Bridging Divides: A Conversation on Identity, Conflict, and Hope for Peace

A shadow over the fact that you suffered. Okay.

I’m gonna just like give you the benefit of the doubt.

Would you be against it if they did in your opinion? No. Would not? You wouldn’t be against the rapers? Innocent. My mom.

And dad has to leave Palestine.

Do you think it’s gonna help? Look at what it look like. So you’ve been doing this to me. I have not done anything. You’ve been doing this. I was. I. I was born in 1993. I have nothing to do. You wouldn’t say that every action of a Palestinian represents all Palestinians. So why does Abomasa now represent piece of ? So that, this is my point. If abomason does something to me, you’re gonna say, that’s not me, that’s abomason. So don’t say that it’s me. Just because there’s leaders that are wrong doesn’t mean that all the people are responsible for those leaders. The only way we can move forward in the sun is if enough of us that are not a part of the governments, I’m not a part of the governments, are able to be able to see each other as cousins, that we are able to hear one another, understand our suffering, and together link arms to change the reality. If.

You really want to do.

That. Yes, I really do. You really do? I really do. I want that can. I doesn’t exist yet, but the only way we can make it exist is enough of us start engaging each other. And you’re seeing me as your enemy when I’m actually your cousin.

Talk it.

To you.

Of course you’re being respectful. But I’m saying that if you’re okay with civilians being killed when it could have been someone who supports the same ideas that we support, we don’t, we accept civilian to be killed. But you were saying it any. No. So now you’re taking it back. No, it’s not taking it.

Back. What I’m saying is there is no.

Such a thing. You have Instagram. I do. Okay, so my Instagram, just so you have it on right, is Rudy underscore Israel is my Hebrew name. Okay. Okay. So you send me a message and I will send you footage of it happening. And I’m also telling you as a cousin, or you can hear, I’m not against you that I saw this with my own eyes of what happened and I don’t blame you for what Hamas did, okay. It.

Would be, we spoke like, you know, four years ago and we had a wonderful conversation. I felt like, you know, we had a breakthrough during the conversation. I wanna ask you something. Do you still believe Zionism is an ethical thing?

It depends what we define as Zionism, because words mean different things for different people. Define me what you mean Zionism and I’ll define.

It. Zionism as the establishment of an exclusive homeland for Jewish people and the land between the river and the sea living on to.

Brittsea, that’s not Zionism to me. All right? Zionism to me is the right for the Jewish people to return into self determined. And that doesn’t mean that Palestinians are excluded. So you said exclusive. I don’t believe in the exclusive element of what you just talked about.

You should not come from outside, impose new things, mostly European values, which doesn’t belong to the population that stayed there for 15,000 years continuously and put a new, you know, traditions or new customs, you know, everything.

In the land. When Israel was reestablished, it’s not like it was your people that were in control before. It was the British before the British, the Ottomans. Let me respond. So it’s not like there was something and then it was replaced. What happened was the removal of the British also had a lot of Jews have always stayed in the line. It wasn’t just the Palestinian. Yes. When I hear Palestinian, I hear my family. Right. But many Jews, when they hear that, they hear that their enemy. When you hear Zionists, you usually hear your enemy. Now that you know what I’m saying, you understand that many of us don’t mean it as your enemy.

You, you know, like, not you, like, you know, Zionists, they disrupted. Zionism cannot be ethical.

That’s not Zionism. If you look at a bad Palestinian, which there are good and bad people everywhere, right? Let’s take a very bad Palestinian like Abamazen, you would say that’s not Palestinians, that’s Abomazen. So you can’t just separate whenever fits your journey. You have to understand that Palestinians is a wide identity and there are Palestinians that are good, there are Palestinians that are bad. And being a Jew, an Israeli or Zionist is a wide identity and that there are individuals that are bad in individuals that are good. And if you take a bad thing that we would probably agree with and you say this designism, it doesn’t allow the conversation to continue.

Right. The point of why I’m bringing that up is that there’s been a lot of violence between our people. And I think I told you this four years ago when we spoke, that I think the source of where we got it wrong, we started seeing each other and experience each other as enemies. Was the British is wherever the British were, whether it’s between India, Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Nigeria, in the British Monday of Palestine, they convinced the local peoples to fight each other in order to maintain control. And they convinced the Jewish side that all the Arabs and Palestinians wanted to kill us, which they’re some bad ones, but not all of them and definitely not majority of them. And they convinced the Palestinian Arab side that the idea of Zionism was an extension of European colonism.

And we got played. And unfortunately, we fought a war in 1948 and all out war, one verse the other. And we’re living still with the consequence of that problem now. The only way we move forward from that is by me and you realizing that we’re family and us starting to use our voice to change the mindset. Yeah, here’s.

The thing. No one has problem with anyone who belongs to this land, to live in this.

Land. There’s a lot of people have a problem. No, actually, no, there’s a lot of. No, yes, I was speaking to students here. They’re saying we don’t believe any Jewish should be able to live there. What do you did.

To provoke them to do what they like?

It’s like a loop, right? Who started and then attack? I know Israelis maybe.

If you came to them and he said, hey, you guys.

Piece with it. But I didn’t. Look what happened. Did you? Yes. Yes. You hear my message? You know my message. You know who I am. You say that to me.

Yes. You said I’m objewish and I wanna be.

With you. Yes, yes. There’s even footage of me speaking with them, of the main girl that started the chance. I told her I’m a Jew. I believe all Israelis and Palestinian should have a right to live there from the river to the sea. And she’s like, you’re a terrorist, you’re a monster, you’re a killer, you’re, you know, I’ve never killed the person my life. Let’s talk.

Again and I get your Instagram and let’s talk.

Again. Alright.

So try to let them know that there are some of us that want to come there and want to engage you, want to build a better future, and they can’t just see in Israel or someone that served an army and automatically condemn them because the only way we move forward is together. It’s not gonna come from Israeli government. We know that. It’s not gonna come from Abu Mazan. It’s gonna come from me and you, if we’re me and you and other Palestinians and other Israelis and other, then we are already shifting the culture and the future people being elected will be people represent our ideas. That’s how we can make real change. So you’re gonna say it to your government to stop. I say it all the time. Okay. Okay. And he actually ended with one of those Palestinians giving me a big hug and saying that together we will build a better future. There are peoples, there are governments, there are factions, there interest groups, there are even outside countries who are profiting from our ore and our suffering. It’s definitely not us on the ground. And the people, and us, the people will be the only way that we can actually change the mindset, the younger generation that will eventually replace those in positions of power, and that’s how we can create, change the future is one where we both have rights and freedoms from the river to the sea and the only we would achieve that is by removing the hate and the darkness that is sitting heavy on our hearts. And we start filling our hearts with love, with light and our understanding and compassion. And we work together to be able to achieve that. And I hope is Atasha and Shala, enough of us wake up on both sides and start to lead that into the future?