Leafy sees

The Israelis voted yesterday & I’m not with

I was born into a religious Zionist family and

was taught since childhood to hate Arabs,

but I don’t hate them

. Furthermore, I never understood why our educators

inflicted so much hate upon us for them.

I hated the racist songs the kids sang

– about destroying the Al-Aqsa mosque

and building the same temple, and praising Baruch Goldstein,

the mass murderer from the Ibrahimi mosque.

When I grew up, I chose not to serve in the army,

and so I missed a lot of the zionist education.

Sure I remember the second intifada.

I grew up during that time in Jerusalem

and witnessed several terrorist attacks

from a short distance.

Fear of Arabs is understandable, considering

the history of 74 years of bloody conflict.

It is the hate for them that I do not understand.

Or perhaps I do- because the hatred justifies what we do to them.

The belief that Palestinians are an inferior group of people,

somewhat less than human, allows us to deny them their rights

and commit atrocities against them.

The truth is that we are not better or different from the Palestinians.

Most Israelis don’t speak Arabic;

they don’t know the depth of the oppression

the Palestinians are struggling against.

How many restrictions did the Israeli regime imposes on them, and

the magnitude of deprivation

of fundamental rights affects millions of Palestinians daily?

If only Israelis knew how the other side lives

– would they change their minds?

I don’t wish to believe that we Israelis are bad people.

Some of us are imbued with hatred,

but we may someday overcome it.

The Zionist doctrine allows theft because

the Palestinians do not deserve this land.

Palestinians are perceived as vile animals

who wish to murder all the Jewish.

To justify the land theft,

Israelis make up

arguments that claim ownership over resources

based on the bible.

This is a mistake to abuse the bible

to resolve a conflict over resources.

Some day we may see it.

The battle for re-distribution of the spoils of Jewish supremacy

By Avi Ram Tzoref, Mekomit site, Hebrew