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A Dialog on Israel/Palestinian issueI am a secular, American Jew - no less Jewish than an Orthodox Jew or an Israeli Jew, mind you, but with a growing feeling of discomfort. In particular I'm very put off by many Jewish writers, especially orthodox ones, who seem to feel they 'own' Judiasm and are somehow positioned to judge others by virtue of their orthodoxy. I have a lot more to say on that subject, but later.More immediately, there is Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and what is and has been going on there for the last 60-some years. On the one hand I'm acutely aware of the Holocaust, the fact that we Jews had nowhere to go, no place that would welcome us, and desparately needed our own country with something like defensible borders. On the other hand I love inclusive institutions and groups, I believe strongly in equality, treating every human as an individual, and that if one human has diminished rights then we all have diminished rights. But how do you have a nation defined as a "Jewish state" and still provide absolutely equal rights to all people, even if allowing return of all people who claim ownership of land or other right to reside in the country would clearly make Israel a minority-Jewish state? The problem wouldn't be so great but these people, these Palestinians, send rockets, terrorists, many of them have been involved in wars and uprisings with the expressed aim of 'driving the Jews into the sea', etc etc. Yet if this situation makes it hard for the Jews, it must be ten times as impossible, deadly even to be an individual Palestinian who wants to work for peace and oppose the violence of his or her countrymen. This sense of conflict, of being between a rock and a hard place, was certainly echoed in a recent interview I had with Moshe Babel-Pour, Director of the Israel Center here in Tucson . Though his rock and hard place are different than my own, the sense of struggle to deal with the different aspects of the situation resonated strongly. I asked Moshe to give me, instead of an interview, more of a 'dialogue' to face these conflicts. Here is a partial transcript: (introductions, background) G: Starting with that, with the Rabin assassination. It seemed to me, you had this great potential, and then - and I really don't like Netanyahu, I thought that he was intentionally undermining the spirit of the Oslo accords, and then at that time you had kind of an intelligensia growing up among the Palestinians, and there's a tendancy to say, you know, well, 'you can't blame Israel for what the Palestinians do' but if you had a classroom in LA and you had all these gang kids with guns, if you treat them a certain way you can certainly provoke them to do things that could cause you quite legitimately to arrest them all and throw them in jail, because you can easily provoke those kids, into doing things, dangerous things, horrible things. But there's some really good teachers who can actually deal with those kids, and I just see Israel in more of the position of the teacher. There's different ways to deal with people who are upset or who are acting in a dangerous way. That's why I hold Israel more responsible than I'm holding the Palestinians responsible. So maybe that would be the first thing, what was your take on the assassination, what happened after Rabin was killed? M: For after assassination of Yitzahk Rabin it was for me, I was in such big trauma, for me it was like the sky fall on my head. It was something difficult for me to get past. It was for me demise of hope for Israelis. To hear that Israeli killed him, killed Rabin that did so much for the country, that fight in every war, it was..also it was not easy for me to accept Netanyahu as prime minister to replace Yitzahk Rabin, especially what he said before it happened. That he (Netanyahu) actually participated in the rallies against Yitzahk Rabin like this with Nazi /SS uniform and this kind of stuff actually makes me more mad that someone like this was taking his position after he was assassinated. I must tell you that it wasn't easy at the same time when Yitzahk Rabin is trying to negotiate and try to find a way for peace - I could say that I belong to left wing, to peace group inside Israel - to find that there is those many terrorists that put bombs in the buses and all over. It makes your point much more difficult when you are trying to convince peace for Israelis, if these other people are trying to .... And on the other hand you can not understand why, these Palestinians, who had again great opportunity to get their own state, next to Israel, and finally there is a leader who is not only talking but also doing, why are you not supporting and helping him to show the Israeli people and your people that yes we can do it. G: Well its clear that the Palestinian leadership has a vested interest in continuing the fight [now that would apply to Hamas, hopefully less so or not so to the West Bank] M: Even from the very beginning, even from the 1948 when United Nations declared Israel a state it was a very tiny state and they had a great opportunity to have a big state next to Israel. I heard before..."The Palestinians never miss opportunity to miss opportunity" And every time it got worse, we had to have another big war in 1967 and occupied the West Bank and Gaza and they continued with all the terrorist attacks against Israel, and finally we and them realized the only solution was negotation (<--?). And even when we brought Arafat back to Gaza, he wasn't made a leader who could say something and you could be sure what he was saying, and what he's signing on the paper, that he will take care of this later. So he's signing, but on the one hand he's giving weapons, and... So all this makes it very difficult for all the people on the left in Israel. Because we had to step on the front, and people blame us, that we are actually negotiating with people that you cannot trust on anything they are signing. And in the end...I must say it wasn't easy for me. We could go back, and blame us for saying after 2000 years that we came back and blame us. But this is something that the Jews have the best ability, to blame themselves, and tell to themselves that we have to try to be better than others in everything. This argument of being better than others, I think we should learn a big lesson from our history. This history of 2000 years should teach us that what happened to us we should not do it to others. G: Yeah, that makes sense. But some Jews would say the lesson is we better stick up for ourselves so we better start hitting other people. M: No, no..there are people in Israel that are maybe saying that. But there are many other people in Israel who are really for peace. We are not teaching our kids things like Hamas is teaching their kids, how to kill the Jews, putting uniforms on the four year olds, giving them guns, teaching them to hate. G: ..I think starting with the children is very important, I think giving them different ideas and not having one group controlling, well now Hamas is elected so if they're elected I guess you can't do anything. But looking at it at the level of the individual and the rights of the children and the rights of the women, that .. M: So, you want us to..? G: I don't know. Not now, maybe at the time Israel was administering the territories there was an opportunity to do things differently. But not now that Hamas was elected. But there's a few different things, back to what you just said, there's always the example of the maps, this is something I will get into later regarding the orthodox, that the Arabs have all these maps that don't show Israel. Well when my mother gave me a puzzle of Israel, produced by some Jewish group, it didn't show the West Bank - it showed Judea and Samaria. M: This was Israel? G: It was a group of orthodox producing things for kids trying to propagandize them, showing the biblical names and not showing the existance of the West Bank. M: In Israel? G: No, I have one myself, here! M: Ok, but here is the map produced by the Jewish Agency, you can see they divided Gaza from Israel, and here is the West Bank G: Right, the official agencies wouldn't do it, its a group of orthodox somewhere. M: Right, some orthodox would show you that Jordan is part of Israel. There are extremes in every group. But I can say that at least in our extremes, we are not killing innocent people. G: Right, I'm not trying to say they are even, I'm just trying to say that here we are, we are ourselves, we do need to learn from our history to not do things to others. I'm not trying to say that this is equivalent or that is equivalent. Back to my example in LA, suppose you took a bunch of gangs in the projects and say 'well, just let them be their own country. wall them off, and negotiate with the leader. Oh look, he's not really representing them.' that wouldn't work too well. M: Golda let me tell you one thing, you have a great name, it just shows Zionists are your family G: Oh, sure - but that's why, I hold my family to a different degree than I hold the rest - I'm not going to say, if my own child starts doing graffiti, and they say, "but mom, so-and-so down the block, they stabbed somebody". So? he's not my kid. I'm talking to you, I can't tell him what to do, he's not my kid. I'm starting by talking to you, if I was talking to a guy over there it would be different. But let me get to a different aspect of this, say you can't negotiate with the group. Say Arafat didn't represent them, they're not negotiating in good faith. But dealing with people at an individual level, you have to treat people as individuals, because if you just say 'this person's a member of a group, therefore they have different rules', you're in trouble. You can't do that. But of course that happens. And, you know, when I was younger, people would bring up 'one-state solution' and I would think, oh, that's terrible. Maybe it is, but on the other hand, what has been bothering me, is that, you know, you have a problem of these guys who left Israel these different times, and now with the West Bank and two-state solution maybe you don't have the problem, but the whole idea of the return, refugee return, the reason it has to be opposed so strongly from inside Israel is essentially to keep the state Jewish isn't it, because you'd have - your numbers wouldn't add up. But does that mean you can't acknowledge that maybe this is a person who left this house - and maybe they should have been allowed to settle in Jordan, maybe someone else should have helped them - but nontheless, his grandparents owned this house, and now he's over there. And yes, they're being terrible, and his friends are trying to kill me, but he owns this house. [the question I was trying to get at, not so clearly, is that how do you respect individual rights of persons when trying to keep a Jewish state as a priority] M: We make mistakes. We made mistakes. Israel is a young country, only 60 years old. People come from all over, come thru holocaust. After people have to leave their houses in states in Africa, in Asia, thru choices some of them came to United States, some of them came to Israel. To start a new state, with that many enemies that don't want you there; to try to establish a democracy with all these different attitudes and cultures coming from all over and bring all these into one state that is united into one country, I think that we accomplished a lot compared to, another group of people that are trying to call themselves a nation of Palestinians. We don't even know if they are a nation, or what are they. They cannot stand next to each other even for one, for one...and you can see that every time you are negotiating with one group, another group is... G: Yes, that's why I was talking about dealing with people as individuals M: If we did talk with individuals and had this really good relationship with individuals in the West Bank and Gaza, and I can say personally that I have many friends, that I have still many friends there that I am friends with individually. And we can sit down and talk and think the same, the problem is that the government there is still (?) from one side, and from the other side we have the radical Jews, also we have the same problem with them. But the basic point is that Israel, and I think both sides, are really tired from all these wars and killing each other and the terror and we came, the majority of the Israelis, came to the point that we decided that we are for peace. We started with Egypt and gave all the Sinai back. We continued with the Jordanians and exchanged lands, we got out of - we didn't have to get out of any place in Jordan but we agreed we have peace. And in Lebanon, the first Lebanon war was because of the number of missles that they hit us from Lebanon, without any reason because we didn't take any land from Lebanon, that's why we went in there and stayed 18 years. In the end we came out, and Hizbollah came in and they put the rule on the people that I'm not sure that they really agree with them, and they just decided that its going to be their state and their country and they are going to do represent Iraq in Lebanon. And the majority of people there are not - there are actually many Christians, there are many Druze, and they don't have a big chance. Anyway we came back, and they kidnapped two soldiers from our side and then the Iraqi nation said they don't have the right to do so...and even in the end...we got two bodies after two and a half years.... And three and a half years ago we decided to get out of Gaza strip. And to the 45000 Jews who lived there...they had to go thru suffering process of rebuilding everything, starting everything from the beginning, even if they are not right to be there the government sent them there, the government took them back, so it was a big tradgedy for them in the end. G: Well - it was their choice. M: Ok - now we are leaving them by themselves, they have the right to have their own state, to start something there, start something. And two or three months later, having elections, instead of choosing Fatah they choose Hamas, terrorist nation. Instead of the.. G: Well Hamas had a reputation for being less corrupt... M: Well believe me that they stole more than Fatah later on. Well what you're seeing with these Palestinians is just the same thing that is/has been happening in Israel. All of a sudden the government, these left wing parties are at the beginning they took money and didn't give it to the people who came from Africa and Asia and preferred the people who came from Europe. I mean, we had to go thru all these issues. Believe me. But we never, we never left the wish for peace. I mean we didn't choose Farkahana (sp?) because we didn't feel equal like the peple who came from Europe. They had the opportunity to make a state and what they did was continue with the mess they had started on the south of Israel. So what could you do? What could you do? I mean, you are doing the ceasefire, and you are asking them, even during the ceasefire, during the six months, they are attacking us with rockets. And you are asking them, what's going on? And they are saying 'its another organization, its not us' - they are always saying this kind of thing. Pretty soon we are telling them that 'you're doing it' and a time comes when you say 'enough is enough'. And no country in the world could do it like this, and let their people be under attack... G: I'm not actually arguing against the Gaza action... M: What I'm trying to say, in the end, is that we Israelis are looking, and there is an ? program that push, that is talking about two states, that we are agreeing to. But there is Hamas, there is a group of people who will not agree with our existance. How can you negotiate with people who are not agreeing that you are there? If you like or if you don't like? G: No, there is a leadership in Hamas that is impossible. But my question wasn't to do with that though. And maybe its more of a historical question, maybe I'm not talking about current events. My question was with allowing, in an individual case-by-case basis, return M: Refugees to get back to Israel? G: What I'm saying, is that if you're going to treat all people equally, M: There is no equally. There is no equally because we are on the last day. It was equally when we came here and the United Nations gave the resolution of two states, then it was equal. But when they don't agree, then you are changing the rules, and then you cannot go back G: To treat the person as a group, yes.. M: There is no other way G: Suppose I'm a Palestinian. Suppose I say look, you know, I have nothing here, I've been poor ever since [leaving], my whole family has been poor. But there is this property we have rights to, why can't I go to court and say, I want to go back to my property, why is that? M: Because if you are talking about state of Israel, and you are already giving back the Gaza strip... G: No, no, I'm not talking about the state, just the property of one person M: Then each one is going to come and say 'this property is mine, this property is mine' G: Well what if it was? Can't we address whether it was or it wasn't? I mean if he's a person and he owns a property how did he lose his property? If he left during the war... M: I'll tell you how. I was born in Iran. Ok? Did anyone give me my property in Iran back? G: No, they probably should but.. M: Libya? Iraq? G: But we don't want to be like Libya or Iraq. M: No, we don't want. But the issue is, if we don't create a Jewish state, we have to think about the majority of people will be Jews. Right now we have 75% of the people who are living without West Bank and Gaza. That they are Jews, and its going down year after year. So just bringing all those refugees, basically in one generation, this state will be Palestinian again. G: Well...this is a fundamental problem. I mean, the thing is, by taking that argument, you're willing to treat an individual person unfairly by what group he belongs to. And I think that's going to have problems forever. I think that's going to be a problem. I kind of think its more important to say look, we have to be fair on an individual basis to individual people. M: Thats (?). The problem with Jews is that they are trying to be, they are blaming themselves when they are not like Jesus. That... G: No, no, no.. M: If you are talking with me philosophy, I could say yes, if someone took my land, if someone took my house, I deserve to get it back. G: But at what time does everybody become equal? At what time do we treat every person equally no matter... M: There is no way you could think on act on doing that these years. If you had two states on 48 and we were coming the week after, and declaring the war on Palestinians and taking their homes because we were wanting more lands to bring more Jews, and then sending them out, I agree with you. But when we came, and we already got our state, and actually we got our state because most of those democratic and humanitarian countries had stand next to the Jews and let 6 million of them get killed and they feel terrible with themselves and say lets give them state, to feel better. I'm just trying to show you, those people in the world trying to talk about justice, they never.. G: But if you can't be fair on an individual person level, you don't have justice, and you can't say that you have justice unless you have it when it comes down to one individual person. Because you can talk about this group and that group, but any time you are labelling a group you have an excuse to be unfair to a person. And its the people, its the individual people you are being fair to or not fair to. And the thing is, I mean I do a lot maybe in schools. Just go back to that example. Lets take that group and say ' you know, this group has been terrible, we're going to put them...' M: What is your suggestion, Golda? G: What is my suggestion? Its a good question. I think that maybe at a slow rate,.. M: Do you know how many refugees are living in Lebanon, Jordan, maybe other countries, that consider themselves a Palestinian? G: How many? M: About a few millions. And you want to bring them back, you are looking for justice, how are you going to do it? G: Slowly.. M: There's no way slowly. What you are saying, is that I'm going to kill you, slowly. G: No.. M: I'm going to kill you, day after day. And what you are saying, basically - and I'm taking you back to your reason, where you are coming from. Remember what you said your parents came from Russia because they were not wanted there. And we didn't have this.. G: I know. M: state, at that time. And why the six million Jews died because no one took care of them. There could.. G: I know, they could have come out, at that time. M: They took everyone else beside the Jews. G: If anyone had let us in, we could have got out. M: And so, that's what I'm trying to say, you're really good at blaming ourselves, and not looking at other people. And living here, as a Jew, its really easy to decide what's good for Israel. G: Its true. M: If you are coming here, and you are telling me, 'you know what, I don't agree with existance of state of Israel', and they have the rights, because we came after 2000 years that we didn't live there, and we decided that this is our state, and we threw them out, and we should leave this country I could say... G: No, I never said that M: But if we, the Jews, must have a state G: I'm not so sure that it has to be a Jewish state. If.. M: We already have 25% of them that are not Jews G: Right, the Japanese don't let anybody in, and the Swiss don't let anybody in, but I think that's bad. I don't like that. Do I really, do I care so much...you know, I think it has to be a just state. What is it about us that we're Jewish? Is it that our parents were Jewish? To me, the center of being Jewish is supposed to be being fair, and just. I think that the religious Jews have hijacked a lot of Judiasm and have said 'oh, this is Jewish'. I don't even - do you know, do you know, and this is never discussed - we blame the Catholics because they turned us in. Have you read the Bialystok Diaries? M: No. G: You know, the synagogue was used as a dropping off point [for the death camps]. And the orthodox leaders, were in the Judenrat [collaborators]. And nobody discusses this. And yet you see papers saying that, oh, you know, Americans don't know how to be Jewish anymore. So jeez, a lot of my grandparents generation were communist. Because they were the only ones fighting. The only place you could go was to the communists. And they were not religious, they included everybody. M: I'm not talking about the religious. I'm talking about the Jewish G: So what does it mean to be Jewish? What does it mean to be Jewish? It means you have to be orthodox?? If it means you have to Jewish that you're just, then anyone who is willing to behave justly can be in. They don't have to say 'I'm Jewish', they just have to behave fairly. Israel should be for Israelis and it should be for people who will be just but it doesn't have to be for people who's parents were Jewish. M: So if I'm willing to say I'm Israeli you will let me in G: I think that it has to be a slow process and you have to teach people how to...I don't think you can have peace without being inclusive. And I haven't thought it out and I don't think it can go very fast, I'm not saying Israel is doing the wrong thing now. But I think Israeli politics is too much hijacked by the orthodox because of the way they need support from minority parties. M: I do agree with you about the orthodox part in the Knesset of Israel, and I do agree with you this sometimes is a problem, and I can tell you I don't want to see Israel be an orthodox state. If the state is going to be in the end orthodox and radical, then I don't belong to this state. And I am fighting that Israel be a democratic country and that people can say what they are thinking. Which is happening in Israel, much more than this state, and at the same time that we are fighting against our enemy, there are groups of Jews that are demonstrating against our government, and I'm proud of this. Because we are not shutting mouth of anyone in Israel. But in the end, I can say that the people in Israel who have run away from so many states, because their parents...we are so frightened, that something will happen to us because this is on our mind, we are coming with this genetic situation that something will happen. Ok, I am not thinking every day that I'm Jewish or not Jewish, because I'm secular...you know, there were people in the Holocaust that, many of them did not think that they were Jews at all, but there grandma and grandpa, someone find that they are Jews and kill them. Not only during the holocaust, but during all the years that people are looking for the Jews and saying 'we don't want them' What I'm trying to say is if I want or if I don't want, is that people are tired after finally left their houses from so many places, and they got this piece of land, that the parents of the parents were promised by God for me... G: That's the problem, there. M: That is the problem that God gave the state from the very beginning probably, but there is no argument that Jews had this state before the Palestinians. G: I don't even care about this argument, to be honest M: If you care or if you don't care, its a historic place. I don't know why you are living here, because this place does not belong to the Americans. It belongs to the Indians! Why aren't you fighting against it? Why aren't you writing a letter every day saying what happened to these people? No one did it! Its much more easier to criticize Israel. There is a limit that we, the Jews in Israel, can all the time blame ourselves. Believe me that I see the pictures, that I see that the way we are reacting in the end that we have to kill kids and innocent people and women, but they are bringing us to this situation. It is the most basic thing for the human being to protect itself, to protect its kids. We are looking for a peaceful place to live. And every day we are finding another group to destroy this state of Israel. And I'm not talking about the orthodox point and I'm not talking about the way that people are coming out 'oh, we have to be orthodox', I'm trying to be realism. You are talking to someone who is coming from the left wing of Israel. And I have friends who are Muslims. G: Where M: I was born in Iran G: I was going to say how long did you live in Iran? M: I was ten years there before I came. And still, I'm not waking up every morning and saying who I am? I'm Jews first, I have to go out and practice. I was born into Jewish family and I grew up secular Jew, this is my tradition. I see the religion as a kind of tradition, and I believe that people have to use this, just a tradition giving them the rules of what to do and what not to do, and just live next to each other. But when people are taking their religion as an excuse to kill each other, and fighting for land, and the blood of the people, not just on this land, this land is not holy anymore. And not talking only about radical Jews who want to take the Jordan because its in the bible - we are talking about giving back the Golan Heights, the Gaza strip, we already gave all the Sinai back, we are negotiating to give all the West Bank back. And we are going back to that teeny state, and we did everything to live in peace with our neighbors, and if they don't agree to live in peace with us there is no other way. And again, you're right, I could go back, and read all this philosophy books, and try to think of every single person and say you have a right But its not working for me because its not working at all in the world. And your parents understood this because they are right communism has died and many other things have died, because if you are doing the same things and thinking we will give the lands back to every single person who has come from this nation, and go back to where they belong, we will keep going and putting people back in the lands where they belong to, it will never end. G: No, no - M: You have to take your (?) and say this is the line. I'm not looking back anymore. I'm not blaming the United Nations because what they have done or not done. I'm not blaming nations because of the holocaust. I'm not blaming Russia. For god's sake we say I'm not blaming anymore. I'm just putting a line. I'm just saying on this side of the line, I could live, with my nation, with my kids, that's all that I want. So this is the line. And you could put the line here, you could put the line here, you could put the line here. But I already put the line on the 67 and this is the line that I could say, this is the limit - there is an argument in Israel, many Israelis are not agreeing with me - I agree to divide Jerusalem into two cities. But if I get to this line, and I get peace, at least G: Everyone will pretty much be fine with it M: Yes, but we are not getting from Hamas, talk about peace is a big fake. Because they are fighting. Why the people were so afraid that Rabin will get peace? Because they are fighting, that there will be a solution of two states G: They are afraid of losing power if they get peace M: Right so they are trying to do this..... For Israelis the most important thing is to try - and I have to agree with you I am in the very left wing - but on the other hand I have kids, I grew up, the first development (?) was when I was 17 or 22 I was really right-wing. G: Oh yeah? M: Yeah! And [now] I am ready to live with any Palestinian who is willing to live next to me. And if I give all this distance, and you refuse to live next to me, and grow up your kids next to my kids, and break the same dirt, and judge from the same sky, and judge from the same flowers and the birds that are flying, I promise that I will not give for you to exist next to me if you are in the way that you are reacting and trying to kill me and trying to kill my kids. Then I will react radically against you just in the way we are doing now. Yes, I will suffer, I'm suffering every day to see what we are seeing 1000 died in Gaza its not easy for me. Because for us when one person died it is the whole world that died, it doesn't matter for me if its a Palestinian or its a Jew. But when I gave you , and I asked you, and I tried to make a peace, and you are not agreeing, I could not give more chance. And again, to go back to your point, once we will shape two states next to each other, and we live like neighbors, we might, then - and the soul will be more open, if someone comes and - knock, knock, knock, this is my house. Let me tell you another. I lived on this side of the wall of the green line. On the other side of the wall is a big city Tumkara (?), a Palestinian city, you might be familiar with it G: no, I'm not M: And its a little community, gated community, I was surrounded by walls, by gates. By guards. G: Tukara is a Palestinian city? M: Tukara is a Palestinian city, on the West Bank. There is a wall, and on this side - I never agreed to live on the other side. But on the other hand, I found myself I'm living in ghetto. Wall, guards, surrounding myself, and I said, why? G: Sure, but you had the freedom to leave, to go in, go out M: Yes, yea right. But why should I put all these walls, because I had to protect myself against terrorist, after the second intifada, they shoot on my house. And I believed in peace. I had to admit to my neighbors, that was the reason(? wrong transcription?). And I found they shoot on my house, you could see bullets on the wall of my house. And my family when we tried to get out one time on the gate, Palestinian terrorist came and shoot, we were so lucky that nothing happened. But I was in shock when I saw this kind of stuff. You have to understand that other people, who are not living on the West Bank, could say, 'you know what, you are living on the West Bank, you are living in the land that doesn't belong to them', that they are suffering because of what they choose. But I, we are trying to find a solution of two states next to each other. But still they don't agree to this. And that time, when someone sees something like this who is against them, just becomes more radical. And just like this, and when its attacking your family, your kids G: Yes, my sister had a friend in Israel, he said, 'you have a right to be a pacifist after you have been shot at, after that you can be a pacifist if you still feel like it' M: Yes, yes, its easy to when you are a thousand miles from Israel G: And its not so much that I'm telling Israel what to do but.. M: And another thing about this, there was another thing. We lived here, and there was another house here, that was empty. And it happened that one day I found that tractors came and just destroyed this house. And I asked why, why did they destroy this house, why was it empty these many years. And I understood that this piece of land belongs in contract to Palestinian and the Israeli that build the house on this land didn't have the right. You just see, and I'm talking on this side of the line, that if you are taking something that doesn't belong to you that Israel is trying to keep on the right of the other side. That's part, that all the houses you can see, that Palestinians live in every city like Jaffa, not Tel Aviv, we built Tel Aviv, they could say let us come back to Jaffa, to Haifa, to every city. Then you are changing the balance, you are trying to create - one of the reasons that the Israelis have done, is its better for us to leave West Bank and Gaza, is that if you are looking to be a Jewish state, if you are looking to be a majority Jewish state, is it for our children and for us to leave the West Bank and Gaza [ie this was an argument used by the peace movement to convince more right-wing Israelis to agree to the two state solution, that if we want a Jewish state the only way is to give up these territories]. Otherwise with 3 million Palestinians living in borders we are not Jewish state. So now that we have given all this land for the West Bank and Gaza, you want - I am trying to tell you, that you can not go back. G: yeah. But you're right, really the question for me is not what Israel should do, I can't tell Israel what it should do or not do. The question for me personally, is how strongly do I identify right now, with Israel. How strongly do I care that I am Jewish as opposed to that I'm a person, that I'm in Arizona - here I don't see things being done to Jews but I see things being done to Mexicans M: I was born in Iran, because many years before the Jews had to leave Israel, and go to Babylon and go to the babylons and Iraq and Iran in this area, and generation after generation just live there. And once we had the chance we went back. But I could say, 'look, the parents of my grandparents lived in Israel, so I have the right'. So once you are going back, where are you putting the line? G: Look, all I'm saying is on a case by case basis, you have to have some document or some other - not historical generality, but who exactly owned it, what was his name, what was - that's how people do justice. People do justice on a case by case basis. M: Then, there is a justice that we are talking about and we also continuing this there is a justice that we say, here is this amount of money. There are ways to solve this problem but we are not there yet. You have to understand that we are trying to negotiate with organization that - they don't want us here. And as far as we are at this point we can not go forward. When the hearts are getting close to each other then they are open to help each other. And we are not there. G: Yeah, because we are in a state of war. So, its true. Its true. How did you come from being right-wing, you said you were 17, what made you change your mind? M: Um...what makes me to change my mind are a few things. First, we are learning the history of Israel, just as I told you, you have to understand what happened with the Holocaust, what happened in Europe, (?) dying, other countries not allowing your existance, then you become patriotic. Ok, I will support(?) my country. G: But you said, at one point you were more right-wing M: Yeah, I was, I was, I believed this was my obligation to my state. But I went to the war, and I see, that if we will continue to fight the Lebanon war, and I see during the time that we are in this horrible war, people are suffering from both sides. Then I'm coming and I'm saying, there must be a solution. And the solution is to try to fight [for peace] now, to do everything to shape peace between us and our neighbors. Now I'm changing the fight, and I believe protecting my country is doing peace with my neighbors. All may not agree with me, and I always have the option to go back to what I was before. But this way I'm giving a chance for peace. And I believe that that is how we - because the Egyptians understood after the Yom Kippur war, Sadat he understood, there is no other way. We can kill each other again and again, and nothing would be happening. People would try to negotiate, and he got all the lands back. And he got all the lands. Not one centimeter - the whole Sinai. The one hotel that we wanted, that we believed belonged to Israel, they wanted to argue - we gave it back. So for peace we are ready to do anything - but we want to know, the Israelis are saying, for all this, how do I know that I get peace? " |
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