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

Sheikh Mustafa Khairi and other refugees arrived in Ramallah on trucks provided by King Abdullah’s Arab Legion. He found Ahmad and Zakia living in a single rented room near the Quaker School with their 10 children. In July 1948, Ramallah, formerly a quiet Christian town, was turned into “a depository of misery and trauma” (86). Refugees crowded everywhere, and the conditions were appalling. People lived close to starvation and with insufficient water supplies. Zakia had to sell her jewelry to buy basic food supplies for the family. The men were often in a state of humiliation and despair, while the women did what they could to help their families, standing in line at food distribution centers provided by the Red Cross and King Abdullah of Transjordan. Bashir’s family felt humiliated when Bashir’s father couldn’t even afford to offer his friends a cup of coffee—a common form of hospitality for Arab men. The UN envoy, Count Folke Bernadotte, asked countries to donate food to displaced Palestinians—a figure later determined to be 750,000 people.

The refugees felt betrayed by John Bagot Glubb, the Arab Legion commander, and he later admitted that he had not foreseen the humanitarian disaster that would result from his inability to defend Lydda and al-Ramla when he was already defending a position in Latrun. However, the fault of the situation lay more with London than with Glubb, as the British had enforced the UN arms embargo and had not resupplied the Arab Legion. The refugees also felt betrayed by King Abdullah, who, according to Khairi family lore, offered Sheikh Mustafa a place in Amman but rescinded the invitation when Sheikh Mustafa asked if he could bring all the people of al-Ramla. The king was besieged by refugees and turned demonstrators away in Amman.

Although the refugees held out hope of returning, Israel, still at war with several Arab nations, was opposed to it, even after a truce was declared in June 1948. In a report to the International Red Cross, Israel wrote that the Arab residents had left without being forced or deported. In al-Ramla itself, the remaining Arabs, most of whom were Christian, were locked inside a fenced-in area. The soldiers in Battalion Eighty-Nine looted the areas of al-Ramla and Lydda (which became Lod). Some Arabs tried to return to harvest their lands, but the Israeli Defense Forces ordered Jews to tend to the Arab lands. Lands that could not be tended in time to save the harvest were destroyed. Local kibbutzim took control of the lands.

As the refugees in Ramallah continued to face severe malnutrition, countries responded to Count Bernadotte’s request to send food and other supplies. Count Bernadotte still supported a division of Palestine into Israel and an Arab state that would be administered by Jordan (the nation dropped the “Trans” from its name after the war). He was shot and killed in Jerusalem, and the Stern Gang claimed responsibility for his murder. The Israeli Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion, detained members of the Stern Gang (which was led in part by future prime minister Yitzhak Shamir) and dismantled the other militia, the Irgun (led by another future prime minister, Menachem Begin), effectively consolidating all the militias under his power. Irgun became the political party Herut, which later formed the Likud Party.

Ahmad and Zakia moved their family to Gaza, a thin strip of land on the Mediterranean in which 200,000 refugees had settled, creating crowded conditions. Supplies had to be shipped into the area via the adjacent Sinai Peninsula, and Israeli and Egyptian forces clashed nearby. King Farouk of Egypt was fighting not only to gain territory within Israel but also to fend off the territorial ambitions of King Abdullah of Jordan.

In Resolution 194, the UN declared that refugees had the right to return to their homes, but it could not enforce this resolution. Instead, the UN created UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to help the refugees find houses and jobs in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank. UNRWA built cinder-block structures and provided the refugees with just enough calories to survive. Ahmad worked to construct wicker furniture and was paid in extra rations of food, and the family even asked permission from Sheikh Mustafa for their women to work—something they would have never considered before. When permission was granted, Zakia and her daughters embroidered and knit to make money. Zakia even removed her veil. The refugees yearned to return home, and Bashir and his friends played games that involved mock battles between Jews and Arabs. In early 1949, the family received news that Sheikh Mustafa had died of a heart attack in Jericho, although Bashir would later say otherwise: “But really, it was from a broken heart” (99).

After Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq signed armistices with Israel in 1949, Israel controlled 78% of Palestine. King Abdullah finished annexing the West Bank, angering Palestinian nationalists, and he was shot in 1951 by a nationalist who had ties to Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Leaders in Egypt and Syria were also slain, and Egypt suppressed any political expression in Gaza. In Gaza, two governments existed: an Egyptian authority, which imposed martial law, and UNRWA. The agency still struggled to adequately clothe people. At the UNRWA school, Bashir and his siblings attended, they learned the history of the Nakba, and at the beginning of each day, they would recite “Palestine is our country / Our aim is to return” (100).

Meanwhile, Israel refused to accept the UN’s resolution. In the refugee camps, the Muslim Brotherhood, a group from Egypt, and the Communist Party held secret meetings concerning the armed struggle to secure al-Awda (return). In 1953, Palestinian guerrillas attacked a family in Israel, and two weeks later, an IDF soldier named Ariel Sharon led his troops in an attack that killed 19 people in a refugee camp.

As Bashir matured into his teenage years, he became the dominant figure among his siblings, and he continued to concentrate on return. The political figure who best expressed Palestinian nationalism was Gamal Abdel Nassar, installed as president of Egypt after the British and King Farouk were expelled. His promise of uniting the Arab world appealed to Bashir.

In 1957, Ahmad and Zakia decided to return to Ramallah, in the West Bank of what was now Jordan, with their family. When they were on the plane, Ahmad fainted, and the captain said he was dead. However, when Bashir told his father to wake up, he did, and a sibling later referred to the incident as “the miracle touch of Bashir” (103).

When Moshe and Solia Eshkenazi arrived in Ramla in November 1948, it was a ghost town. They chose a stone house with an open floor plan, and there they celebrated Dalia’s first birthday in December. They were given basic supplies, and Solia’s mother, brother, two sisters, and brother-in-law prepared to leave Bulgaria to come live with them. The families would go on to sign agreements with the state, which acted as the custodian for the house and said it had been abandoned. The former residents’ belongings were taken away and liquidated, and some immigrants found jobs preparing the houses for new arrivals.

Jobs were scarce at first, and farmers struggled to harvest crops without Arab labor. Moshe worked for the Jewish Agency, delivering beds to immigrants. As more immigrants arrived, people found ways to use their skills to work. Solia opened a shop in the old Arab ghetto and later found employment with the new tax authority. Dalia’s aunt, Stella, opened a beauty shop in her bedroom, and when her sister, Dora, opened a shop in an old Arab storefront, Stella worked alongside her. Yitzhak Yitzhaki paid the family, which still believed him dead, a surprise visit. He also now worked for the Jewish Agency, settling immigrants from different countries in Israel. By this time, Moshe worked for the Custodian of Abandoned Properties, helping immigrants fix their new houses. The Israeli government labeled the former residents “absentees.”

When the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, formed in 1949, it passed various laws, including a law requiring mandatory army service. It also passed the Law of Return, allowing any Jew the right of Israeli citizenship if they wanted to settle there. This was a source of anger among Arabs. Ben-Gurion announced the construction of settlements, and the flood of migrants into Ramla created the need for more jobs and a police force.

The Arabs who remained in Ramla were held as prisoners of war and were not allowed to harvest their fields, which were often destroyed. Even when the Arabs were allowed to return home, they were subjected to martial law. Their homes were occupied by immigrants, and their lands were turned over to kibbutzim. They were designated “present absentees” by the Israeli government.

Dalia’s family lived through the time of “the tsena, or scarcity” (111), by having their own henhouse, as the government required people to help raise their own food. Israel, swamped with immigrants, had to import 85% of its food and was facing an economic boycott by Arab nations. Egypt also imposed a blockade on cargo through the Suez Canal. A ministry rationed and delivered food to Israelis.

As Dalia grew up, her father rose in the local branch of the Custodian of Abandoned Properties, and her aunts ran their beauty salon. She noticed that some of the European immigrants, Holocaust survivors, seemed “almost beyond reach” (113). Her faith in God was tested by her knowledge of what had happened during the Holocaust, and she often internally railed against God for the atrocities that God had allowed. Learning about the role of Christian churches in the history of Jewish persecution, she also felt conflicted about Christianity. However, when she went to a local monastery for piano lessons, she felt the serenity of the place and developed what she called “discernment,” or appreciating someone or something as a whole. Dalia was taught that the Arabs had abandoned their houses, but she wondered why they would have willingly done so.

In 1956, war broke out as Nasser’s Egypt took control of the Suez Canal and closed off the Straits of Tiran, Israel’s only connection to parts of Africa. The British and French joined Israel in blocking Egypt’s move, but the US and Soviet Union demanded that they stop. At this point, Israel had repulsed Egypt from the Straits of Tiran, but Egypt still controlled the canal.

Dalia noticed that in playing, some of her friends tried to ostracize Sephardim, or mizrahi, the darker-skinned Jews from the Arab world, until she put an end to it. The mizrahi were newer immigrants, and they felt that the Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe had taken the good jobs. Many Sephardic immigrants were put to work for the Jewish National Fund, planting forests. This work involved demolishing the former homes of Arabs, who, Israel feared, might try to cross the border to return to their houses.

The Sephardic and Ashkenazi immigrants were taught to emulate the Sabra, or the native-born Israeli, mythologized as brave and strong: “Sabra came from the Hebrew word tzabar: a cactus fruit, thorn-covered but sweet inside” (118). The Sabra was a direct refutation of the stereotype of the diaspora Jew, who was seen as cowardly. Many immigrants wore khaki to emulate the Sabra, but for many, including Holocaust survivors, this ideal was unattainable. Ben-Gurion famously referred to them as “human dust.” The Sephardim also found this ideal unattainable, while many Ashkenazis considered Sephardic Jews “‘savage’ and ‘primitive’” (120). Dalia thought of her own mother as “an uprooted tree that couldn’t take to the soil” (120): While Moshe thrived in the new country, his wife became quieter as she worked in the national tax office.

After Dalia graduated from high school in 1966, she planned to enroll at Tel Aviv University to study English. The Israeli army had recruited her into its officer training program. Though life had achieved some degree of normalcy, there were rumblings of new trouble with the Arab states. As Israel had made it clear that Palestinians could never return, many believed that their only hope lay in armed struggle, and they were encouraged by Nasser’s Pan-Arab nationalism, by the Arab Nationalist Movement, and by the newly formed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

In 1967, Bashir Khairi was working in Ramallah on the West Bank (then controlled by Jordan) as a labor lawyer after having graduated from Cairo University Law School. Ramallah was still the site of UNRWA refugee camps, as the UN agency did not want to build more permanent structures that would imply that the situation was more than temporary in nature. Bashir had come to believe that only force would allow the Palestinians to return to their land. As Bashir made a statement for his client, a young man dashed into the courtroom and whispered in his ear.

The Palestinian refugees had at first hoped Israel would allow them to return, and then they hoped the UN resolution advocating the right of return would have an effect. By 1967, they put their hope in armed struggle, and they looked to Nasser, the leader of Egypt. Nasser, who had nationalized the Suez Canal, had become part of the movement of “non-aligned” nations—those who did not formally side with either the US or the Soviet Union amid the ongoing Cold War—and he championed the Palestinian cause, sparking their hope that return was near.

As a student, Bashir had supported the Arab Nationalist Movement led by George Habash, who had fled Lydda and whose sister had been killed by Israeli soldiers in 1948. The Palestine Liberation Organization and Habash urged Nasser to declare war on Israel, but he said the time was not right. At the same time, Jewish immigrants were settling in the Negev (the desert region of southern Israel). Some Palestinians, among them Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir (also known as Abu Jihad), joined a growing guerrilla movement known as Fatah, believing Arab states would not help them.

In 1965, Fatah guerrillas planned to place explosives along the Sea of Galilee, but Lebanese security forces foiled this plan even before it had started. In 1965 and 1966, Fatah and another group called Abtal-al-Awda (Heroes of Return) launched attacks on isolated targets in Israel. In November 1966, Israel attacked the West Bank town of Samu, to the chagrin of the US, which felt that Israel should have attacked Soviet-backed Syria instead of the American ally Jordan. King Hussein of Jordan was in a vulnerable position, fearing an Israeli attack on the West Bank and a revolt at home. There was pressure on him to appear more militant in his approach to Israel. While Egypt and Syria were decidedly in favor of Arab unity, Hussein was in danger of seeming too close to Israel.

Tensions were also growing in Syria’s Golan Heights. There was mortar fire exchanged between Syria and Israel, and Israelis shot down six Syrian jets in April 1967. Hussein chose this moment to strengthen his image, and he urged Egypt to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, shutting off access to the Red Sea and Africa. While Nasser did not want war, he felt public pressure to act. On May 15, he sent troops into the Sinai and later ordered the UN troops out of the region. Israel massed its own troops on the Sinai border. On May 22, 1967, Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to Israel.

Dalia Eshkenazi, then 19, responded to the war by taping black construction paper onto her windows, and the police painted over headlights so that they would not be visible to aircraft. She recalled the time as a “collective fear of annihilation” (129).

Abba Eban, the Israeli foreign minister, sent diplomatic missions to Washington, London, and Paris. The Americans believed that Nasser’s actions were merely defensive and a political gambit. However, Hussein began to think that war was inevitable and signed a defense pact with Nasser. The US considered sending an American and British convoy through the Straits of Tiran as a show of force, but US generals discouraged the idea, believing it would result in war. Even as Israel sent troops to the Sinai, US analysts believed Nasser was only bluffing.

However, the Voice of Cairo radio program taunted Israel to strike, and it did so on June 5 in the Sinai, the Nile Delta, and Cairo. News of this attack was the message Bashir received in court, and the proceedings halted as a result. The Voice of Cairo informed Bashir and his family that Egypt was winning. Later, Bashir would reflect, “We thought the victory was in our hands” (136). In reality, Nasser’s air force had been destroyed while still on the tarmac. Though Israel had informed Jordan that it would not be attacked if it stayed out of the fighting, Jordan launched attacks on Israel. By mid-afternoon on June 5, the air forces of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt had been destroyed: “The Six Day War was essentially decided in six hours” (137). By June 6, the Jordanians had evacuated from the West Bank. As Bashir watched, Ramallah fell to Israel on June 6.

As Dalia and her family felt a sense of reprieve, Bashir and his family woke up on June 7 to the city under Israeli occupation. Israel had captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. Two hundred thousand Palestinians were displaced, and 10,000 streamed into Ramallah. Israeli judges took over the courts, and Arab lawyers would no longer report to work as part of a strike that Bashir had organized. Civil conflicts were decided outside of the courts.

In the war’s aftermath, Bashir felt certain that Palestinians could rely only on themselves and that they had to regain their lands through armed struggle. The Fatah forces grew, and a new group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) formed, led by George Habash. As Israeli soldiers fanned out across the entire occupied West Bank, the Green Line along the old West Bank and Israel was less heavily defended, allowing Palestinians to slip back into their old homeland. That is how Bashir and his cousins managed to get to the Jerusalem bus station in 1967 and return to al-Ramla.