Great story, great lessons.
Tablet often has gems, bookmark this wonderful site and do read this entire article.
"In a lecture in the House of Literature in Oslo, during the launching
of the Norwegian translation of Benny Morris’ history book dedicated to
the 1948 war, Deek recounted how his grandfather fled Jaffa and reached
Lebanon, how he insisted on getting back into Israel when the war
ended, and how he raised his family in the nascent Jewish state."
"He
talked about the personal suffering of his own family, now scattered all
around the world, but also about the fact that “the Palestinians have
become slaves to the past, held captive by the chains of resentment,
prisoners in the world of frustration and hate.”
"But he talked mainly about the way forward, and mainly about hope. He
spoke about his neighbor Avraham, a Holocaust survivor, who taught him
always to look to the future and not to the past."
"He gave his listeners a
sense of why a young Arab-Palestinian has decided to dedicate his
career to the Israeli Foreign Service. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the
speech quickly went viral under the somewhat ironic title “the best
speech an Israeli diplomat ever held.”
And this is very wise, clear and truthful:
“If there is no place in the Middle East for a Jewish State, than there
is no place for anyone who is different,” he said."
“And this is why we
see today persecution of Yazidis, Christians, Baha’i, Sunni against Shia
and vice versa, and even Sunni against other Sunni who do not follow
Islam exactly the same way. The key to change is connected deeply to our
ability as Arabs to accept the legitimacy of others. Therefore, the
Jewish State is our biggest challenge, because it has a different
nationality, religion, and culture. Jews pose a challenge because as a
minority they insist on their right to be different. The day we accept
the Jewish State as it is, all other persecution in the Middle East will
cease.”
