Sandy Tolan's The Lemon Tree

To begin, in the book Night, the Jews were being judged because of the way they looked, the religion they followed, and their ethnicity. Moishe the Beadle was deported because he was a foreign Jew. Rumors were spreading about Nazis coming into towns and taking over. After some Jews were deported, life became normal again. Everyone was doing everyday activities. “The deportees were quickly forgotten. A few days after they left, it was rumored that they were in Galicia, working, and even that they were content with their fate. Days went by. Then weeks and months. Life was normal again. A calm, reassuring wind blew through our homes. The shopkeepers were doing good business, the students lived among their books, and the children played in the streets. One day, as I was about to enter the synagogue, I saw Moishe the Beadle sitting

His article argues that the Israelis won the Arab- Israeli War of 1948 and therefore were able to shape its history through their lens, but their version of the conflict is flawed and the information now available undermines what they claimed to be true. He stated that the Zionist version of the truth is just propaganda, spread in a way to make them look like innocent bystanders and the victims and the Arabs as the

Deema Yusuf is 20 years and will be turning 21 sometime in September. She is an undergraduate student at U of O who majors in Business and Marketing. Deema is a proud Palestinian woman her reason for being in America is to gain as much knowledge as she can in order to make Palestine a better place to live in for all Palestinians. She grew up in Ramallah, Palestine which is located in the west bank of Palestine. She lives with her parents, her two sisters, and her brother. She was raised as a Muslim by her parents.Everyday she would start school at 8:00 in the morning and leave school at 2:30 afternoon. What she learned was very controlled because of the war between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli government was very controlling of Palestine

Israelis stick close together with their loved ones and they are taught to trust one another (“Culture Crossing Guide”). Maya is then expected to make a good choice. Furthermore, just like any other family, there are family arguments. Israel is such a corrupted country that even their civilians do not trust one another and they are taught to trust one another ("Terrorism Against Israel”).

Lemon Tree by Eran Riklis is takes place in the West Bank. It is about a widowed Palestinian woman, Salma Zidane, who owns a lemon grove that was given to her by her father and the fight for her to protect her lemon trees that are threatened of being cut down. The Israeli Prime Minister’s security guards argue that’s the trees are a threat to the Israeli Prime Minister, Israel Navon, who recently moved next to Salma. They argue that the grove is a place where terrorist could hide and attempt to attack the Prime minister. Salma hires lawyer, Ziad Daud, who fights the case, which ends up going to the Israeli Supreme Court.

Since the Independence of Israel in 1948, there has been a greater tension between the Israelis and the Palestinian community. It is very important to know that both have been living Israel before it was considered an independent state. Not only Palestinians have been in conflict with the Israelis but also Arabs and Muslims. They might not have the same issues with Israel as the Palestinians do, but they both dislike Israelis for different reasons. Palestinians issue has been over property ownership while the Arabs and Muslims community has been over religious reasons. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Israel belongs to

Before anyone can comprehend the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one must understand the theory of Zionism. Theodor Herzl was the first Jew to have the idea of creating Israel. He was a witness of the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish officer was accused of treason, solely because he was Jewish. Herzl also witnessed mobs of people shouting “Death to the Jews”. This was the last straw for Herzl. Herzl decided that there needed to be a change so he made it one of his life goals to create a successful movement in which Jews founded a Jewish state. One of his main arguments was that discrimination against Jews could be eliminated if they had their own Jewish State, and so modern Zionism was formed. The idea of modern Zionism is so pertinent to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because much of the reason for Israel becoming a Jewish state is behind the fact that Jews were perpetrated throughout the years before Zionism even came into play of the situation.

One particularly interesting perspective is his opinion on how the conflict has somewhat freed the identity of Palestinians from a shared land, and that for some Palestinians that can escape the occupation, there is a the creation of a transnational, transgressive life. (Suleiman, 2003, 73) Thus exists multiple outcomes from one identity. He further supports this by commenting that Palestine does not have borders, does not actually exist in the sense of geography, but it still has a sense of space. The Palestinian people are this space, and the people are how we define what is, and what is not Palestine. People are separated geographically, but defined by identity and community, and this creates a unique sense of freedom outside of a defined nation-state. (Suleiman, 2000, 96) This lets the definition of this identity be more fluid. He says that in his work he purposefully moves away from a centralized view of Palestinian identity and uses cinema to present the differences in viewpoint, perception, and narration that exist within this conflict. Not only between Israelis and Palestinian's but between all Palestinian's. (Suleiman, 2000, 97) He purposefully moves away from a singular form of Palestinian identity and states “My films are Palestinian because I am Palestinian.” (Suleiman, 2000, 99) This movement from a

In ‘A Little Piece of Ground’, Elizabeth Laird writes of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Karim and his experience of growing up in occupation. Laird tells Karim’s story; his failures and his wins, his hopes and desires, and his experience with friends and family while living under Israeli occupation. Karim’s perspective of characters changes when he understands what they have been through and what they have endured. Getting to know their real emotions and life events of people around him, Karim’s perspective on everyone changes. Laird illustrates it through Karim’s interactions with Jamal, interactions with Hopper’s mom, and interaction with the Israelis.

Any reference to conflict turns history into a reservoir of blame. In the presence of conflict, narratives differ and multiply to delegitimize the opponent and to justify one’s own action. Narratives shape social knowledge. The Israeli Palestinian conflict, both Jews and Muslims, view the importance of holding the territories through religious, ideological, and security lenses, based on belief that Palestine was given by divine providence and that the land belongs to either the Israelis or Palestinian’s ancestral home. Understanding these perspectives is required for understanding Palestinians’ and especially Israel’s strategy and role in entering the Oslo peace process. Despite

Amal Amireh is a Palestinian-American who migrated from Palestine when she was young. Her parents were both Palestinians, but her dad left in the 1950’s to go to America to earn his citizenship, but he left Amal, her mother, and her brothers in Palestine. Her father would come and visit her time to time. Her family lived in a town in the West Bank. Amal felt when living in Palestine that she was “in prison” always being occupied and not feeling that her life is normal. Amal grew up with the feeling of Israeli occupation, always watching and keeping them under control. She felt that she had a lack of national rights as a Palestinian and was always there when she was growing up. The issue between the Arabs and Jewish she feels is a “national conflict” with two groups.

Palestine and Israel have a big fight that should of ended long ago. During the late nineteenth hundreds the standard Zionist began a movement into the promised land known as Palestine to reclaim their ancestral homeland (The Origin of..). After moving into Palestine Zionists started to create an exclusive Jewish state, however the Arab community caught on to the movement and opposed this by not allowing Jewish immigration into Palestine along with not permitting them to buy land. Thus one can see the struggle Palestine and Israel are involved in currently, which has transformed the Promised Land into a place with extreme terrorism and constant bickering between the Jews and Arabs. Now Palestine is fighting for the land that was once

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is just one of the many facets that have shaped modern day politics in the Middle East. It is a conflict rooted in generations of violence, discrimination and prejudice that is complicated by a history older than any of the modern day superpowers. Ever since the creation of the state of Israel by the 1947 UN partition of Palestine

Despite the vivid and brutal scenes of Gaza the film captures, the documentary delves into a much deeper issue, the mentality of these children. It is surprising to see that these children can speak with an innocence so characteristic of childhood about things such as friends and school, but in only seconds can exude developed, adult hatred and abhorrence towards Israelis. One of the boys, only twelve years old, tells the interviewer that he hates fighting and wants to be friends with everyone, the way he is with his best friend, except with the Jews. This mentality is blatantly obvious in a young girl named Ayyah, who is no more than

In the poem “I am Yusuf oh father” Mahmoud Darwish tries to give the readers a vivid insight into the relationship between Israel and Palestine by comparing Jews practice of oppression to what Yusuf's brothers did to him. Through the guise of the story of yusuf and his brothers, Darwish subtly hits at the core of the problem that Palestinian have with Israel Jews: The Zionists dispossession of the native population. For several decades Jews have been trying to change the Jewish majority in Israel and make Palestinians as outsiders in their own homeland.Most Zionist leaders had negative perceptions of Arabs, based mainly on European colonialist ideology and treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty and deprive them of their rights.In this poem, the poet addresses Israelis as crule brothers that lay no mercy upon their poor little weak brother.in this way The poet uncover the horrible acts and actions of Israelis who supposed to be Palestinians' brothers in humanity want to kill Palestinians to put their hands on Palestinians land, but they refuse to share their own home with them.