This was a great interview with a Muslim Israeli serving in the IDF who describes his family as Palestinian Zionists who deeply believe in and appreciate Israel as a place of freedom for all who live within it. The Jewish vision has always been freedom and justice for all.
A friend asked me recently for some help with history because he knows that I am compassionate and seek peace and reconciliation. I shared:
We are repeatedly placed in impossible situations: considered citizens of nowhere, evicted from ancient communities in the middle east and told we never belonged. Cleansed from Europe and all Muslim and Arab lands. This isn't a. opinion, it's a demographic reality beyond dispute.
Actually the only dispute is that the Jews deserved to be expelled because they were aligned with Israel.
I am a fierce advocate for Palestinians. There should be outrage that more than 1.5 million Palestinians were suddenly stripped of citizenship - by Jordan. There should be outrage that Palestinians cannot legally own land or participate in over 30 professions - in Lebanon. For decades, if a citizen woman and a Palestinian man married, their children were denied citizenship - in Egypt. 400,000 Palestinians were violent expelled - from Kuwait.
There has been complete ethnic cleansing - in Palestinian territory -- of Jews. In the war from which Israel became "violent occupiers", the president of Syria said the following and the debate was could he really actually mean it, not did he say it? "Strike the enemy's settlements, turn them into dust, pave the Arab roads with the skulls of Jews"
In 1964 the Palestinian Liberation organization was founded 3 years before any occupied territory declared that the only land they claim is Israel. West Bank and Gaza are not claimed as Palestinian lands. In 1967 the story changed to all of Israel plus the territories. But placed Israel in an impossible situations because the Arab League released a written declaration, "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel."
For decades Palestinians have been oppressed based on multi-lateral middle east agreement to restrict the movement, right, and freedom of Palestinians.
So, beyond our Western opinions, I believe it's important to hear the voices not or global pundits but from Arab Israeli citizens and to really listen to what leaders themselves are saying.
When Haj Amin al-Husseini broadcast on Nazi propoganda radio, "Kill Jews wherever you find them, this favors God, religion, and history". The well documented Arabic Nazi propoganda isn't debated. It's historically well documented. The question is, "did they really mean it?"
Arafat is on record in the 80s that Haj Amin al-Husseini is his most important mentor, and he set the direction of the Palestinian movement today. Also set the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood which led to Hamas.
I said to my friend, I'm not asking you to make a specific conclusion, you please think for yourself. I ask 2 questions: did you know this? If you did, great this makes you more knowledgeable than many. In either case, what patterns do you see? I said: cross check any of my facts; use your trusted sources and find out if I have misquoted or made errors of number or year.
And, if you want to learn more about how the global consensus got built using the current narratives, how a public paper trail explains how the 1967 Three No's became institutionalize at the UN, we don't have to follow conspiracies or infer anything, we look at publicly filed documented.
However, the problem is, you need such a vast knowledge of history and the region to address common misunderstandings. I heard it takes 1,000x more effort to correct a falsehood than to state the falsehood itself.
So as a Jew today I am asked a lot to prove it. Prove I'm liberal, prove I believe in justice, prove I'm not a passive supporter of genocide or an ethnonationalist who celebrates the death of my cousins.
We are taught in Pirke Avot, even someone who caused us harm or we resent, we do not wish ill upon them or celebrate in their misfortune.
To be Jewish from my view is to contribute wherever I am, to strive to be kind and learn from my mistakes. The people who taught us this are our heroes. We do not celebrate martyrs, we mourn death and celebrate life.
Fortunately I am seeing more and more examples of Arab Israelis and Palestinians and Saudis beginning to risk their safety and flee their homes in order to share a story which they get ostracized for: Jews and Israel strive fundamentally to coexist and we can see the evidence when Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE quietly shot down Iranian missiles headed towards Israel and supplied intelligence and airspace access. Those of us who watch the statements and actions of leaders themselves see that in practice, Israel is the regional Ally and Iran is the aggressor. It's just dangerous to say this out loud, and those who do often must flee.
I don't need anyone to take my opinion or conclusion, just help me hold a vision of peace that is grounded in deep familiarity with the lived dichotomies of the middle east.
I don't want to share too much today, because every claim I make can easily be cross checked.
Nearly half of Israelis lived in the middle east and North African for millennia before Islam and the residents of the Arabian peninsula spread out.
If people say go back to Poland, that's hard because our family had a lumber yard and we were threatened about trying to go back, we were threatened to not try to find lost family who was affiliated with the church now.
For a huge part of the population of Israel it would be: go back to Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt. Would we be welcome there?