ISBN: 1582343438
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 1
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Summary: An Apologist For Hamas
Mr. Tolan seems to hold myopic views on the Israeli-Arab Conflict. He writes movingly of the displacement of Palestinians, yet won't even bother to write about why they were displaced. For in the majority of cases, the Palestinians were assured by the invading armies of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and other Muslim countries that the Jews would be driven into the sea, and not only would they have their homes, but those of the accursed Jews as well. Thanks to a citizen army, equally fighting for their homes, it didn't quite happen that way. Those who left for two, three weeks thinking that the Arabs would win ended up rotting in refugee camps. They didn't blame Nasser or Abdullah for their predicament, they blamed the Jews.
In only one case, that of Deir Yassin, were atrocities perpetrated against the Palestinians. In perhaps a few other cases, Arabs evicted from their homes were never allowed to return. For the Jews, it was one massacre after another - Kfar Etzion, where Jews were shot down, unarmed, after they surrendered to the "moderate" Arab Legion. The moderate Abdullah and his son, King Hussein refused to allow Jews to worship at their most holiest site once the Jordanian Arab Legion conquered the Old City of Jerusalem. It wasn't the King, but Israeli forces 19 years later that retook the city and opened it up to all faiths, including Islam. For those Arabs forcibly removed, consider the thousands and thousands of Jews forcibly removed from Arab countries, with not a few being murdered on the way. Contrast that with the behavior of Haifa's Mayor who openly wept and begged the Arabs to stay, and assured them sincerely of their safety. Contrast this with the bombardment of Haifa today by Hizbullah missiles.
The Bulgarian Jew who opened her doors to the Palestinian was not an anomaly but what the Israeli Jews are - a people who want peace. This reviewer truly wonders if the Palestinian Muslims would have acted in the same manner towards an Israeli or Jewish refugee. I think not.
Which leads me to why Tolan is not an author with credibility. He recently appeared on a radio talk show in Los Angeles, proudly admitted to his Lefty views and his Berkeley residence, proudly admitted his biases and did nothing but blame the Israelis for everything. Never mind the decision by Arafat to resort to murder and mayhem in 2000, even before 9/11; or the current crisis brought on thanks to a weak Israeli government willing to make all kinds of concessions for the sake of peace most Israelis truly want, and how Arab terrorist organizations, including one that the Palestinian people themselves voted in reacted in kind, cheering violence and kidnapping and killing Israelis.
The cycle of violence needs to end - but that can only happen when Islamofascists renounce violence, something Mr. Tolan in his role of Palestinian supporter, NOT even-minded, cannot get.
Summary: FROM A LEMON SAPLING A MIGHTY ___?___ MAY GROW
Sandy Tolan's THE LEMON TREE encapsulates the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma better than anything I've read to date. It does so by telling the true story of two families who occupied and loved the same house in the West Bank town of Ramla: the Palestinian Khairis who built it and lived in it up until 1948 and the Bulgarian Jewish Eshkenazis who lived in it from 1948 until 1984. It is the perfect metaphor for the intractable problem of two peoples who have historical claims to the same piece of real estate.
Tolan's central figures are Bashir Khairi and Dalia Eshkenazi who meet for the first time in the aftermath of the Six Day War and maintain a tenuous friendship into the 21st century. His narrative has a distinctly novelistic style. (In fact another Amazon reviewer refers to it as "a trashy, bitter novel") Tolan begins by introducing the reader to Bashir's and Dalia's parents in the 1930's and describing the societies in which they lived. As with Austen or Tolstoi, one absorbs social, historical, and political context while trying to guess where the story is leading.
For example, I learned in passing that Axis member Bulgaria did the best job of any nation in Europe of protecting its Jewish population from the Nazi death camps. One also encounters future leaders of Israel and of Fatah in unexpected places in Tolan's narrative. The order to expel the Arab inhabitants of Lydda and Ramla during the 1948 War was given by Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin. Abu Jihad, Arafat's right hand, who helped launch the first Intifada, was among the children expelled from Ramla.
THE LEMON TREE is not a feel-good book. Other reviewers have drawn hopeful conclusions from the relationship of Bashir and Dalia and from the planting of a new lemon tree at the house in Ramla. I am less sanguine.
Bashir Khairi, trained as a lawyer, has spent most of his adult life in Israeli prisons or in exile. The prison in Ramla where he was incarcerated was built on an olive grove which had belonged to his family for twelve generations. Bashir's conviction that the land of Israel and Palestine should be transformed into a single, secular, democratic state has few supporters among Palestineans or anywhere else in the world. Dalia continues to act on the belief that individuals behaving with good will can begin to heal the wounds that Israelis and Palestinians have inflicted on each other and upon themselves. Neither approach seems to offer a great deal of hope at the moment.
Summary: Emotional and uneven
This is a simple minded narrative of the middle east history. The Arabs are consistently protrayed as helpless victims of Israeli agression. It glosses over Arab atrocities. Three examples, the 1947 war of independence, is seen as an opportunity for an Israeli land grab. No mention of the Arab attacks on Israeli population. Secondly, the Jewish efforts to drain the swamps and reclaim the land, is similarly seen as part of the drive to increase the Jewish population at the expense of the Arabs. Third example, as cited from another reviewer, there is no discussion of the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries. Guess it's not worthy of objection.
The author has a simple minded view of a long term historical, involving many peoples with competing interests, and forces it into his ideological blinders.
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