The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (19 page)

I will never forget his warm greeting: “At last we meet!” I’d been apprehensive to meet him, but his warmth put me at ease right away. We sat in the reception area at his office, and he told me about the San Diego Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group: “We meet once a month, and we are a young and very active and vigorous group of people. I will have to ask the members if you can join us, but I will recommend that they do.”

A few weeks went by, and I heard nothing. I sent Majeed another e-mail, and he invited me to a gathering in his home. When the day of my first meeting arrived, Gila worried that something bad would happen to me: “You don’t know these people. What if this is a trap? Be sure to call me and come home as soon as you can.” I promised that I would.

At that point, I had not acknowledged having such fears myself, and if I did they were overshadowed by anticipation and the sense that I was about to embark on something new and important. I was so excited driving there that I took a wrong turn, and the half-hour drive ended up taking over an hour.

When I finally reached their house, I saw a sign above the door that read: “Majeed and Haifa Khoury.” I stood for a while, looking at the name “Haifa.” It was the first time it ever occurred to me that “Haifa” was an Arabic name, and that perhaps the city of Haifa was an Arab city before it was Israeli.

I walked in hesitantly. About a dozen people were there, and I guessed that some were American Jews and others were Palestinian, but at first I couldn’t tell for sure who was who. They sat in the living room around a table with the usual Middle Eastern spread—hummus, falafel, tabouli—common to both Israelis and Palestinians. I heard a woman refer to one of the salads, made of diced cucumbers and tomatoes with olive oil and lemon juice, as an “Israeli salad.”

Another woman’s eyebrows shot up. “Israeli salad? What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked sharply. “Are you telling me that we have been eating an Israeli salad all these years?” I felt a bit uneasy by the exchange, but everyone else laughed. It was, in a way, a harbinger of things to come.

Another Jewish woman mentioned that she would soon be going home to visit. “Home? What country are you calling home? Let’s be clear about one thing, that country is
my
home.” This, too, did not cause any anger or antagonism, but laughter.

Soon we sat around a dining room table and began introducing ourselves. I was the only Israeli—I was almost always the only Israeli. I was quite nervous.

When it was my turn to introduce myself, I looked down and quickly told them who I was and what my views were. I told them about my family and my father, and about Smadar. “I am Zionist, and I believe in the Jewish state. I believe firmly that a Palestinian state should be established in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

“Wait a minute.” Doris Bittar, one of the group facilitators, pulled out a copy of
Al Jadid
, an English-language magazine covering Arab-American culture. “Are you Nurit’s brother?”

It so happened that about a month earlier,
Al Jadid
had published a story about a movie called
The Bombing
. The movie, by the French producer Simone Bitton, described the suicide attack in which Smadar was killed. Doris knew of Nurit because she had just read the story in
Al Jadid
.

I had no idea our story had been written about, but everyone in the room seemed to know about it. People were stunned when I said that I was the uncle of the little girl in the film. The fact that I just happened to be there at the meeting that day felt like serendipity.

This is the first time I am in a place where Jews and Palestinians exist as equals
, I thought. There are no occupiers and occupied, we are all citizens with equal rights and protections under the law. The fact that we were able to talk and to look each other in the eye made a huge difference; in fact, it may be what made this possible. Had we been living back home, we would never have met like this.

It was also the first time I sat in a room with Palestinians of all ages and backgrounds to talk about our shared homeland. In many ways, I had more in common with the Palestinians than with many of the Jewish-Americans in the group. The things that characterize American Jewish culture—New York Jewish humor, Jewish delicatessen food—were completely alien to me. On the other hand, traditional Palestinian warmth and hospitality, Arabic food, and photos of our shared homeland put me completely at ease. I didn’t even mind seeing the map of Israel with Palestine written all over it, something I thought would trouble me since my people had fought so hard to win it back. Perhaps the fact that we—the Palestinians and the lone Israeli—had actually lived in the Middle East and had memories from the same land created an almost instant bond. I loved every minute of that evening. Nurit later said that meeting Palestinians gave me a taste of home. She was right. I finally found a piece of home in America.

The meeting had started at seven, and I expected it would last an hour or two at most. When I had not returned by ten, Gila became worried. Neither of us had been to the home of a Palestinian before, and we knew none of the people involved in the group. She was seriously afraid for my life, and she called my cell phone to make sure I was okay. I told her everything was fine.

The meetings of the San Diego Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group were held once a month, and everyone was polite and respectful as they told their stories. From the Palestinians, I heard stories of displacement and ruthlessness I had never imagined possible. However, we were not there to argue, we were there to listen and to share our experiences. As we became more comfortable with one another, we began approaching more dangerous ground and topics that went beyond the realm of “safe” dialogue.

Majeed referred to his life experience by saying, “I was ethnically cleansed twice!” First, when he was a child. “Because of the constant bombing of our neighborhood, we were forced to leave our home in West Jerusalem.” Then, while he was attending the American University in Beirut in 1967, the Six-Day
War broke out and he was not permitted to return to his family, who now lived in East Jerusalem. His criticism of the top echelon of the PLO, many of whom he knew personally, was scathing. His “R”s rolled with rage: “They are co
rr
upt c
r
ooks and c
r
iminals!”

One day, after attending meetings for several months, I got word that Manal Swairjo, one of the women in the dialogue group, was going to speak at a local synagogue on Sunday morning. Rabbi Moshe Levin of Congregation Beth El, also a member of our group, had invited her to speak. It was a risky move by the rabbi. He headed one of San Diego’s most prominent synagogues, and to invite a Palestinian to speak while Sunday school was in session and so many people were present was no small matter. I later heard that he took some serious criticism for doing that.

Manal is a remarkably accomplished woman, a PhD, a world-renowned scientist, and a captivating speaker. She has a tremendous smile and beautiful green eyes. “I was born and raised in Kuwait where my father, a refugee from Majdal (now the Israeli city of Ashkelon), was a teacher,” she told those gathered. “My father was a young boy when the town was taken by Israel, and his family was forced to move to a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.” I had not known this and, I am sure, neither did the predominantly Jewish audience.

In an answer to a question she said, “In Kuwait, we were taught Hebrew, and we were told that we had to learn it because Hebrew was the language of the enemy.” Hearing that sent chills down my spine. “We even learned to say it in Hebrew:
Ivrit hee sfat ha’oyev.”
When she repeated those words in Hebrew, spoken with an Arabic accent, I did not know what to do with myself. I was flooded with thoughts and emotions, a combination of pain and surprise. Frankly, I was deeply insulted. She was drawing a connection between my language, this language that like a thread links me to the Hebrew culture, the language of the great Hebrew writers, both ancient and modern, and her fate as a Palestinian. Immediately, I thought of the poets Bialik and Lea Goldberg, the prophets of the Old Testament, and the immortal author of the
Song of Songs
. How could my language be associated with any enemy? Soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank I can see as enemies of the Palestinians, along with a few Israeli politicians. The Hebrew language was the very heart and soul of Hebrew culture.
Did that mean that I, too, was the enemy?
I felt that I was suddenly associated with things I thought I was detached from. This was not the last time someone said something that shook me to my core, but it was the first real kick in the gut.

I wrote to Manal immediately, not to argue so much but to express the strength of the thoughts and emotions I experienced when I heard those words. She said she had no idea her words would have such an effect.

Years later, after Manal’s daughter was born, her father came to San Diego to visit. Gila and I went to see her, and when Gila met Manal’s father it was an emotionally charged moment. They both realized they came from the same place; Majdal, now the city of Ashkelon, just a few kilometers north of Kibbutz Zikim,
where Gila was born and raised. They had grown up seeing and loving the same landscape, and it affected them both deeply. Manal’s father kept saying through his tears that we “were good people” and that he felt no resentment toward us. “This was not your fault.”

Some time later Manal and I talked about it. “This was the first time I ever saw my father cry for Palestine,” she said.

My journey and my transformation were becoming more intense. Soon I had to face my moment of truth—although it turned out to be the first of many such moments, moments without which dialogue is just plain talk.

We were at a dialogue meeting at Majeed’s house. Majeed was explaining a point when he said, “The Palestinians had barely 10,000 fighters, but the Haganah and the other Jewish militias combined were triple that number if not more. So when the Jews attacked, the Palestinians never had a chance.” That was the most outrageous version of history I had ever heard: that the fighting forces of the Jewish militias in 1948 were superior to the Arabs’ and that the Jews attacked.

My father and all of his friends had fought in that war. I’d heard first-hand stories about the sieges, the fierce attacks, and the touch-and-go battles where our forces were outnumbered and won only because they had the wits and the moral high ground. My mother had told me that during the siege of Jerusalem, they’d had to share half a tomato for meals and dash to the wells to get water while bombs fell and snipers shot at them. In the Negev where my father fought, it was the few Israelis fighting the huge Egyptian army.

I was fully convinced that with my background I knew more than anyone else about this aspect of the conflict and that what Majeed was saying made no sense. In a way it even dishonored the story of the creation of the Jewish state, a story in which the few defeating the many is a crucial element. If what he said was true, then it de-glorified much of the story.

That could easily have been my breaking point. I could not explain why Majeed would be perpetuating this insane notion that Israel was not a “David” defending itself against the Arab “Goliath,” but I wasn’t ready to dismiss him as a liar.

I could not dismiss him because by now trust had been built between us. This trust allowed me to let go of the safe comfort of “knowing” so that I could explore the unknown territory of the “other.” This was very difficult, but I felt that even if what he said was not the truth that I knew, I would have to explore it.

I didn’t say anything right away because I didn’t want to start arguing. Instead, when I got home that night I called my brother Yoav, who taught political science at Tel Aviv University.

“Yes, what your friend said has merit. If you want to know more, read a few books by Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, and Avi Shlaim.” These three “New Israeli
Historians” had all recently rewritten the history of the establishment of Israel. I did exactly as Yoav advised. Over the following weeks and months I read all the books by these authors. And the more I read, the more I wanted to know. They had corroborated what Palestinians had been saying for decades. In fact, they corroborated what most of the world had known for years: that Israel was created after Jewish militias destroyed Palestine and forcibly exiled its people. This was a rude awakening for me. I recalled watching the Israeli TV series
Tkuma
, or
Rebirth
, that came out in 1998 to commemorate Israel’s 50th independence day. In one chapter dealing with Israel’s War of Independence, a veteran commander of 1948 was asked if it was true that the Haganah forces burned down Arab villages. He slowly looked up at the camera, waited a while, and then said, “Like bonfires.” This meant a whole new paradigm through which to view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The purpose of dialogue is to eliminate the barriers between two sides through listening and empathy—which, I’ve learned, is easier said than done. The willingness to accept another’s truth is a huge step to take. It is such a powerful gesture, in fact, that contemplating it can make you want to throw up.