One of the most iconic images of the Palestinian resistance is a 2005 photograph of a Palestinian woman in the occupied West Bank, crying as she clings desperately to an olive tree, its branches severed, in an effort to protect it from either theft or destruction by Israeli soldiers, who linger in a military Jeep behind her. A longstanding symbol of peace, olives are also a lifeline for Palestinian subsistence farmers, providing income for around 100,000 families. Beyond that, the olive trees — and all of Palestine’s fruit trees — provide a tangible link between Palestinians, our ancestors, and the land. Since the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel first occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, over a million fruit trees have been stolen or demolished, crushing Palestinian livelihoods and ancestral bonds in the process.
Lemon Tree is the moving-image embodiment of this photo.
Directed in 2008 by Eran Rilkis and written by Suha Arraf, this affecting drama depicts the everyday stifling and abuse of Palestinian civilians living under Israeli occupation. It’s set during the time of the second intifada (there’s a curfew in place, and the construction of Israel’s separation wall is underway) and tells the story of Salma Zidane, a poor Palestinian widow living in the West Bank whose home directly faces the much more modern, stylish home of Israeli defense minister Israel Navon and his wife, Mira. In between them exists a beautiful lemon grove that Salma’s late father planted, which she cultivates with the help of Abu Hussam, a surrogate father figure who has helped to take care of both Salma and the grove since her parents’ death. Salma, played by Palestinian actress Hiam Abbas, lives off the proceeds of her lemons, and whenever guests come over, she serves them freshly squeezed juice from the fruits of her grove, which they all remark on. When the defense minister’s secret service deem the grove a threat, a place where Palestinian “terrorists†could potentially hide and launch grenades, Salma receives a letter informing her that it will be uprooted. She takes the matter to court, a case that she fights with the help of a bilingual Hebrew-Arabic Palestinian lawyer, Ziad, who’s willing to do the job pro bono. The judge rules in favor of the defense minister. Until the grove is uprooted, it will be fully encircled by a fence, Salma forbidden from entering. She appeals the decision, taking it all the way to Israel’s supreme court.
Throughout the film, we witness how the fear that permeates Israeli society bears down on the lives and livelihoods of Palestinians. In the opening scene, Salma stands in her lemon grove and looks out through barbed wire and fencing onto Israeli schoolchildren, who play freely on the opposite side of the fence. As the film progresses, security infrastructure measures get tighter and tighter around the minister’s house — more barbed wire, a watchtower, security cameras, sensors, armed soldiers who whip out their guns at the slightest ruffle. And yet, in spite of all this, it’s the grove that must be destroyed, because what if Palestinian snipers hide among the trees? It’s one of the most striking things about the film: the absurdity of declaring something so beautiful and peaceful as a lemon grove “a hostile territory†and its uprooting “an immediate and absolute military necessity.â€
The trees start to wither within a militarized fence as the soil begins to rot, unnourished. Salma sneaks in to water it and to gather fallen lemons, nearly getting shot when a sleepy guard is startled awake. Even when the minister’s staff ventures into the grove to take a few lemons for a housewarming party, she is not allowed near her trees and is attacked by soldiers and secret service. “Trees are like people,†Abu Hussam says in his testimony before the supreme court. “They have souls. They need tender loving care.†The grove comes to symbolize the Palestinian people, literally caged in, slowly deteriorating and withering away as their economy is strangled, starved.
It is telling that Riklis himself served in the IDF during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Israeli director is aware of the havoc and destruction wreaked in the name of self-defense. It is not uncommon for IDF soldiers to speak out after witnessing firsthand the inhumane and undignified conditions that constitute daily life for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (see The Present for an incredibly accurate depiction of these conditions and the humiliation that accompanies innocuous activities, like buying a new refrigerator). In Lemon Tree, this voice of empathy comes from the minister’s wife, Mira. She is constantly peering in through Salma’s windows, trying to gather a semblance of the woman who’s been declared an enemy. In every shot from Mira’s perspective, Salma is gentle, tender, sometimes crying. Mira once climbs the fence and is about to knock on Salma’s door when secret-service agents stop her and tell her it’s dangerous. The two women seem to be experiencing the same kind of loneliness, yet they only meet face-to-face once with no barrier between them. They stand before each other, wordless, and exchange subtle smiles.
In the end, the supreme court rules not to uproot Salma’s entire grove but to prune 50 percent of its trees down to 30 centimeters. Though disappointed, Ziad considers the ruling a small victory, as it sets a precedent — for the first time in Israel’s history, it won’t cut down all the trees, but rather, prune half of them down to shrubs. Still, Salma is crushed. “Your proposal dishonors me,†she tells the judge. “My trees are real. My life is real. You’re already building a wall around us. Isn’t that enough?â€
Lemon Tree was a collaboration between an Israeli director and a Palestinian screenwriter and between Palestinian and Israeli actors, poising it for an exploration of humanity that transcends identity, nationality, or religion. When one side has been as routinely disparaged and misrepresented in the media as Palestinians have, it often takes the underpinning and support of other voices, especially Israeli ones, to legitimize and validate our struggle. And through art, those voices can push through deep-set opinions and biases and force an audience to see a dehumanized population as human beings. Rilkis has said that Palestine is a subject rarely dealt with honestly in Israel, and he suspects the muted reception his film found at home was rooted in reluctance. “I think it was probably a bit too ‘close to home’ for most Israelis and touched on a sensitive issue which many Israelis feel uncomfortable with,†Rilkis explained in an interview three years after the film’s release. But those who have seen the film, he noted, “really understand the basic human conflict and understand the basic situation, which is a struggle over land and a struggle over protecting yourself from a system that’s trying to take something away from you.â€
One of the film’s most powerful scenes comes at the end, as the defense minister sits alone in a dark living room as the blinds rise to reveal a concrete wall, the wall, its construction fully realized. Now, instead of the lemon grove, the minister looks out onto slabs of concrete. The camera pans above the wall and into Salma’s grove, where she walks among the shrubs, illustrating the price of fear. How many lemon groves must be uprooted, how much land stolen and how many homes destroyed, how many children made orphans and how many infants killed in their incubators? Lemon Tree suggests that for an occupying power, no amount of security will make an occupying force feel any safer, any less afraid, any more free.