The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

by Sandy Tolan

the first Arab-Israeli war—known as the War of Independence to Israelis, and the Nakba, or catastrophe, to Palestinians.

If national interest comes before our common humanity," Dalia said, "then there is no hope for redemption, there is no hope for healing, there is no hope for transformation, there is no hope for anything!"

If you could disassociate yourself from your past terrorist actions, your commitment to your own people would gain true moral force in my eyes. I well understand that terror is a term relative to a subjective point of view. Some of Israel's political leaders were terrorists in the past and have never repented. I know that what we consider terror from our side, your people considers their heroic "armed struggle" with the means at their disposal. What we consider our right to self-defense, when we bomb Palestinian targets from the air and inevitably hit civilians, you consider mass terror from the air with advanced technology. Each side has an ingenuity for justifying its own position. How long shall we perpetuate this vicious circle? . . .

You, Bashir, have already experienced one expulsion from Ramla as a child. Now you are about to experience another from Ramallah forty years later. You will thus become a refugee twice. You may be separated from your wife and your two small children, Ahmad and Hanine, and from your elderly mother and the rest of your family. How can your children avoid hating those who will have deprived them of their father? Will the legacy of pain grow and harden with bitterness as it passes down the generations? It seems to me, Bashir, that you will now have a new opportunity to assume a leadership role. By its intention to deport you, Israel is actually empowering you. I appeal to you to demonstrate the kind of leadership that uses nonviolent means of struggle for your rights . . . I appeal to both Palestinians and Israelis to understand that the use of force will not resolve this conflict on its fundamental level. This is the kind of war that no one can win, and either both peoples will achieve liberation or neither will. Our childhood memories, yours and mine, are intertwined in a tragic way. If we can not find means to transform that tragedy into a shared blessing, our clinging to the past will destroy our future. We will then rob another generation of a joy-filled childhood and turn them into martyrs for an unholy cause. I pray that with your cooperation and God's help, our children will delight in the beauty and bounties of this holy land. Allah maak. May God be with you. Dalia

"I won't take part in a siege enforced against hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children," Sergeant Rosen-Zvi declared in a letter to a superior officer. "I won't starve entire villages and prevent their residents from getting to work each day or to medical checkups; I won't turn them into hostages of political decisions. A siege against cities, like bombing raids from helicopters, does not stop terror. It is a sop to placate Israel's public, which demands 'Let the IDF win.'" Israel's policies, the young "refusenik" declared, were creating "nurseries of terror."