It’s A Wonderful World

I just came back from a talk by Ilan Pappe, one of the world’s leading historian on the Palestine-Israel conflict, who by the way, happens to be Jewish. Generally, he touched on issues that us, Palestinians activists should be aware of in our struggle for justice. Basically, this was what he said (of which I can remember):

• It is important for us to realize that this issue, in essence, is a very simple issue, that is made to believe (by the Isrealis) to be complicated. In reality, it is what it is; A group of people who share a common ideology, who believe that they have a ‘right’ to disregard other people’s right in order to get what they ‘deserve’.
• In order to convince others, we must be aware of the struggle of the memories and policies of this cause – i.e. we must learn and know how to exploit the misconceptions and manipulations of history the Israelis have cast over the world.
• Supporting this cause does not necessarily mean that we condone every single thing the victim does. Nevertheless, it should not ‘blur’ us away from the truth. It is what it is.
• We should divorce Judaism from Zionism. Not all Jews are zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews.

There were loads more that were discussed, even the questions ( and at times, statements) made by the audience was very interesting. But these 3 points were the ones that stuck in my mind and I thought were most interesting.

One of the audience asked Ilan Pappe how he got to where he is today given that he was raised in Israel where he himself  admitted that the children were being taught to think that what Israel is doing is right. He answered by saying that he initially wanted to learn Arabic because he wanted to join the army Intelligence and help to decipher the enemy but ended up loving Arabic instead and started to learn about the true history of Palestine and Israel thus coming to the conclusion that he has now. Talk about Hidayah and Divine intervention! It is at times like these, when you hear stories like these, that you realize how powerful and wise God is. SubhanAllah.

When I think about the whole Palestine Issue, I can’t help but think, am I supporting this because I’m a Muslim? Or because it is just plain dead wrong? I sometimes wonder if we would still be convicted about this issue if say it was Uganda, instead of Palestine that is being victimised. My point is, probably we should take a moment and think about the reasons we are supporting Palestine. Because if we think that we would not support this cause as strongly as we do now, if it were Uganda, then I think we should call ourselves selfish and racsist before we call others that.