Title: The Almond Tree
Publisher: Garnet Publishing Limited
Year: 2012
ISBN: 978-1859643297
Pages: 352
RRP: £7.99
Author: Michelle Cohen Corasanti
Reviewed by: Abdul Hamid (Journalist, Leicester)
The Almond Tree is Michelle Cohen Corasanti’s debut novel. The story is a
moving account of Palestinian peoples’ life in their ancestral homeland ravaged
by the illegal occupation by Israel. Ms Corasanti is an American Jewish academic
specialising in Middle Eastern studies, widely travelled, and she has lived in
several countries including a long seven year stint studying in Israel, where she
lived in a virtual bubble among the Israeli society with hardly any interaction with
the Palestinian people. She was brought up in a strict household with a strong
Zionist background in the USA, where the propaganda against Palestine is
rampant. Fear of Palestinians is instilled by the Zionist lobby groups using
government officials and the media. Right-wing Christians also pay their part,
under the belief that Jews need to be in Israel for the second coming of Christ.
Although published as a work of fiction, The Almond Tree is woven with the
reality of the situation on the ground in the Holy Land. The author is unflinching
in her expose of Palestinians as victims and the militarised regime of Israel. The
story is told through the voice of the novel’s protagonist Ichmad Hamid, a
Palestinian mathematics genius, who lives in a modest house with his parents and
siblings in an unnamed village in the West Bank. A village typical of most villages
up and down historic Palestine whose lands are slowly being encroached upon by
the Israeli military and surrounded by illegal settlements.
The year 1955 when Ichmad turns 12, the family’s life takes a turn towards a
series of disasters. Through the stifled voice of Ichmad, the family’s life story is
told with a harrowing and heart wrenching series of death, disposition, abject
poverty and humiliation imposed on the family on a daily basis by Israel’s
discriminatory apartheid-like policies. The village is constantly raided by soldiers,
some as young as 17 years old. Curfews are imposed and sometimes randomly
brought forward on the whim of the soldiers. During one of the incursions a
young boy is shot dead for throwing a stone.
Ichmad says:
“When curfew ended, I ran to the outpost and waited six hours under brutal sun
before they granted me a permit to bury my sister.”
They suffer constant demolition of their modest homes, and they eventually end
up living in a tent gifted by their uncle, next to the Almond Tree, which becomes
their ‘home’ for many years. Ichmad and Abbas give up their schooling and start
working, building settler houses earning pittance, just enough for survival. Their
father jailed, Ichmad becomes the head of the family and along with his younger
brother, Abbas elk out a meagre existence, putting bread on the table. et another tragedy occurs when Abbas is pushed down scaffolding by a Jewish
labourer and rendering him partially disabled.
The redeeming part of the novel is Ichmad’s brilliant mind in science and maths
which propels him into prominence, when he wins an Israeli maths competition.
This gives him a place to study at a Hebrew university and eventually the chance
to become a researcher into magnetic anisotropy, professorship in top US
universities and together with his Israeli colleague shares the top accolade for
physics. But his academic journey isn’t without struggles; facing racism and other
personal tragedies, eventually he is able to provide his family with a decent
lifestyle. However, he is estranged from his brother Abbas, who accuses him of
collaboration with the enemy of his people.
The most poignant part of the novel is the confrontation between Ichmad and his
brother Abbas, both defending the opposing positions they hold on the on-going
Palestinian efforts towards peace, equality and justice. Ichmad visits Abbas and
his family in Gaza, hoping to coax Abbas and his family to move out, arguing that
they are not safe there. But Abbas feels fully committed to the Palestinian
resistance cause and in any case he would not be allowed to leave Gaza.
This is an important book – another voice of reasoning adding to the discourse
that for Israelis to have security they must leave the West Bank and stop the
blockade of Gaza. They must stop the illegal settlements. Stop demolition of
Palestinian homes and confiscation of their farms and animals. Get rid of the
permit system (which restricts travel, hospital visits and even burying the dead),
remove all check points, and stop stealing Palestinian water and other natural
resources. The Almond Tree renders this message throughout its narrative. For
anyone who wants to learn about the life and the tragedy of the Palestinians, The
Almond Tree will provide them with this and also expose Israel’s systematic
ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and the many wars which have ravaged the
holy land – once a peaceful home for Muslims, Jews and Christians.
Read the original review on FOA.ORG.UK
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