Published in Vision 2020, Middle Eastern Outlooks on the future of the Region
Common Ground Publications
Copyright ©2000 Search for Common Ground

Ha'aretz, News Features
Thursday, November 11, 1999
Page (4)

I was first introduced to the question of Palestine in 1948, when my family moved from Beersheva to Gaza. I was only four years old at the time, but I remember that day. I remember my mother pushing our sewing machine into the waiting truck; and my father, with a dismissive wave of his hand, indicating that she best leave the machine. Years later, I had learned that he was certain we would be home again in two weeks. Because of what she left behind, my mother was sad for years.

Our life in Gaza wasn't overly hard, though. Since my father's family originally hails from Gaza, we had only to move into my father's house - unlike most other refugees who had to move into makeshift camps. We were also surrounded by a network of relatives - cousins and uncles - many of whom had had to flee their land as we did. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency readily employed my father. My mother was soon able to buy a new sewing machine, although she had kept talking, longingly, about the old one. We were lucky. Gaza was full of women refugees who begged for bread or money, who would be happy to do housework for a pittance of pay.

Jews figured into my life as the enemy who had stolen our land, who had made my people refugees. I hated Jews. Then in 1956 Israel occupied Gaza during its Suez Campaign. Once, in the earlier days of that terrifying time, I opened our gate to a stranger. He was a red-faced man who, in fluent Arabic, asked to see my father. I was shocked to see him; the more so when he gave his name as Moshe - an obviously Jewish name. Imagine my surprise then when I saw my father hug this man, this Russian-looking, Jewish man. They embraced and cried into each other. Moshe turned to me and said, "Don't be surprised, son. We are old friends". I could not believe it when my father then said, "We are like brothers". Moshe was not an enemy, I thought, but then who was?

I was burning with a need to know more, but I had to wait for my father's "brother" to relax in the company of memories and nostalgia before I had the chance to ask him, "What about the Jews who stole our land?". Moshe was now sipping his tea. He had just dipped a piece of toast in olive oil and thyme. He looked at me then at my father and exclaimed, "You didn't tell him, Rajab?". "Look, son, " he began, "those thieves are the Zionists. They came from Poland and Russia. But we, the Jews of Palestine, are Palestinians like you are. We lived happily together until the Zionists came and shattered our life. They are our common enemy". What Moshe had said had a profound effect on me. Not all Jews are the enemy then; only the Zionists.

Over the years, as my obsession with a lost land, Palestine, grew, I became aware that Palestinian nationalism is not the proper rebuttal to Zionism. It falls into the same trap of exclusion. It was, I thought, but a reflex reaction to the colonial aspect of Zionism. I also felt that the question of Palestine was not and should not be confined to the Zionists. Palestinians as Christians, Muslims, and Jews were intimately involved. This is why I was could not count myself as a Fatah follower. I disagreed with the tactics of the "armed struggle", which I believed to be, in many ways, a disaster - although it did succeed in keeping the mass of Palestinians hopeful.

What we have always needed is visionary leadership guided by a clear strategy calculated to place our national struggle in its natural setting. We need to expose the racist nature of Zionism. Because of their history of persecution, Jews would have been in as natural an element as Christian and Muslim Palestinians. People need to unite against racism. My vision of Palestine is of a small country that is a part of the Arab world. It would open for people to come and settle, and refugees would have the right to return.

In the early 1980s I had the opportunity to talk with Israeli President Herzog. He asked me about what I envisioned for solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict. I told him the story of Moshe, and about my dream of one country for all people. He politely dismissed the idea of such a state, insisting on the Jewish State as the solution to the historical and emotional need of the Jews. I politely responded that though their history was so painful, it should not blur our vision and bury our future. It was clear, I told the President. If Israel continues to be a Jewish State, then the Palestinians have the right to establish a nationalist or even an Islamic State. President Herzog did not find my logic amusing.

As the peace process advances - or retreats - the dream of a one, all-inclusive state looks even more remote. Xenophobic Israel is more terrified than ever, and the Palestinians appear to be destined for a military dictatorship.

I wait the day when everyone will be equal before the law, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. There will be real peace only when people are dignified and empowered with the strength of law. I can accept, however, the logic that Palestinians need to have their own state - perhaps this is even a necessary stage of development. Perhaps too Israel is truly the fulfillment of that Jewish dream of nationhood. But then what? The day will certainly arrive when people will rise above the ruins around them. Families will work together to plant common seeds, and people will realize their struggles are linked, and that if they unite, they would certainly be unstoppable.