Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European indifference is, and Israeli racism and its cruel regime of occupation are… It was not an Arab or a Muslim who said the above, nor a Western who sympathizes with the Palestinians. No, the person who said these words before the European Parliament last month, was an Israeli mother whose daughter was killed in a suicide attack in 1997. I had gathered a lot of material on the controversy surrounding the construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero, and I wrote several articles on the subject. I also wrote about the peace process, the negotiations, and the stances of the Israeli right, the Israel lobby and the advocates of Israel in the United States. In the material that was gathered, I stumbled upon a speech delivered by Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on the occasion of the International Women's Day. I was somehow enraged by the fact that the parliament invited an Israeli woman to give a speech, when there are thousands of Palestinian women who lost a young son or daughter since 30/9/2000. At the time, I decided to ignore the speech, but then I remembered that I had heard of this Israeli woman before, so went back to reading it. Dr. Nurit is the head of a group called “Bereaved Families for Peace”, which she co-founded following the death of her daughter Smadar, who was thirteen, in a suicide attack in Jerusalem. The group includes women like her and peace activists who oppose the occupation, and defend bereaved Palestinian women who lost their children. I was once in Qatar with Martin Indyk. As we walked to the studio to record a television interview, I told him that I have an opinion on the Jews. When he asked me what it was, I said: The bad Jew is the worst human being in the world, and the good Jew is the best human being in the world. I have not categorized Indyk to be either good or bad, but I remembered that conversation as I read the speech of the Israeli doctor in the European Parliament. I have written time after time about fair-minded Israelis and Jews who seek peace and staunchly oppose occupation, and Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a great example of those people. She said at the European Parliament that they should have invited a Palestinian woman to give a speech and dedicated her speech to Mariam Ra'aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza Strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family's strawberry field. In Strasbourg, she said that the France of “liberty, equality and fraternity” is scared of little girls with head scarves, and that great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb and the demographic threat. She also said that America and Great Britain are infecting their citizens with blind fear of the Muslims…and said that she is “a victim of violence against women like Palestinian, Iraqi, and Afghan women because we are all in the grip of the same criminals who call themselves leaders of the free world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children". The entire speech is of this kind, a kind that a Palestinian mother would wish to say. Dr. Nurit had also given a speech on the first anniversary of the war on Gaza in which she spoke about the bloody violence suffered by the strip and criticized the people of Tel Aviv, where she was speaking, for failing to resist the genocide in Gaza and all of Palestine. She said that in the past year, the Israeli children learned to kill non-Jews, of whatever age. She said that the children also learned that the disgusting qualities which anti-Semites attribute to Jews are “actually manifested among our leaders [The leaders of Israel]; deceit and deception, greed and the murder of children. This doctor reminded me of the Palestinian doctor Izz al-Din Abu al-Aysh in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza: Israeli shelling killed three of his daughters and his niece, while injuring other members of the family. The Israeli television had broadcasted scenes of him screaming and mourning the victims at the time. He was an advocate of peace and coexistence before the incident and continues to be so even today. He also spoke before the European Parliament, and called for an end to the killing, for the demolition of the walls of hatred and to build bridges of love. However, today's topic is peace-seeking Israelis and Jews, which cannot be complete without mentioning the Israeli novelist David Grossman, the candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He had lost his son Uri, who was an army reservist, near the end of the war against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. The twenty year old son was killed on August 12, and the cease fire was declared on August 14. After the death of his son, Grossman's stance in support of the two-state solution endured, even today. He said that he refuses to mix emotion and opinion, and recently took part in the protest held by Palestinian residents of Jerusalem against the demolition of their homes. If we add this to the above the Israelis who boycott Israel in protest of the occupation, we find that there are many Jews and Israelis with whom we can have peace. [email protected]
