Michelle Cohen Corasanti's debut novel, The Almond Tree, follows the child prodigy Ichmad/Ahmad from childhood to adulthood and maps out his evolution from hatred and fear to forgiveness. Literature on the the Palestinian conflict that is not pro-Israel has been something I've been looking for for quite some time, so I was very happy when I was given this book. While I could talk about the actual elements of the story I did and didn't like, as I do with most of my reviews, this book was a book about socio-political issues; thus, I feel it only fair to talk about it not from the lens of an objective critic of style, characterization, and pace, but about its themes and views on the real-life events taking place in Palestine.

The most impacting and important part of this book, to me, was its depiction of not only the clashing ideologies of Jews and Palestinians, but of the opposing beliefs within each culture. Cohen-Corasanti uses Ahmad and his brother, Abbas, to explore the paths of forgiveness and self-righteous hatred, respectively. Ahmad follows his father's example of trying to find the root of the Israeli people's hatred and transcend it through commonality, to achieve peace. In contrast, Abbas grows bitter towards the oppression he and his family deal with daily and becomes aligned with radical extremist forces as he grows up. The two of them take totally different trajectories, and thus Corasanti is able to delve into their relationship and present a lot of the issues people have when talking about the Palestinian conflict, or any sort of mass social injustice: how do we respond appropriately? What is justified?

Michelle never portrays Abbas as out of his mind; his anger his pretty reasonable, and his arguments even bring our protagonist Ahmad to question his beliefs. Rather, she points to the methods that he uses as his fault and - coincidentally, the cause of a terrible tragedy. I think this is such an important discussion for people to have and to learn about so that they can make it a part of their outlook when responding to injustices they face, be they big oppressive regimes or small interpersonal struggles. More often than not it is our actions, not our intentions, that lead us astray, and I really love Michelle Cohen-Corasanti for really delving into that and making that a forefront of her novel.

The book did, however, suffer from some hard-to-stomach issues. Michelle Cohen-Corasanti is a Jewish-American who visited Israel and lived there for seven years, witnessing events that lead her to create this story. She said once in an interview that she hoped to show Palestinians and Israelis overcoming their differences and working towards a greater future for all of humanity. While this is a noble pursuit that I laud her for, I do have some qualms, most of which the lovely Susan Abulhawa summed up in her review of this novel here: [x].

As Teju Cole states, "The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege." While I wouldn't say there is any part of this novel where the author attempts to validate Israeli or Jewish claims, there are instances where it seems she did not fully research and implanted her own biases in the work. For example, Cohen-Corasanti gets the etymological history of the name "Ichmad" all wrong, as Susan elaborates:

" Even Palestinian reviewers who liked this book couldn't stomach this Israelised version. Cohen-Corasanti claims "Ichmad" is an authentic pronounciation in the Triangle. I am familiar with the fellahi dialect in Um-el-Fahm, Taybeh and other Palestinian villages that make up the Triangle. No one pronounces Ahmad with "Ich" sound.

In fact, "Ichmad" is a form of an Arabic verb meaning to suffocate or subdue. Had the author consulted with a Palestinian or Arabic linguist, she'd have known that. But, according to her, in the seven years that it took to write this novel, she hired six editors: five Jewish, one Christian Fundamentalist, and all clearly lacking expertise in her subject matter. That alone speaks to the carelessness and arrogance with which Cohen-Corasanti approached Palestinian lives. That she did not conceive of hiring a Palestinian editor gives a lie to her avowed values of equality and partnership."

I don't believe Cohen-Corasanti was intentionally racist or orientalist in her depictions of characters or the plight they found themselves in. While some critics like Susan look on in disdain at characters such as Nora, I have a more middle-ground approach. I agree with many critics of the work who found Nora to be the epitome of the "white savior" trope; she is described as wholly unrealistically beautiful and perfectly selfless. This depiction of a white Jewish-American woman was probably not a wise choice for this novel, but I believe the thematic element that Nora was supposed to embody was important. She, like Babba, represented the ability of kindness and goodness to blossom in people regardless of their situations or privilege. She was made to be perfect because she was supposed to represent the inability to judge all Jews - just like you can't judge all Palestinians - simply on their racial or ethnic heritage. In fact, the author went on to say in an interview that she created Nora to be "everything [she] had not been when I was there [in Palestine]." For those reasons, I give Nora a pass.

However, despite the fact that this theme was something I picked up on (and believe is important), the audience that this book is reaching is probably not having any difficulties humanizing the Israelis. This book was made by and read by (largely) western audiences, who statistically favor Israel in this long-lasting conflict. For this reason, I think the saintly character of Babba is much more easily explainable than Nora, simply because the humanization of the Palestinians is what is needed more urgently if we examine this novel through a socio-political lens. This, coupled with other biased ideas like the ludicrous idea that a Palestinian in the West Bank could enter Jerusalem (much less go to the Hebrew University there on a scholarship) show that despite Cohen-Corasanti's noble intentions, this novel is unfortunately wholly unrealistic.

While I believe Cohen-Corasanti legitimately wanted to help the Palestinian people with this novel, I think she only succeeded in doing it halfway. Because at the end of the day, this book is commandeering a narrative from a people and shoe-horning it into a comfortable liberal worldview, where westernized education is the key to success. I don't think the author should be held accountable for the ways in which people can use this book to reinforce their stereotypes about the region (like the supposed "backwardness" of the culture, as depicted by Ahmad's mother and siblings, etc.); the ways in which people take a persons creation and use it are not entirely the fault of the creator. However, I also question Cohen-Corasanti's ability to write about the deep historical, social, and political strife that she has neither had to live through or had to inherit. She has no firsthand experience about the humiliation and degradation Palestinians feel as refugees in their own ancient homelands. Much like the aforementioned Abbas, I believe her intentions to be good; however, the action is more problematic than one would like.

I don't know. This sort of issue is one I have a lot of internal turmoil over. On one hand, I don't believe you can lack the qualifications to write fiction, and I think that a person's intentions are more important than the effects of their naïvete. On the other hand, I also do believe people should take responsibility for not foreseeing the implications of their good intentions. And a part of me really does wonder about whether a person can write about an oppression they have not experienced with any sort of care. I know I may not touch it with a ten-foot pole, but my morals aren't everyones.

I guess for me, that's part of why I liked this book so much; figuring out my opinions on the book and the author's views forced me to continue to try and reconcile these opposing arguments in my head, which I feel have equal merit. As I stated in the beginning, this book really does take some of those western liberal views and call them into question, which I think is a wonderful thing. And if nothing else, I think this book will help staunch supporters of the Israeli state call in to question their reasoning behind that, and force them to see Palestinians as less of a threat and more as a hurting people crying out for justice. As Abbas says,

"It's much easier to kill extremists, or just turn a blind eye to their endless suffering." [p.319]

Considering the audience that I suspect will pick this novel up, that will be a good thing, indeed.