"Lemon Tree" rehearses a phenomenon all too familiar in the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- the seizure of Arab property by the Israeli government. It's usually olive trees and the path of the Israeli security fence. Here it's a 50-year-old lemon grove across the road from the new home of Israel's defense minister. It pits a widowed Palestinian woman against the Israeli security apparatus, which is determined to protect the minister against the possibility of a terrorist attack. The main thing that's wrong with this premise is that an incoming defense minister is not going to build his house on the border (and the wife of the Defense Minister is not likely to leave him because the lemon grove is destroyed and she has developed an emotional connection with the Arab woman). There are any number of possible scenarios which could have made the confrontation entirely plausible, equally dramatic and far more realistic. It would have been better (in my view) if there had been a legitimate dilemma between the property rights of the Palestinian woman and the security needs of the Israeli authorities. Although I sympathized with the Palestinian woman as was intended, the situation was entirely too contrived. The director could have made the same film based on one the all- too-many actual incidents which have occurred.
Review of Lemon Tree
