A Book With Which To Start A Peaceful Democratic Revolution

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Published: Friday, August 30, 2013

Book Review

A Case for Palestine

Abdullah Khan

Before the Zionists came to stake claim on Palestine as ‘a land without people waiting for a people without land’, Palestine was a cosmopolitan, multicultural and multi-religious society with Christians, Muslims and Jews living together peacefully. The creation of Israel in 1948 was the catastrophe for the native Palestinian Christians and Muslims as most of them were either massacred or were forced to flee. Later, in 1967, the Israeli forces occupied whatever was left as the truncated version of Palestine. The interesting part of the story is that despite being the victims of the Israeli atrocities and brutal military occupation, the Palestinians are seen as the antagonist of the Middle East conflict.  The pro-Israeli writers and media managers so far have been able to convince the west that the Palestinians are responsible for the violence in the Middle East. But, things are changing fast as many

The Almond Tree
Michelle Cohen Corasanti
Garnet Publishing (UK)

Palestinians as well as Jewish writers and artists are coming with the Palestinian counter -narratives of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Recently published novel The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Corasanti is going to be a very significant book for changing the way Americans look at the Israel- Palestine issue.  Jewish American Michelle had studied at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. And after spending seven years in Israel, she could know about the Middle Eastern history and was moved by the pathetic conditions of Palestinians under the Israeli occupation. And in order to tell the story of Palestinian people to the world, she decided to write this novel. In her own words, she wanted to shine a light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and show that there was a better way. .
Told in the voice of a gifted Palestinian boy called Ichmad Hamid (read Ahmed Hamid), the novel opens with a heart rendering scene of Ichmad’s little sister running after a butterfly when she is blown to pieces as she steps on a landmine planted by the Israeli forces. Later, Ichmad’s father, Baba, who is an incorrigible believer in the idea of peace and non-violence, is jailed by the Israelis when a cache of arms buried by the Palestinian freedom fighters, is discovered in the backyard of their house. Their humble house is also blasted by the Israeli soldiers making them homeless. In absence of their father, Ichmad and his brother, Abbas, have to work as construction workers for Israelis where a fanatic Jew pushes Abbas from scaffolding making him crippled for the rest of his life. Even, after losing everything and even after facing all the possible adversaries in his life, Ichmad doesn’t give up, and continues to pursue his dream to educate himself. And against all constraints, he succeeds. Abbas on the other hand takes a different route and joins a political group which is fighting against the Israeli occupation.
The Almond Tree is a story of the triumph of human spirit. It is also a story of a man’s unshakeable faith in humanism and his refusal to hate someone who has been the cause of his miseries. The story is spell- binding with universal appeal and has potential of becoming an international bestseller and can do for Palestinians what The Kite Runner did for Afghanistan. It humanises a culture and brings characters from a distant land to life, with a family united by love but divided by their individual beliefs. From Ichmad Hamid’s traditional mother, to his father, Baba, who believes in the power of education, the crux of the family’s story lies in the growing dispute between two brothers, Ichmad and Abbas, who choose very different paths in order to create a new future.
Finally, the message the author wants to convey through this book is how strong the Palestinians and Israelis could be if they worked together to advance humanity. She also wants to remind the Israelis of what Rabbi Hillel (30BC-10AD), one of the greatest rabbis of the Talmudic era had said two millennia ago. Rabbi Hillel had said, ‘That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.’

‘Children of Catastrophe,’ a refugee’s story by Jamal Kanj

Michelle Cohen Corasanti on August 2, 2013

Children of Catastrophe cover art

A review of Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America by Jamal Krayem Kanj.

Children of Catastrophe is an autobiographical story by Jamal Kanj, a descendant of Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their homes in 1948. In 1958, Jamal came into the world in the refugee camp Nahr el Bared in Northern Lebanon. He was his parents’ first child to be born in a room instead of a tent like his older siblings. The story tells of the crude structures that gradually replaced the tents.

Although Jamal came into the world with what we might perceive as the bare minimum, a refugee in a country that did not want his kind, in anything but a stable political environment, throughout his life he had the love and encouragement of an unshakeable family that would do anything for each other. Despite the overwhelming hardships, incredibly his family persevered as a unit under seemingly insurmountable conditions. They faced everything as a solid unit that could not be broken, through thick and thin, his family lived for each other.

Jamal Kanj (photo: Alternate Focus)

Jamal Kanj is an engineer and his style of writing is almost clinical. He is very clear, direct and precise. Reading Children of Catastrophe I experienced what Zionism meant to Jamal and his people, the Palestinians. How one people’s dream became another people’s nightmare. 

So often we only think of our own dreams and desires and not how what we want affects others. As a Jewish American, I was taught that after the Holocaust, the Jews found a “land without a people for a people without a land” and made the desert bloom. When I first went to Israel, an Israeli told me that there were 21 Arab countries and the Palestinians needed to choose one as they didn’t want them in Israel. I had no idea who he was talking about. I thought Palestinian was a synonym for Israeli and referred to the Jews who were in Israel before 1948. I thought it was like Persian and Iranian. How would I know otherwise when I was indoctrinated that we Jews found a land without a people?  All we learned was how Israel was the safe-haven for Jews. We never understood what Zionism meant to the Palestinians. Our entitlement to the land was inculcated into our heads because of the Holocaust even though Palestinians weren’t responsible for the Holocaust. 

As I read his book, I was stung by how people can be so cruel and amazed how resourceful children can be. Here in the US where drinking and drugs are prevalent in our society among our youth, Jamal and his friends were fighting to survive. There was no sense of entitlement or laziness that we experience in the US among many of our youth. Instead I could see the deep desire to improve not only one’s own life, but the lives of one’s family members as well.

I stand in awe of the distance Jamal had to traverse as a refugee to make a new life in America becoming a registered professional engineer in California with graduate and post graduate degrees in civil engineering, management and executive leadership.

In the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el Bared, the brutal environment motivated parents to stress the power of education to excel and succeed in life. With the divorce rate said to be about 50% in our American culture of instant satisfaction, people jump ship when things get difficult. I doubt many couples would remain together when faced with the hardships that Jamal’s parents faced. 

As an American, it’s important to read Jamal Kanj’s story, not just because he is a Palestinian, but a Muslim. With the prevalent Islamophobia in America, it’s vital we not focus on the extremes in any one culture, for we find these cases in every religion and culture. It is more important to see how Muslims face injustice and overcome adversity. 

Unfortunately too often instead of celebrating differences and working together to advance humanity, we focus on our differences and destroy opportunities. At the end of the day, we all belong to the human race. We all want the same things for our children: a safe environment, a place to call home with a roof over our heads, education, freedom, love, happiness, a future, a world in which our children’s worth isn’t judged on their religion, race, color of skin or any other dividing factor, and their basic needs are met. Children of Catastrophe should be required reading for all and I hope one day Kanj's book will become a movie so that people can see what it was like to be a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon.

We need to hear these stories because awareness leads to understanding and understanding leads to change. By reading Jamal Kanj's story, we become aware of ourselves as human beings and the horrors we create for others. We cannot afford to be ignorant to the truth, holding onto fallacies. In the words of Stephen Hawking, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.” Through awareness we can put an end to these great injustices committed against the Palestinians.  No one lives in peace when we condemn others to misery.   



(Michelle Cohen Corasanti is the author of The Almond Tree)