Based on some of the reviews online, I realised that a white woman’s perspective on freedom struggles and resistance movements (in this case the Israeli-Palestine conflict) is scrutinised sharply to an extent of dismissing it as a skewed viewpoint, a portrayal, which is away from the truth. Why do you think it happens, is it a fair assessment in so far your book is concerned? Susan Abulhawa, for instance, says it’s “neoliberal white supremacy cloaked in sympathy and pseudo-solidarity” (I have read your response to her as well) Do you feel a white woman’s voice lacks ‘empathy’?

For me, this conflict is not about one’s skin color, nationality, or religion. It’s about being human. I am the almond tree.I wrote about the burden that comes with awareness that I carry with me every day. I am a witness and I wrote this novel because silence should never be an answer to violence. I put myself in the shoes of the many Palestinians I grew up with and loved during the seven years I lived in Israel and the years afterwards. I witnessed and heard their stories. I have never forgotten their voices; their stories are a part of my story and helped me to write ‘The Almond Tree’.
I returned to the US after living in Israel for seven years during high school and college, my innocence shattered, desperate to stop the needless suffering caused by the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. At the time, no one cared or even believed me. I thought, as an American, I would re-acclimate easily into US life, but that wasn’t the case. Having witnessed what I had, it was hard to talk about guys, what to wear and what parties to attend. After a year in graduate school, I still hadn’t met a friend I could relate to until I met Ahmed (not his real name).We had graduated from the same college in Jerusalem. We knew many of the same people and had lived in the same dorms. I was doing my masters and he, his post-doctorate in chemical physics jointly with a Nobel Prize winner and his Israeli professor. I finally felt at home. We had come from the same world, or so it felt at the time.
Ahmed, whose father went to prison when he was a child and wasn’t released until he was in graduate school, became the breadwinner at an early age, picking fruit to support his family. He was the oldest of nine and so brilliant that he could attend school infrequently and still graduate and receive a needs-based scholarship to Hebrew University. Yes, Israel does give scholarships to Palestinians inside Israel. In fact, the Koenig Report that was leaked to the press in1976 revealed recommendations to encourage Palestinian intellectuals in Israel to study the sciences so they would have less time to dabble in nationalism. With degrees in science, it would be easier for them to find work abroad and nearly impossible for them to find high-level scientific jobs in Israel since military service is almost always a prerequisite. In fact,I met and was friends with many Palestinian post-docs from Israel both in the US and in Europe.
Ahmed was from a world far different than the one I grew up in, but it was a world I understood, that continues to shape the woman I am today. We were married in Ahmed’s village and lived there for the summer. I had been to many Palestinian villages before, but as his wife I was one of the family.
In writing The Almond Tree,I focused on the glimmer of hope in his story: Ahmed and his Israeli professor who worked together. I didn’t write Ahmad, my former husband’s story, but it was a seed for my novel. The Almond Tree is influenced by the many Palestinians lives I witnessed and stories I heard. I didn’t write about the West Bank. I never lived there. I lived inside of Israel like my characters.
From past experience, I knew that if I told the truth, that it would sound too incredible. People would say I was making it up. I needed to be able to show, yes that really did happen. It is a story I carried in my heart for over a decade before I found the strength and the way to tell it. During the seven years it took me to write the novel, I revisited my days in Israel during the first Intifada, my marriage, the stories my Palestinian friends had shared with me and those I had seen, I drew fromall of these real events for the novel.
President Obama told an auditorium of Jewish Israelis that the conflict would not be resolved until they could put themselves in Palestinian shoes. Why? I believe because he knows it creates empathy. And in writing The Almond Tree, I have tried to walk in their shoes so as to help my readers do the same.