The Lemon Tree

Summary

In the beginning of the book we are introduced to Bashir Khairi and his cousins who travel to Al-Ramla, a city in central Israel. Bashir and his cousins have not been in Ramla since the The Arabians were ravaged and lived in poverty. Many of them lived as refugees or savages. Later, we meet Dalia Eshkenazi, a Jewish woman who escapes the horrors of the holocaust. Dalia’s family and Bashir’s families have been through much pain, and both characters understand being hated and loved by people. Eventually, Bashir travels to Dalia’s home , which was his former place. Dalia visits Bashir and I can see the bond these two people have even though they are coming from two different backgrounds.

Dalia who becomes inspired, she questions

Sandy wrote the novel in a way that the anyone who takes the time will enjoy the story. Even though the book does not solve a problem-which it wasn’t supposed to, this book is a novel that deserves it’s credit.

In the Lemon Tree, Tolan focused on Bashir and Dalia’s life, and a slight perspective on both sides of each story. The Lemon Tree was well written, but I believe that Tolan overlooked information about Israel and Palestine. Tolan overlooked that the Palestinians in

Israel never dealt with murder or genocide because of their race. Israel allowed Arabs that were outside of the border to be citizens of Israel.The leaders were just trying to make

Israel a Jewish nation, which is one of the most Jewish populated countries. Secondly, the

Arabs from Palestine started the war in 1948, but the Jews were targets because of their race. Furthermore, During the Arab massacres of the Jews, many of the Jews escaped- making the city become more Palestinian populated. Also, Sandy says that Al-Ramla was a

Muslim dominated town, but Ramla had Jews long before Ramla. Even more, Tolan doesn’t write about how Jews were in the middle east for thousands of years. Tolan rarely

The Jewish and Palestinians have a different knowledge and understanding of Israel because of religion, and how each parent raised them. Anyone can tell the differences and views of Bashir and Dalia. On page 160 of the Lemon Tree, Bashir responds to a question that Dalia asks for ‘Western occupying powers in Israel’, Bashir says ‘ First, to get rid of you in Europe. Second, to rule the East through this government and to keep down the whole Arab world. And then the leaders started remembering the Torah and started to talk about the land of the milk and the honey, and the Promised Land.’ Dalia recomments and says ‘ But there is good reasons for this. And the reason is to protect us from being persecuted in other countries.’ Both characters share their opposing views and we cannot fully understand them without living their lives and understanding the Middle East. We cannot understand the views and comments of both characters, until you view ancient history and information like the Bible. We all know the story about the Philistines

(Palestinian) and Israelites and the Bible is a historical reference that should be looked at when understanding the views of Palestinians and