into eclipse. Khairi spent many of the years between the story’s beginning and the present in Israeli prisons (where he was beaten and tortured) or in exile (although this is certainly not unusual among Palestinian men). While softening somewhat in recent years (as has the PFLP), he still defends a unitary secular state and insists on the right of return. Dalia, born in Sofia, Bulgaria just after World War II, is a child of parents who survived the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Tolan tells the little-known story of the fate of the Bulgarian Jews, who, unlike their counterparts in the rest of Eastern Europe, avoided wholesale extermination through the intervention of key Bulgarian political and religious leaders—and a lot of luck. Yet Dalia, like all European Jews and their immediate descendants and extended families worldwide, was deeply damaged by the Holocaust and its memory. While a decidedly pro-peace Israeli, she cannot and will not renounce political Zionism. Some readers and commentators have touted the book as being full of optimism. And they have cited the decision of Dalia and her husband to turn the house-of-two-families into “Open House,” a place for programs between Jewish and Arab children, as a sign of hope and reconciliation. But that would perhaps be reading too much into the book. While it is tinged with hope, it does not pull any punches or present a rosy-eyed view of the situation. Which is just as well. Peace will come when Israeli Jews and Jews all over the world come to realize that Israel cannot afford not to have a just peace with the Palestinians, and when non-Jews stop succumbing to the moral blackmail accusations of anti-Semitism. As arguably the best book for a general audience on the topic, The Lemon Tree makes a major contribution. LARRY HAIVEN teaches in the Management Department of Saint Mary's University in Halifax. He is a member of Canadians, Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace in that city. From Outlook: Canada’s Progressive Jewish Magazine, Vancouver, BC. Outlook Website Return to Home Page |
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