We are one!

[All views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are mine and not that of any past, present, or future employer]

Parallel story of my journey from Egypt to US: https://bit.ly/3Bad9xb

What inspired me to write this essay: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/half-my-true-self-amr-awadallah

Preamble:

I have a confession to make. But before I make that confession, and especially if you are somebody who knows me, I want you to promise to read the whole story before making any judgments. I post the story here in its entirety but also on many other social media.

Here we go.

Chapter 1: Confession

“I hated the Jewish people, all the Jewish people”! and emphasis here is on the past tense. Yes, I was anti-Semitic, even though I am a Semite, as this term broadly refers to the peoples who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, among others.

I want to tell you my story of redemption with four goals in mind:

1. I acknowledge that prejudice, and especially hateful prejudice, is a vile philosophy that should be eradicated from our society. And by that, I specifically mean “irrational hate towards an entire class of people because of their affiliation to that class”.
2. Religious zeal, nationalism, and ideologies are abstract concepts that we adopted to unite us on purposeful missions, which is a good thing. But let’s not have these abstract constructs supersede our humanity. Humans are real— you can touch another human, but you can’t touch Zionism or Jihad. Furthermore, we all share 99.9% of our DNA, so don’t let the 0.1% of genes that flipped divide us, instead focus on the 99.9% that binds us.
3. There is hope. Modern history has shown us, more often than not, that peace always prevails. This is the way.
4. I paint a dream for how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can possibly be resolved once the irrational fear is subdued.

If you agree with me and support the message of peace and hope that I convey here, then I sincerely invite you to share my story with as many people as you can.

Chapter 2: Nurtured to fear the other

For you to appreciate my redemption, you need to hear my story, where I came from, and how I came to be. I was born in 1970 in Egypt, on a house bed via a midwife, in a district called Shobra in Cairo. Note that at the time, Israel was occupying the Sinai peninsula, so the two countries were locked in a state of war.

My parents took me to the UK shortly after I was born. I spent 5 years there while my father was getting his PhD in Accounting from Southampton University. In 1975, we moved back to Egypt, where I lived until 1995, and that’s when I came to the US. Now I am 50 years old: 5 years in the UK, 20 years in Egypt, and 25 years in the US. Today I am a very proud Egyptian-American with a little bit of British flair. I am also a proud Muslim with a touch of healthy agnosticism. I firmly believe that human minds can hold multiple states at the same time; there is no need to be binary about it.

Ever since I was young, and soon after I became intellectually conscious, the only narrative I heard from everybody around me was that the Jewish people are here to kill all of us, Arabs, and build their greater state of Israel that would span the land from the Euphrates River (in Iraq) to the Nile River (in Egypt). That was the story I was told, regardless of whether it is true or not— it was the main narrative most of us were told as we grew up. How can we not hate the other when we fear that they are here to kill all of us? In addition to that fear, there was widespread anger over the many Palestinians slaughtered in the Nakba of 1948, and the many Egyptians killed during Israel's occupation of Sinai from 1967 to 1973. I am not excusing myself, but for a child who was just forming his notion of the world around him, the narrative becomes the truth, and the fear, coupled with anger, leads to hate.

That narrative is still being told today, though many are starting to see through it. And, to be fair, I hear from many of my Israeli friends born around the same time that they had a similar counter-narrative: Those Arabs want to kill all of us so that the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea becomes theirs; they want to drown us all in the sea.

We were both taught to fear the other, and adding some really horrendous wars of rage in the mix, hatred became entrenched deep in our hearts and minds from a very young age. In retrospect, I blame our governments and elderly for doing that to us, for letting their prejudiced ideologies shape us in that manner, but they didn’t know any better either, and they did lose a lot of loved ones in those wars, regardless of intention.

Chapter 3: Emerging from the Matrix of Hate

I moved to the US in 1995 to get my PhD at Stanford University while I still held deep resentment towards the Jewish people. I was irrationally prejudiced. But here in the US, I started to see the humanity of the other side. I started to see the truth. And I emerged from the Matrix of hate that my mind was submerged in for so many years.

My first research advisor at Stanford was of Arab origin and didn’t treat me in a fair way. To my aid, came Héctor García-Molina, a Mexican-American professor at Stanford, who was probably an atheist or agnostic. Back home, I was also nurtured to be prejudiced against kafirs, which is anybody who disbelieved that Allah is the one and only true God, so that would include atheists and agnostics. Héctor became the first person to lend their privilege to me, and he helped me out during a rather tough time. For those who don’t know, Héctor was the research advisor for Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. As far as I am concerned, Héctor was not a “kafir”, on the contrary, he was an angel by all meanings of that word— a true human. He was one of the first reasons why the vile virus of prejudice started to be conquered in my heart. Héctor passed away in Nov 2019 at the age of 65, and we all miss him dearly.

Then came my second research advisor, Nick McKeown, who was very instrumental in helping me mature. Nick especially focused on training me to listen, pause and reflect, before I speak or respond— something I still struggle with to this day. He was also very instrumental in shaping my public speaking skills, especially on how to connect with an audience. Nick, like Héctor, continued to cure me of prejudice against the other. He was very instrumental in my life in so many ways, including connecting me with Frank Marshall who became the angel investor for my first startup (VivaSmart) that was later acquired by Yahoo. Nick, and Frank, if you are reading or listening, thanks for all that you did for me.

After Nick came Mendel Rosenblum, my research advisor for my PhD thesis (the vMatrix, look it up). Clearly from his last name, he is Jewish, and that made me very cautious when working with him. I wasn’t sure if he was religious, but as I got to know him, I felt that he was atheist or at least agnostic. For those who don’t know, Mendel is the co-founder of VMware, one of the most impactful information technology companies of our generation. His wife, Diane Greene, is just as amazing as him. She was also a co-founder of VMware and played a tremendous role in growing Google Cloud, where I work today. (Opinions here are my own and not that of my employer). They both invested in Cloudera, my second startup, when it was just an idea with 4 founders. They obviously believed in me, and for that I am very grateful. I ended up making them some good cash back as Cloudera luckily worked out.

Over the years, I came to know Mendel as the most humble, ethical, smart, and humanistic person that I have ever come across. In addition, he has an amazing sense of humor, he loves to laugh, and loves to make those around him laugh. He sometimes reminded me of an older Seth Rogen. Mendel was my first “Jewish angel”, he solidified the elimination of prejudice from my heart. Because of him, I learned not to fear the other, and not to label a whole group of people by the vile actions of the few. This was truly when I started to emerge from the Matrix of hate that I was nurtured on and see all of us only as humans. Thank you Mendel for changing me in such a fundamental way.

Emerging from the Matrix of hate, I started to see all the other amazing Jewish people that I encountered in my life. After Prophet Mohammed (pbuh), I always looked up to Einstein as a role model. I knew that he was a Jew, but my hatred-soaked brain suppressed that link. I adored the Marvel universe, the Avengers, Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, and Thanos — really who doesn’t love the Marvel Universe? The creator of that universe is Stan Lee, another amazing atheist Jew, may his soul rest in peace.

The von Neumann architecture for modern computers was invented by John von Neumann, another amazing atheist Jew. I started to see other amazing Jewish people that I admired in the arts, especially Jon Stewart, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Sacha Cohen, Steven Spielberg, and Jerry Seinfeld. I think many of them might also be atheists, and this sheds the light for me that “Jew” is an ethnic ancestry attribute, rather than a religious attribute per se— hold on to this observation as I will come back to it later.

On a side note though, my most favorite singer in the whole world is Umm Kulthum, an Egyptian Muslim whose vocal cords might never be repeated again, ever. And my favorite Muslim scientist is Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi, who is Persian. He set the foundations of Algebra and the concept of an algorithm (the word algorithm is derived from his name).

Like me, many of the prejudiced among Israelis who were nurtured during their upbringing to fear and hate, completely emerged from the matrix of hate once they saw, spoke, and understood the other. I can't pin an exact date for when my emergence happened, as unlearning hate and learning love is gradual, but I emerged roughly between 1995-2001.

Chapter 4: The most impactful Jew of all

The most impactful Jew of all, for me at least, is Yuval Noah Harari. He is my most favorite author, and his book, Sapiens, changed me in a very fundamental way. My second most favorite author is Isaac Asimov, one of the greatest Sci-Fi writers of our time. He, too, is an atheist, secular Jew.

First, if you haven’t read Sapiens, you should stop listening or reading right now and go read the book. I am not kidding, it will change you. It will evolve you. In this book, Harari studied the history of human civilization going back 150 thousand years to when scientific Eve (aka Mitochondrial Eve, or mt-Eve for short) gave birth to the first of us, Sapiens, in the south east of Africa. He studied our actions over the centuries and came to a conclusion that changed me, forever. Harari’s conclusion, which in retrospect is so obvious, is that nations, religions, tribes, countries, identities, sports clubs, and companies are abstract concepts that we created to help unify us on certain efforts.

For example, I work at Google, but Google itself is an abstract concept— I can’t touch it. It is just a bunch of laws written in legal documents, and even those documents today are virtual. Yet I, and all Googlers as we affectionately call ourselves, love Google, and believe in our mission of universal information access. I can touch another Googler, with their permission obviously. I can touch Google’s buildings, or a phone running YouTube, but I can never touch Google itself, yet, I believe in it, so strongly. The same applies to religions, though the devout among us will see the abstract concept as something dictated by God vs. created by another human. The goal of all religions is to unify us in treating each other fairly and respectfully. Though, obviously, atheists would argue that you don’t need such a construct— you can be a good human by having an ethical framework, which is yet another abstract concept that we believe in.

Our countries, religions, tribes, sports clubs, and many of the other identities we hold so precious are just abstract concepts— virtual constructs that we fall in love with deeply. The funniest example that Harari gave in Sapiens is that money is actually the biggest abstract concept of all. We all believe in it so much (note, a dollar bill isn’t money, but rather a legal contract printed on a piece of paper, which says you have money somewhere else to back it up). To illustrate his point, Harari argued that if you were to give a monkey, or a 3 year old human for that matter, the choice between a Bitcoin (worth about $35K right now), or a banana, they will always pick the banana, because it isn’t abstract, they can touch it and eat it, right here, right now.

So why and how did this idea change me? It changed me because it lifted another veil off my eyes. It helped me emerge from another Matrix that I was entrenched in. It helped me clarify the difference between an abstract concept, a fiction, and a real human opposite me in the physical world. Because of that book, I promised myself that going forward I will never let any of these abstract concepts get in the way of me seeing the other, whether the other is a human being, or even an animal like my 2 dogs and cat whom I love so much.

For example, some Islamic scholars interpret that Islam urges us not to have dogs in our home. But I love dogs! They are amazing, they are useful, and they don’t harm anybody. They only love unconditionally, and protect their owners. So sorry, I will not let that abstract notion override what I can see and touch. Similarly, some Islamic scholars conclude that our religion means that all atheists, or kafirs, will go to hell. I just can’t accept that either, as Héctor García-Molina will absolutely have his own heaven, if such a heaven exists.

So, my advice to you is the same, please, please, please, while you should be absolutely proud of the abstract concepts that you believe in (I am a proud Muslim Egyptian American), don’t let those abstract concepts supersede your humanity and what you can actually see and touch. Said another way, let’s say you are walking on a bridge between your abstract realities and your physical realities, you shouldn’t let the abstract reality supersede the physical one, but rather you should balance between both to stay on the bridge, but if you feel the abstract causing a compromise on the physical side, then pay conscious attention to that and bring it back.

Chapter 5: We are one

I want to bring things back to the conflict in Israel-Palestine. We have a number of ideologies colliding with each other in a very bad way, and we are letting these ideologies, and abstract concept supersede our humanity. I will pick a couple of examples here to illustrate the fallacies in them, with the goal of bringing us back to being one, even while being super proud of our abstract concepts.

Until recently, while I no longer held any resentment towards the Jewish people (in fact, it got replaced by admiration), I was still an anti-Zionist. I believed Zionism was super evil. I redirected my resentment against the Jewish people towards Zionism and Zionists. And I failed to see that this is prejudice in another form. I failed to see that I deviated from the lesson I learned from Yuval— I let the fiction supersede the reality. I know this is hard for Palestinians and anti-Zionists to hear, but please bear with me, I will explain more later. Zionism, at its core, is actually pure, just like Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Nationalism, and Jihad which are also, in essence, pure concepts (until they become radicalized or ultra-ized).

Zionism, as far as I understand it, is the need to have a safe home where Jewish people will no longer be persecuted like they were in the past. It is such a respectable goal— how can anyone, including myself, stand against that cause? Especially given the horrific persecution that the Jewish people had to endure in the past. What I failed to see, however, is the separation between the abstract concept, the ideology of Zionism, from how certain prejudiced folks from within that ideology applied it in a twisted way that destroyed its meaning. I failed to see that my resentment is not towards Zionism, but rather against Zionism being twisted to mean “a safe home for the Jewish people at the expense of the other, or in other words at the expense of being humane”. That, by definition, is a prejudiced ideology, as it perceives all the rest of humanity as “the other”. But if we go back 100,000 years, we all came from Israel, as science has proven that this area was a choke point for all the original Homo sapiens spreading from Africa to the rest of the world.

Case in point, yours truly DNA breakdown per the saliva that I sent to 23andme:

* 74.8% Egyptian

* 10.3% Mesopotamian (Iran/Iraq/Turkey/Gulf)

* 4.8% North African (Egypt/Libya/Tunisia/Algeria/Morocco)

* 2.3% Sub-Saharan African (Sudan/Chad/Niger/Mali)

* 2.2% Levantine (Palestine/Jordan/Lebanon/Syria)

* 2.1% Coptic Egyptian

* 0.7% Sardinian (Italian Sardegna Island)

* 0.3% Siberian (Russia)

* 0.1% Ashkenazi Jewish (I am Semite because I speak Arabic, but also by lineage)

* 0.1% South European (Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugal), and

* 0.1% African Hunter-Gatherer (if you mess with my family, I will hire Liam to hunt you down!)

Per 23andme, 0.1% means that ~500 years ago, I had a 10th generation grand-grand-parent, out of 1024 grand-parents, who was 100% of that ethnic composition at > 50% confidence level.

So, as a Zionist, you can be very proud of that abstract ideology, very proud of your Jewish identity and culture, but never let that have you see anybody else as less, as they probably have a little bit of “Jew” in them too (they might actually have more “Jew” in them than you do). In other words, DNA speaking, we are all one. I admire many Jewish people as I shared earlier, but I will also tell you this with unwavering conviction: The Jewish people aren’t any more special than the Christian, Black, Hispanic, White, Muslim, Asian, Arab peoples or any other group of people for that matter. We are all special, and we need to see all others as special, because, scientifically speaking, we are 99.9% genetically the same, and if we come from the same land within the last 1000 years, we are more like 99.999% the same. So please don’t let the 0.001% of DNA that flipped, coupled with your abstract ideology, lead you to believe that the other is inferior, and doesn’t deserve the same rights as you do.

I want to remind the prejudiced among Zionists of the final few words from Theodore Herzl’s concluding remarks in his book, The Jewish state. Herzl writes: “And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity”. There is nothing humane in displacing and oppressing another entire population that are indigenous to that land to guarantee your own safety, especially when, DNA-wise, they are almost identical to you and their quandary is that one of their grandparents decided to adopt a religion different from Judaism (probably not out of their own freewill, but because they wanted to fit in with the rest of the crowd). Moreover, it is very important to note that, while a majority of the Palestinians are Muslim, there are also Christian, Baha'i, Metawali, Druze, Jewish, and even atheist/agnostic Palestinians among them.

To illustrate the extent to which Zionism is being twisted (just like Make America Great Again in the US— I come from a “shit-hole” Muslim-ban country per Trump’s point of view), in a recent interview with Eli Hazan, director of communications for the Likud party, I heard the following dialogue:

First, Eli Hazan said: 

“I know there are a lot of, I would say, unjust things in this situation, but I would prefer to be on the victorious side rather than to be in the, you know, the losing side [sic]. Because I know one thing, if I will be on the loser’s side, it will be the end of me. And therefore, I have no other choice but to be victorious. I am so sorry for what you are suffering, I am really sorry for that.”

Interviewer: 

“You said I want to be on the winning side, and only on the winning side, does that mean at the cost of any innocent Palestinians, regardless of what happens to them? Just help me understand that as it does not sound humanistic at all.”

Eli Hazan responded emphatically: 

“I do not want to be humanistic. I can’t afford to be humanistic. I want to survive.”

Now, I don’t want to appear one sided— prejudice like that exists in the Arab world as well. A big part of it comes from the stories we were told when we were young, those stories I shared above about the Jewish people coming in to “eliminate” all of us and take our land. But this narrative, over the years, has evolved from fear into hatred. There are people in some of those countries that publicly say they want Israel, with all its children, with all its great Jewish people like Yuval, or Israelis that are fighting for Palestinian rights, to disappear from the face of the earth. That is obviously prejudiced. It is the same exact prejudice that Eli exhibits. It is because the Israelis, too, heard stories that the Palestinians want them all dead, that they proceeded to paint the other camp as “evil” to justify all the violence that they plan to inflict upon them. They are two faces of the exact same coin!

Chapter 6: Fear + Anger = Hatred

A wise-person once told me that when you combine fear with anger, you get hatred, and unfortunately, that is happening in droves in that region.

So how do we solve that problem? How do we eliminate hatred?

Anger can not be easily eliminated. It is your absolute right to feel angry at a suicide bomber who decimated your neighbourhood, or a precision IDF bomb that wiped your entire family. Anger will not go away, that is a fact. It isn’t fair to ask you to forgive (only saints are able to let go of anger).

Fear, however, can be addressed. It is the only way out of this mess— there is no other way. I urge you all to work hard to shed light on that irrational fear, and narrow it to the actual perpetrators, versus the entire population on the other side. My redemption story which I covered here is exactly about how I did that. I want the Jewish folks who fear Muslims and Arabs to know that while we do have a few zealots who are prejudiced to the max, the majority of us have matured well beyond that, especially within the Palestinian population. They have experiences similar to mine which showed them that not all Zionists are like Eli; wanting to survive at the cost of their own humanity. They now have the experiences of seeing humane Jewish people in Israel and around the world, thus lifting the veil of prejudiced hatred that their parents and/or surroundings implanted in their brains. Those Palestinians no longer fear the Jewish people as a group, they truly want to live in peace.

Similarly, the majority of Arabs in the countries surrounding Israel, like me, love Marvel and adore Stan Li. They are also starting to see that not all Zionists are like Eli. They are recognizing the leftist Israeli Jewish people speaking out in support of Palestinians’ equality, essentially putting their humanity above the fear stories they were nurtured on. Our leaders in the Arab world need to do that. They need to highlight more of those stories, to help diminish the fear.

Unfortunately, just like Trump in the US wanted us to fear the Mexicans and Muslim-Ban countries so as not to focus on his shortcomings, some of the Arab leaders, without naming who as I still want to visit back there, are doing exactly the same. They want the fear of Israel to continue, thus their citizens need them to remain in power to protect them. But these stories are starting to lose ground as we have seen following many of the recent Arab Spring revolutions. The newer generation is seeing and learning more than ever before, so the fear being nurtured into them doesn’t have the chance to survive for as long as it did with us.

Once the fear is diminished, then we will no longer have hatred. We will only have anger, and anger can be tolerated.

Two of the most inspiring organizations I came across in Israel/Palestine are doing exactly that. They are called Roots, and Taghyeer (which means change in Arabic, founded by Ali Abu Awwad - check out his "Painful Hope" TEDx talk below). They are both on a mission to help people overcome their fears of the other in order to develop understanding and solidarity despite ideological differences. We need a lot more of that, and not just in Israel. We need it across all the surrounding countries that have been nurtured to be fearful, and angry, and hence their hearts are full of hate.

Another excellent initiative is Danny Gal's dream of an Israeli-Palestinian Integrated City:

It’s important to note that the draconian measures of the current Israeli government against the Palestinian people are clearly at the root of this fear, and consequently the hate. So while the work of organizations like Roots and Taghyeer will slowly help reduce the fear on a person by person basis, that is no replacement for restoring equality to all to get to the root of the fear.

We need to remind the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the Muslim/Arab/Jewish worlds at large, that they can touch and see the dead children, and that they should not let their belief in the fear narratives, or the abstract concepts of Zionism and Jihad, supersede the love of humanity in any way, shape, or form.

Chapter 7: Stories of injustice and hope

Towards the end of May 2021, I was fortunate to listen and participate in a clubhouse discussion group called “Meet Palestinians and Israelis''. In it, I heard a number of stories that truly shed a light on the complexity of the fear narrative on both sides. I share here a couple of stories that helped me see things from a different perspective.

I want to say first that there are many truly heartbreaking stories on both sides. Stories of teens being sniped from afar for fun, suicide bombers blowing themselves up in buses, children being shot in the head for throwing a rock, and the painful story of Mohammed Al Hadidi who lost his wife and 4 sons to be left only with baby Omar. I am avoiding those here, but they are still very important stories nevertheless.

The details in the stories below have been changed a bit to protect the identities of those who told them. I heard these stories directly with my own ears.

The first story is about an atheist actress. Her mom is Syrian and her dad is Palestinian. She was born in Algeria and is currently a US citizen. She had many US friends who visited Israel with no problem, so she figured she would join them on their next trip, using her US passport, as she yearned to see the house where her dad was born. She is tall, pretty, and her name is clearly Arab. She was stopped in the airport in Tel-Aviv and interviewed for 5+ hours while her US friends, who have no connection to the land, just walked across in minutes. This is her dad’s birth land. It was so humiliating for her to see the folks who have no link to the land get treated way more fairly than her, just because of her Palestinian ancestry, and her grand father chose Islam as his religion.

She finally made it into Tel-Aviv, but the humiliation continued. One day, she was crossing a military checkpoint (for Palestinians only) with a younger relative who has a Palestinian ID. When you cross a checkpoint as a Palestinian, you have to go on foot through the longer “special treatment” queue versus fast car entry (which is reserved for Israeli citizens and non-Palestinian tourists). There was a long queue of other folks in the line behind them waiting to cross. The guard at the checkpoint told her: 

“you look like supermodel [sic], do catwalk for us”.

She thought he was joking, so she just laughed it off. He then insisted and said that he will not let her pass, and will block the whole queue until she “does catwalk” for them! Her younger relative, a local who is used to this kind of abuse, urged her to “just do it” so they can get on to where they are headed. Nobody stood up for her. She shamefully did the catwalk, which was extremely humiliating to say the least. I am told harassment like this happens on a regular basis, even towards underage girls (search for “IDF girls harassment” on YouTube). 

This story hit me hard for two reasons:

(1) It was clear that they are trying to make it humiliating so that all Palestinians in the diaspora, regardless of the passport they hold, feel that they will get humiliated if they try to visit, and hence avoid going there ever again.

(2) I personally would love to visit Israel one day, but I have a rather deep sense of pride, just like all of us I would assume, so I am pretty sure I can’t handle humiliating treatment like that. I have a couple of Israeli friends who joked with me once that, in addition to the long interrogations at border control, I might also be asked to bend over to be anally probed. I really hope that was just a joke!

The actress avoided crossing any more checkpoints during her stay. She also felt that she was constantly being watched. She observed that many Kazakhstani and Indonesian Muslims were working in Tel-Aviv to provide care to children and elderly citizens, which further confirmed her impression that this isn’t about religious ideologies, but rather about suppressing the Palestinians from even existing in that land. If this isn’t Apartheid, then I am not sure what is? B’Tselem, a local Israeli human rights organization in Jerusalem, concurs with this being an Apartheid. On their website, they give a very detailed explanation of why that label is justified. Amnesty International concurs with the racial discrimination, and so does Human Rights Watch. Furthermore, two former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa have recently called the Israeli occupation an Apartheid. It is clear, yet, the prejudiced among Zionists refuse to see it as such, and won't even acknowledge that it is at a minimum racial discrimination.

The second story is of an Israeli IDF soldier, who is about 20 years old. His unit received intelligence during the night that rocks are being thrown at a highway, which obviously can lead to serious injuries or death if these rocks hit a speeding car. The soldier was ordered to go arrest whoever was throwing the rocks. He went, in the night with his flashlight, and he approached a big boulder behind which the perpetrators were hiding. He cleared the corner, with his gun up, with the flashlight shining forward, and saw the fear in the eyes of two kids, who were about 11 years old. He felt morally conflicted on what to do. On one hand, these are just terrified kids, he can reprimand them verbally then let them go back home. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to appear weak in front of his peer group, and his commanding officer will clearly court marshal him for disobeying the order if it became known that he let the “perpetrators” go.

With the knowledge and wisdom I have today, if I was in his shoes, I would have totally let the kids go after educating them about the danger this brings to others and to themselves. But if I was still in my 20s, I’d have been eager to fit in with the others, and having had an explicit order from an authority figure, I am not sure how I would have acted. He arrested the kids and took them back to the military checkpoint. The kids were interrogated, and they found out, according to his story, that a random stranger gave the kids a significant amount of money in exchange for throwing rocks at speeding cars on the highway. It was a pretty large sum of money, and therefore quite hard for any impoverished kid to refuse. The story ended with this soldier buying the children a decent meal, then he personally drove them back to their homes. They were obviously traumatized by the whole experience.

I know that some would say this story seems made up to make us feel sympathy for the IDF soldier, the oppressor, and instead redirect our anger towards the prejudiced zealot who bribed the kids to throw the rocks in the first place. But I assure you, as I heard this story first hand, that you could totally hear the internal conflict the soldier had. I tell this story to show that there is hope. There are Israelis from the IDF who are absolutely struggling with the moral conflicts between the fear that they were nurtured on, and the reality of terror in a child’s eyes. If we overcome the fear, we will overcome the hatred— there is hope.

Chapter 8: Can I be an Israeli citizen?

This is a rhetorical question, but I am very curious about the answer, so if you know it, please let me know! As I listed earlier, per 23andme, I do have a 10th grand-grand-parent, on my mother’s side, who is 100% Ashkenazi Jew. So I belong to the Jewish ethnic group by DNA. Do I have to convert to Judaism to exercise the right-of-return? If the answer is yes, then why is it the case that the 15% to 37% of Israelis who identify as atheists or agnostics are allowed to stay in Israel? To argue the point differently, if I convert to Judaism and get my Israeli passport, can I later renounce Judaism and keep my Israeli nationality?

I sometimes also hear that it isn’t about Judaism or ethnic ancestry, but rather about Jewish culture and traditions. I celebrate Thanksgiving in the US, and I believe that it is one of the most beautiful traditions in our culture, and I am totally fine celebrating Hanukkah as I am happy that Jerusalem got liberated, and Hummus is already one of my most favorite foods (BTW, Humus was invented in Egypt during the 13th century).

I hope the prejudiced among Zionists see the irony this question represents.

The big issue related to this question is the differences in school of thought between Theodor Herzl and Ahad Ha’am. Theodor argued, and please correct me if I am wrong, for a state for the Jewish people, by the Jewish people, governed by supreme laws that the Jewish people create. The fear of creating a Jewish state for all; a true democracy celebrating and protecting diversity, rather than tolerating it, is that one of the minorities could potentially grow faster than the Jewish majority and hence it’ll no longer be a state of the Jewish people, but instead just a state where the Jewish people live.

Ahad, on the other hand, argued for a Jewish state, in which all the Jewish people can have the safety of a home— a home that does not come at the expense of any other minority. Ahad believed the real answer is in achieving a Jewish spiritual center, which would form an exemplary model for the world to imitate. In my humble opinion, Ahad was a visionary who totally saw the long-term flaws in Theodor’s version:

(1) Many of the Jewish people will lean towards atheist or agnostic over time due to their scientific inclinations, and

(2) We are all Jewish by ancestral DNA, as that piece of land was a choke point for our entire civilization.

To push the rhetorical question to its limit, I personally believe that our brains are very complex. They are capable of holding multiple feelings, identities, associations, and relationships at the same time. I can be both proud of being an American, while also ashamed of some of the government actions, simultaneously. From an Israeli perspective, hypothetically speaking, am I allowed to be an agnostic, Muslim, Jew, Palestinian, Egyptian, American, Bi, Israeli at the same time? In modern democracies, we have the freedom to do just that (we just need to figure out how to make poly-marriages work as a legal construct).

Chapter 9: Zionism versus Palestinianism

To continue to highlight the irony of how people are letting their beliefs in abstract concepts win over their humanity, I want to make the following claim which I know triggers both Zionists and Palestinians in a heavy way, but please bear with me till the end.

(Pure) Zionism is equivalent to (Pure) Palestinianism

Zionism is the innate desire to have a home, preferably on ancestral lands, where the Jewish people can be liberated and truly feel safe and protected from any future persecutions, ethnic cleansing, extermination, anti-Semitism, or racial discrimination. It is such a pure goal, until it gets twisted to favor safety at the expense of humanity, or gets twisted to be a power/authoritarian/ultranationalist goal (aka Fascism), which is what Bibi is clearly doing in my humble opinion. As a side point, It is very clear to me now that Trump was educated at that same school on how to leverage fear of the other, whether that be Mexicans, “shit-hole” countries per his view point, or Muslim-Ban countries. Even the wall idea came directly from that playbook (except Bibi actually built it).

To the Palestinians, I totally understand that the notion that Zionism is pure at its core, until it gets twisted by prejudiced people, is hard to accept, because all that you see today is the vile application of it. But I hope you can see the possible equivalence from this statement:

Palestinanism is the innate desire to have a home, preferably where your immediate parents or grandparents where born (vs. ancestors), where Palestinians can be liberated and truly feel safe and protected from any future ethnic cleansing, house demolitions, oppression, persecutions, humiliations, anti-Arabism, or racial discrimination. (Note that I explicitly didn’t say anti-Islam or islamophobia as Palestinians adopt many religions). This too is such a pure and noble goal, until it gets twisted to be at the expense of our humanity (e.g. a suicide bomber killing civilians), or gets twisted to be a power/authoritarian/ultranationalist goal, which is what Hamas leadership might be doing. I should note that a sizable portion of Palestinians believe Hamas to be a resistance movement (vis-à-vis the Black Panther Party), and believe that without Hamas the IDF would finish all of them off. [I personally do not endorse violent resistance movements like Hamas, I endorse peaceful resistance movements like that of Ali Abu Awwad of Taghyeer].

It is literally two faces of the same coin, and the fact that both sides don’t see through that is very perplexing to me. The only way I can explain it is that their fascist leaders might be colluding (explicitly or implicitly) to retain their power at the expense of the people.

By the way, a couple of my wise Israeli friends also keep making the point that the Zionism project is done— we already have a Jewish State, it is called Israel, so let’s not keep arguing over that. It is better to focus on helping the people of the land to get their fair, equitable, and just rights versus being locked up in the world’s largest open air prison.

Chapter 10: Is Israel a Democracy?

Many Israelis believe, emphatically, that Israel is a democracy. In fact, a number of international organizations recognize Israel as such. But democracy has evolved overtime, and Israel is stuck in the past. The original definition of democracy is:

“A system of governance where majority rule is endorsed by supreme laws, typically through elected representatives”

But that definition is old, and has a significant issue. Hopefully you can see the issue from Eli Hazan’s statements which I share here (as mentioned earlier, Eli Hazan is director of communications for the Likud party):

Eli Hazan: I am so sorry, but many of the lefties in Israel are anti-Israelis. They suffer from self-hatred, a big self-hatred. … You are not accepting the will of the majority anymore because you're not a majority.

And he is right. In the US, we had that problem too— our constitution started with “We the people ….”, but “we” was just white men. Women and black people were not represented, and couldn’t even vote. The US, and most modern democracies, evolved the definition over time. The modern definition of democracy is:

“Majority rule which is both endorsed but limited by supreme laws to protect the right of minorities from the potential tyranny of the majority”

Another way to say that is:

“The right by the majority to protect the rights of the minorities”

So while Israel claims to be a “democratic” country, they are certainly not a modern democratic country. More importantly, it is undemocratic for an official speaker of the Likud party to accuse Israeli citizens of being “anti-Israeli” or “self-hating Jews” for speaking up against the shameful acts that their government is doing in their name. My love and pride in my country, my belief in our democracy, constitution and founding principles like freedom of speech, is what compels me to speak up when I see my government doing shameful acts in my name. If you call me anti-American for doing that, then by definition you are anti-democracy!

Most importantly, a democratic state is supposed to represent all its citizens. However, the state of Israel is open about its exclusiveness for Jewish people, providing extra rights to Israeli Jews, both in Israel and in the settlements that are built on occupied Palestinian territories (which are illegal under international law). Israel gives voting and citizenship rights exclusively to Jews returning from any part of the world, yet it excludes the indigenous Palestinian population that it occupies!

Chapter 11: Erasure of Palestine

There seems to be an attempt to erase the word Palestine from our collective memory, essentially erasing the identity of the Palestinians. It could be happenstance, but there are too many of it happening to be a coincidence. In news coverage, in the US at least, you will rarely see the word Palestine being used, instead you will see Gaza, West Bank, or Palestinian territory/authority/land/people, but not Palestine. Palestinians inside of Israel proper, those who survived the 1948 Nakba, are identified as Arabs and not Palestinians by the state of Israel, intentionally erasing their identity.

We also witnessed when Bella Hadid recently posted a photo of an older version of her dad’s US passport which listed “Palestine” as the place of birth, and expressed her pride to be a Palestinian. That photo was immediately removed by Instagram, claiming that it went against their “community guidelines”. There was a major backlash, dah!, which forced Instagram to apologize and put the photo back. Similar uproars happened when both Twitter and Instagram deleted Sheikh Jarrah posts. They had to apologize, blaming this on “technical glitches”. Seriously?

There are many other examples of the erasure that the Palestinians are experiencing today. For example, try to ask Siri “What is the time in Palestine?”. Siri will reply back, and I kid you not: “I have no idea what time it is there, sorry about that”, dumb Siri! Fortunately, if you ask Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa, they will give you the correct answer. Microsoft’s Cortana will give you the time in Palestine, Texas, because obviously that is where Palestine is!

That said, Google Maps doesn’t have street names for Gaza, and the resolution of the satellite images is purposefully blurred despite being readily available in high definition from other sources. Also Google Maps doesn’t show the word “Palestine”, or at least “Palestinian Territory”, despite many petitions. Instead, the only labels displayed are Gaza Strip and West Bank. Microsoft’s Bing Maps does have street names in some areas of Gaza, but again, the satellite imagery is blurred.

I should note that Google is my employer, and the opinions I express here are my own. To Google’s credit though, YouTube is actually very equitable in how they handle content, and they have very ethical guidelines that they apply consistently and fairly across all submitted content. For example, try searching YouTube for “Israeli sniper” or “suicide bus bomb” and you will get critical content from both sides of the conflict, equally.

Another example is the NBA debacle from three years ago, where the NBA listed Palestine on their website. The Israeli sports minister sent the NBA commissioner a letter, and requested the removal of Palestine, claiming that it is an “imaginary” country. The NBA responded by apologizing to Israel, and proceeded to erase Palestine!

I really hope this is coincidental, and truly just “technical glitches” or misunderstandings, because if this is deliberate, then it is obviously very naïve! If we were never able to forget Babylonia from thousands of years ago, do you think we would be able to forget Palestine today when we have digital technologies capturing everything around us? Seriously? 

Chapter 12: A message of hope

My heart really goes out to the innocent Palestinians in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank who are trapped between prejudiced folks on both sides. The current Israeli government, under the pretext of safety/politics, tries to contain the Palestinians by taking away their human rights with impunity as the current US government vetoes every UN condemnation of Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, tries to make them feel that they have no other defender but them, otherwise the IDF will come and kill them all. The people in the middle are oppressed by both, and it breaks my heart. Especially the innocent children being killed and continuously traumatized in the middle of the conflict, whether that be because the IDF fires missiles at the wrong target, or as they frequently get accused, because Hamas uses kids as human shields. The innocent kids are all suffering, and we all know it. It is visible and shared across social media— it isn’t hidden like atrocities in the past, we can’t claim we didn’t know this was going on. These kids, they haven’t formed any abstract ideologies in their heads yet, they just want to eat ice cream and play with toys.

It is also important to note the power imbalance between the IDF and Palestinian occupied territories. The Israeli government is the occupier, and the IDF is known to be one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the world with a powerful arsenal of nuclear weapons. As such, the government of Israel has the moral responsibility to protect everyone, including those it occupies, instead of responding to Hamas’ actions by applying collective punishment on all the people in Gaza, which is against international law (not to mention that almost 50% of Gazans are under the age of 17).

That said, to the Palestinians suffering, don’t lose hope. If modern history has taught us anything, it is that peacefully finding a solution does win in the end. Israel has a fully-funded military, they have drones that can hunt you down wherever you hide, so violence will absolutely get you nowhere. It isn’t resistance, it is suicide. And please don’t think that I am telling you not to defend yourselves. If a soldier comes to shoot or humiliate a member of my family I will absolutely jump in the middle and resist, even if it means suicide. That said, you need to be smart about it, it doesn’t take a genius strategist to plot the violence course out, and this might be the course the prejudiced among Zionists on the other side want you to follow.

That said, there is absolutely hope for you to be free, and the best example of that is how Gandhi beat the mighty British empire in India, how Mandela freed South Africa (current government corruption aside), and how Martin Luther King freed the black people in the US (current police brutality aside). Their weapon, which brought these super powers to their knees, was nonviolent peaceful civil disobedience. That strategy works, and it will work in this case. You are all doing it right now by sharing the social media videos and showing the world how peaceful you are in your demonstrations, and how the right wing Israeli government is oppressing and suppressing you. That will get you allies who are willing to lend you their privilege, both from the US and within Israel, who can change the government and write a better future for all of you. It also gets allies from the other countries, like Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund which is divesting from firms with connections to settlements, or the Maldives, which officially severed ties with Israel over the atrocities.

I urge you to continue to leverage peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience that highlights all the humanitarian issues taking place. Please join forces with movements like Taghyeer and Roots to help change the narrative and educate the other side on who they should really fear, vs. fearing all. Tell your stories authentically, then share them loudly and widely. Study the Heartlines examples from South Africa, or the Theater of Witness examples from Ireland. That is what you should do:

[YouTube Creators for Change provided the resources & support for the above video]

You also need the Israelis to help, and some of them are indeed helping. They are starting to demonstrate with you, and for you. They are starting to walk beside you to protect you when moving through a checkpoint, movements like Roots and others should give all of us plenty of hope. They are also trying very hard, and will succeed, to get Bibi out of government. 

To prejudiced soldiers among the IDF, I urge you to join conscientious objectors, those who refuse military service as it’s the face of oppression of the Palestinians. Or at a minimum, please don’t let the fear stories you were told get you to compromise on your humanity. If you are ordered to shoot a child, or an innocent civilian, say no, and go to the court-martial— it is the humane thing to do.

Similarly, to the prejudiced among Palestinians who throw rocks at moving cars on the highway just to inflict harm on innocent civilians, please stop, because that is not only inhumane, but will make things worse for you. Actions like these amplify the fear, leading to a never-ending cycle of hatred. I know you can respond to this and say, f--k off, you are so safe in your home in California, you don’t feel our oppression, we need to resist every way we can. My response is: You are right! I can choose to forget about this whole mess, but I am lending that privilege to you because I care about you, and my heart goes out to all those innocent civilians and children dying. I am trying to help you see the right path for a better future. And to be clear, I am not saying don’t resist an IDF soldier trying to kill kids or innocent Palestinians. I am saying don’t attack innocent civilians, because many of those cars also carry innocent kids, and might carry Israelis, like Rabbi Shaul Judelman from Roots, who are fighting for your rights.

Chapter 13: A possible solution

Just learning from lessons of the past, I see two things that need to happen:

1. We need to reinforce movements like Roots and Taghyeer which are helping overcome the fear of the other, despite anger and ideological differences, so that mutual understanding and solidarity are achieved. This will need to be coupled with non-violent civil disobedience, plus international pressure, to catalyze the Israeli government to move faster. The Roots and Taghyeer fear-reduction efforts need to be replicated in neighboring countries, especially Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Gulf countries, Iraq and Iran.
2. While 1 is being achieved, I think Israelis and Palestinians should work towards building a “United States of Jerusalem'', ala the USA or the European Union, i.e. have a truly democratic supreme law (aka a constitution) that governs that union, then within that union, you can have not just two states, but multiple states, some Israeli Jewish, some Palestinian, some hybrid, some atheist/agnostic or polyamory LGBTQ+, with local jurisdictional differences (ala California vs. Texas), but they still abide by a higher authority that ensures equal rights for all and freedom of travel, trade, and work. That higher authority should also enforce equal laws for all, especially against violence, whether that be from the prejudiced among Islamists or the prejudiced among Zionists. The rules should be applied equally against all who choose to disrupt peace. The rules and laws should also ensure everybody gets their legal home/land back, whether that home be in an Israeli sub-state, or a Palestinian sub-state. 

I dream of a day when the “United States of Jerusalem'' is achieved, and an exemplar democratic Zion, which celebrates and embraces diversity, is born. I further dream that Jerusalem itself will become like Andalusia in Spain, a multicultural multi-religious true democracy where people from all over the world can visit and marvel at the richness of its civilization and endurance despite all the wars and hardships.

Chapter 14: The pledge

To be honest, I have no beef in this fight. I don’t have any family in Israel/Palestine, and I have never visited, and might never be able to. But I am a human, and I feel connected to the people over there, both Israelis and Palestinians, given that I was born on a bed in Cairo very close to where they are. To put things in perspective, the distance from Cairo to Gaza is about 200 miles, that is half the distance from LA to SF.

Thus, I pledge to help in the following ways:

1. I will lend my privilege and speak up on your behalf whenever I can. I will stand right behind you, as the fight is yours, but I will defend you as needed. This applies to all peace loving non-prejudiced Israelis and Palestinians, like Rabbi Shaul Judelman from Roots, or Ali Abu Awwad from Taghyeer.
2. I will not invest or buy products from corporations trying to benefit from this conflict or those helping the current government of Israel oppress certain classes of people vs. others. The goal should be security and safety for all, equally.
3. I will donate to efforts that are either trying to reduce the fear (ala Roots/Taghyeer), or trying to heal the children that have been severely damaged physically or mentally because of this war (e.g. PCRF).
4. I also pledge to influence my representatives in the US government, and at the company I currently work, to stand by equality and human rights for all the people, regardless of their race, religious persuasions, ethnicities, ideologies, or cultures.

You should try to help too, but if you can’t be part of the solution, then please don’t be part of the problem.

In other words, for all the Arabs in neighboring countries, either try to help the Palestinians peacefully as outlined above, or leave them alone and instead focus on making your countries better. The Palestinian situation only gets worse when you come in, say anti-Semitic stuff, essentially gaslighting the situation from where you are, increasing the fear on both sides, then leaving. Just take your hatred and direct it towards making your country better, that will benefit you in the long-term much more than anything else.

Similarly, to the prejudiced among the Jewish diaspora, whom don’t ever plan to live in Israel, I totally understand your fear of history repeating itself, especially with the recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks. I totally understand your need for Israel to thrive so you have a safe place to go back to. But you also need to butt out, for now at least, because you are making things worse. You too jump in with minimal knowledge of what is happening on the ground, you say irrational anti-Palestinian words, amplify the fear on both sides, then you go back to the safety of your own homes. You also need to take your hatred away and chill. Let the Israelis in Israel heal the country. What you can do is educate yourself on how to become allies to both the Israelis who want justice for Palestinians and the Palestinians who are simply asking for their human and civil rights.

I was told by some of my friends that expressing my thoughts publicly like this will be faced by criticism from both groups: the prejudiced among Arabs will call me a "traitor”, “self-hater”, or "anti-Palestine" and the prejudiced among Zionists will call me “anti-Semite”, “anti-Zionist”, or "anti-Israel". To both of those groups, I would like to say:

“Please know that I love you, my heart breaks for what you are doing to each other, but I must stand by my principles, which is equal admiration for all of humanity over any single ideology or race, while simultaneously being extremely proud of my own identity”.

Chapter 15: Conclusion and the Dream

To wrap this up:

(1) Please don’t let the abstract ideologies we adopted in our heads, or the hateful stories that got entrenched into our psyche as children, supersede our humanity towards each other, because the only indisputable fact is that we are 99.9% the same, and all of us come from the same grandma, mt-Eve. I see that, it changed me. I matured, and I hope you can mature too.

(2) Modern history has shown, more often than not, that peace, justice and equality win out in the end (e.g. Andalusia), so don’t give up hope, keep sharing the stories of real people on all sides so that we anchor back to the human tragedy happening around us and overcome the irrational fear of “the other”. This is the way.

I know this is hard to believe, and for those in the tornado, it seems almost impossible, but history has shown us that peace and humanity always win in the end. I dream that the vision of the “United States of Jerusalem” will be achieved in my lifetime, and that by 2048, when Israel is 100 years old, they will have the first Palestinian Israeli Woman as their president.

(Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 Intl. License)