A few snippets from The Lemon Tree:

Ramallah, 1967
At the edges of town stood the concrete dwellings and narrow, refuse-strewn lanes of the UNRWA refugee camps. Each year, the UN refugee agency was required to submit a budget for renewed funding. Receiving long-term funds or building more permanent-looking houses would imply a UN admission that the refugees were not going home.

November 1966
Israeli planes, tanks and troops attacked the West Bank village of Samu, blowing up dozens of houses and killing twenty-one Jordanian soldiers.

President Johnson assured King Hussein of Jordan of his disapproval:
"Regarding your Majesty's concern that Israel's policy has changed and that Israel now intends to occupy territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River, we have good reason to believe it is highly unlikely that that events you fear will in fact occur. Should Israel adopt the policies you fear it would have the gravest consequences."

June 7, 1967
On the morning of June 7, Bashir and his family woke up to a city under military occupation. Israeli soldiers were shouting through bullhorns, demanding that white flags be hung outside houses, shops and apartment buildings; already balconies and windows fluttered with t-shirts and handkerchiefs.

Bashir was in shock from the surreal and the familiar. Another retreating Jordanian army was replaced by another occupying Israeli force. In 1948, Bashir thought, we lost 78 percent of our land. And now all of Palestine is under occupation....Perhaps most shocking of all, was that East Jerusalem, and the Old City with its holy sites, was now in the hands of the Israelis.
...
Strangely though, in the midst of occupation and the utter failure of the Arab regime, a sense of freedom was emerging; a notion that Palestinians were suddenly free to think and act for themselves. In the weeks after the occupation, Bashir began to believe that his people would go back to their homeland only through the sweat and blood of armed struggle. He was far from alone in this assessment.


The book was written because the author found two families whose lives were intertwined by their residence in one house--built by Ahmad Khairi for his family, and claimed in 1948 by Moshe and Solia, a Jewish couple from Bulgaria. Nineteen years after they were expelled, Bashir Khairi and his cousins crossed the Green Line to see their house, which they managed to do with the help of Moshe's daughter, Dalia. Upon his return to Ramallah, Bashir faced his family.


In the morning the family was waiting. Bashir took his time, recounting every moment of the journey with his cousins. Everyone pumped Bashir with questions-everyone, that is, except Ahmad, who remained quiet while the others demanded a replay of Bashir's every step, his every touch of stone. Did the light still stream in through the south windows in the afternoon? Were the pillars on the gate still standing straight? Was the front gate still painted olive green? Was the paint chipping? "If it still is," Zakia said, "when you go back you can bring a can of paint to make it new again, Bashir; you can bring shears and cut the grass growing up along the stone path. How is the lemon tree, does it look nice? Did you bring the fruit?...You didn't? Did you rub the leaves and smell them, did your fingers smell like fresh-cut lemons? How were the strones of the house, were they still and tough to the touch?...What else Bashir, what else? Please don't leave anything out."

Throughout the interrogation, Ahmad had been still as a mountain, his eyes watering. Abruptly he stood, pushing back his chair. Tears streaked his face as he left the kitchen and walked down the hallway. All eyes followed Ahmad, but no one dared call him back. He closed the bedroom door.
"God forgive you, my son," Zakia said. "You have opened our wounds again."