It stars Hiam Abbass, Ali Suliman, Danny Leshman, Rona Lipaz-Michael, Tarik Kopty, Amos Lavi, Lana Zreik and Amnon Wolf.

[2] The film describes the legal efforts of a Palestinian widow to stop the Israeli Defense Minister, her next door neighbor, from destroying the lemon trees in her family farm.

The Israeli Secret Service views the neighboring lemon grove of Salma Zidane (Hiam Abbass), a Palestinian widow whose family has cared for the area for generations, as a threat to the minister and his wife.

The local village elder Abu Kamal (Makram Khoury) advises her to give in, but Salma decides to work with the young lawyer Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman) and a tenderness grows between the two lonely people.

Director Eran Riklis covered personal relationships between Arabs and Middle Eastern Jews in his previous films The Syrian Bride and Cup Final.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz moved to the border within Israel and the occupied territories and security forces began cutting down the lemon trees beside his house, arguing that it could be used by terrorists as a hiding place.

[4] It was shot in the cities of Qalqilya and Ramallah and the Jalazone refugee camp as well on location at and around the Supreme Court of Israel building in Sha'arey Mishpat Street, Jerusalem.

[13] Salon film critic Andrew O'Hehir has commented, "Riklis forges into areas other Israeli filmmakers won't venture.

[5] Mark Jenkins of NPR commented that some of the ironic moments in the film depicted Palestinian resistance to Israelis as "more concerned with preserving machismo than with producing results".

[8] The New York Times wrote Although "Lemon Tree" doesn't overtly take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it portrays the Israelis, who wield more military power, as abusive and arrogant in the way that any country with superior weapons and armies inevitably appears.

[11] NPR's Mark Jenkins has stated that the film's bittersweet ending depicted the difficult status of women in Palestine as well as Palestinian-Israeli relations.

[3] Andrew O'Hehir of Salon praised the film and called its production a sign "of hope in the impenetrable impasse of the contemporary Middle East".

[17] Mark Jenkins of National Public Radio stated that it featured "subtle performances by its striking stars" and served as a parable about border issues.

[10] The film did receive praise from Hannah Brown of The Jerusalem Post, who stated that "it's hard to ask for more" and "you will leave the theater craving a glass of the lemonade Salma prepares so lovingly in several scenes".