Lemon Tree is an Arabic and Hebrew foreign language film based on real events.
The film centers on it's main character, a widowed Palestinian woman fighting a court case against Israel's Defence Minister. Said Minister is her neighbour by way of the separation wall and is responsible for destroying her family farm and lemon tree grove.
The film revolves around many Palestinian-Israeli themes including the separation wall, biased Israeli government action and gender inequality.
Synopsis
Lemon Tree centres around Salma Zidane who lives alone in her house along the Israeli-Palestinian border.
The film starts with the Israeli Defence Minister (Israel Navon) relocating his residence to the Israeli side of of the fence opposite of Salma's house.
Both the minister and the Israeli Secret Service view the Palestinian woman as a threat to the Minister and his wife. They quite needlessly fortify the Minister's house and create a military guard posting pointing towards Salma's house (a house and farmland that Salma's family has owned and cared for generations).
They force her off her own lemon grove, obtain warrants to uproot her trees and threaten to kill her if she even walks onto her own backyard.
After much intimidation Salma seeks advice and legal aid from a young Palestinian lawyer.
The remainder of the film focuses on Salma's court case and depicts the countless hoops and irregularities she - a Palestinian woman - has to go through to even get her case looked over.
Important Themes
Lemon Tree is a very powerful and well-produced film. It touches on many topics associated with Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Most specifically, the film speaks to the real-life incident that involved Shaul Mofaz who was the Israeli Defence Minister from 1998-2002. He argued that the lemon groves could be potential hiding places for terrorists and constantly demeaned the family living across from him.
Eventually the case the family filed against the Minister made it to the Israeli Supreme Court, where it was defeated and the trees were to be cut down. This example describes just how biased the Israeli judicial system is. Depicting how Palestinians are constantly painted as aggressors to crimes with heinous allegations.
With crimes being described as simply existing and owning land.
Even today the United Nations views the establishment of Israeli settlements along the West Bank as being illegal. And yet, Palestinians are the ones who are typically viewed as the intruders.
Moreover, Lemon Tree also touches on issues pertaining to women's rights in the region.
A survey carried out by the Knesset Research and Information Center measured perceptions of personal security among residents of Israel.
Results found that Palestinian women were by far the most vulnerable group. With 73% of Palestinian women fearing discrimination and potential abuse because of their Arab identity.
Palestinian women live in constant fear and this fear is not misguided as Samah Salaime, a writer and social worker who describes to Al-Jazeera correspondents:
"These days, it is enough for a Jewish man to say a woman has a knife in her bag. That's what happened in Lyd. When Fauzya Jamal was attacked, they called the police and the police beat up the woman and her daughter in front of everybody. When they searched her, they didn't find anything in her bag."
There have been countless incidents like this that have occurred. Many of which have been caught on camera with little to no consequences put on the perpetrators. Which has led to the Arab population to loose security and trust in the system.
Conclusion
All in all Lemon Tree is a fantastic film that outlines the injustice and maltreatment Palestinian women face throughout the Israeli-Palestinian region.
The film does a good job of speaking to the real-life court case, even though the film is a fictional account of the case.
Lemon Tree is an example of a film that tells a riveting story based on a real-life account.
It is a film that successfully touches on many concerning issues facing Arab women, from their own communities, the Israeli government and the Israeli justice system.
