The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (20 page)

At first I felt like a baby learning to walk, realizing little by little that it was OK to let go of the comfort of holding onto what I “knew” to be true. It opened the door to a discussion most Israelis are fiercely protective about—which is, what did the Zionist forces really do in 1948? Once I had taken a few steps into that unknown, I found confidence, and to my surprise I found that there was something even more secure to rely on than the myths of heroism and redemption I’d heard during my childhood. Many if not all of these myths were created and perpetuated by the new Jewish state, which wanted to substantiate the David versus Goliath image and painted my people as heroes who rose from the ashes to reclaim their historic homeland. For me, the only thing stronger than that myth was trust—the trust that was already in place between members of the dialogue group. Without that there could have been no progress. The group was not about accusing but listening and telling personal stories, and that was what allowed me, for the first time in my life, to learn that the Palestinians had a narrative of their own and that it was different from the narrative I had been taught. In fact, it was 180 degrees different.

This was an excruciatingly painful thing to learn, and it was possible only because Doris and her husband Jim Rauch were brilliant facilitators. Doris is an Arab-American artist of Palestinian and Lebanese descent. Born in Baghdad, she grew up in New York and picked up quite a bit of the Jewish-infused culture of that city. She has dark hair and warm dark eyes. There is a constant expression of motherly concern on her face, and when she laughs or smiles she lights up the room.

Jim is Jewish-American, and an accomplished economics professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is quiet and methodical and sharp as a razor. Everyone felt comfortable with Doris and Jim because they clearly respected both cultures and possessed a unique ability to bring people together. They were excellent facilitators who didn’t interject their own issues. Many of the
meetings took place at their beautiful home in San Diego, and it was mainly their dedication that allowed the group to thrive as, month after month, they put their heart into the difficult task of making the dialogue work. From my perspective, it was a tremendous success.

Over time, the dialogue phenomenon grew and San Diego had three or four active groups that emerged out of our group, including one that I initiated. I received addresses and names of people who might be interested from Doris, and I called them to see if they were serious about participating in a dialogue group. It turned out to be another dedicated group. Before long, however, I realized that I made a better participant than facilitator: I wanted to be an active contributor to the conversations and to express myself fully—not to be unbiased and somewhat colorless, which was what a good moderator needed to be. So I relied on others in the group to facilitate the meeting.

Pretty soon word got out that there were Jewish-Palestinian dialogue groups that were active in and around San Diego and that they had something positive to say. This excited some people and alienated others. The local papers and TV stations took an interest in us, and the
Christian Science Monitor
did a major story about us.

But crossing the line to understand the “other” point of view was not seen as a positive step by everyone. Jewish and Palestinian members talked with great pain about people in their respective communities, sometimes even close friends, who had shunned them because they were meeting with “the other side.”

“They told us we are not welcome anymore, because we meet with terrorists,” said one elderly Jewish lady.

“We were told we should be ashamed of ourselves,” said one Palestinian.

I was asked to participate in panel discussions with other members of the group. We were invited to speak at synagogues, mosques, and churches. Civic organizations and service clubs asked us to speak. We would sit together on the stage and take turns telling our stories. That was when I realized I had to learn to hold back my tears when talking about Smadar. Then we would take questions from the audience. From time to time, two of us would be invited to speak, and so I had opportunities to share a podium with Majeed, Doris, and Manal. I noticed that we gradually moved from representing opposing points of view to presenting a shared vision.

In 2002, Israeli television’s Channel 10 decided to produce a documentary on Israelis living abroad. Yehuda Litani, a friend of Nurit and Rami, came to San Diego to interview a Palestinian doctor who lived there. When Nurit heard that Yehuda was coming to San Diego she told him that I lived there too, and he decided to do a chapter about me as well.

Gila was pregnant with Tali when he came, and we all became very good friends. He and his cameraman followed me around for about a week, shooting scenes of me teaching classes at the dojo and on the beach in Coronado. He came to a meeting
of the dialogue group and he conducted extensive interviews with Nurit and my mother. The result was a 40-minute documentary about me that touched on my family, my father, and Smadar, plus my work with Jewish-Palestinian dialogue groups and my karate training. At the end of the documentary, Litani commented that I made an effective goodwill ambassador for Israel, and he lamented the fact that I no longer lived in Israel.

Indeed I felt I was finally doing something—but it was just the beginning.

1
Jane Perlez, “Impasse at Camp David: The Overview; Clinton Ends Deadlocked Peace Talks,”
The New York Times
, July 26, 2000,
http://nyti.ms/zxvZGv
.

2
Unit 101 of the IDF, founded and commanded by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. It was created in order to better deal with Palestinian refugees infiltrating into Israel. The unit was merged into the regular IDF Battalion 890 in 1954, mainly as a result of killing dozens of unarmed citizens during the raid known as Qibya massacre.

3
The Sinai Campaign also called “The Suez Crisis,” Nov 5, 1956.

4
Matti Peled, “Premature Retirement,”
Ma’ariv
, July 20, 1973.

My involvement went to the next level when I formed an unlikely partnership with Nader Elbanna. On the surface, Nader and I have very little in common. He is a devout Muslim and Palestinian Arab, and I am a casually secular Israeli Jew. We are of different generations: He was born in 1946, and I was born 15 years later. And different cultures: he had a traditional Arab upbringing, and I had a liberal Western upbringing. Politically and socially he is a conservative man, and I am a progressive liberal.

Our life stories are products of the same drama, the drama of Israel-Palestine. And yet they are very different stories. The resurrection of an independent Jewish political homeland, which was the proud centerpiece of my family’s story, was the cause of the destruction and devastation of Palestine, which made up his family’s story. Though we both lived in exile, I did so by choice and could return any time I wished, while he was exiled by force and not permitted to return.

We were brought together by fate, perseverance, and deep affection. Like brothers born to the same mother, we are sons of the same homeland. Had we remained in our homeland we never would have known each other, yet our exile brought us together.

I met Nader’s son, Jamil, before I met Nader himself. In 2002, Doris invited Jamil to a meeting of the dialogue group. I remember we were at Majeed’s house that evening when Jamil introduced himself and told the group, “I was born and raised in Jordan, completed my education in the U.S., yet my father brought me up to be a proud Palestinian.”

As I watched and listened to him I couldn’t help thinking: This educated, well-mannered, well-dressed young man, who was born and raised in Jordan and educated in the U.S., still identifies himself as a proud Palestinian. That impressed and unsettled me at the same time, reminiscent perhaps of stories I had heard about Jews who for centuries lived in exile, yet remained connected to their identity and their homeland. Later that year, I met Nader. This time we were at the home of Doris and Jim, who by then had become known as the mother and father of the San Diego Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue Group.

Nader was dressed in a coat and tie. He was helping himself to food, when I approached and introduced myself. He told me his name was Nader, which he pronounced “Nayder,” as Americans would say it, as in Ralph Nader.

“You must mean Nader,” I said using the Arabic pronunciation of his name, which is more like “Nadehr.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“I am an Israeli, and I know how the name is pronounced.”

He abruptly turned away and left the room, wasting no time on niceties. I was surprised. It was the first time anyone I met through the group was less than cordial and friendly.

As the meeting went on, Nader shared his story with the group: “I was born in Nazareth to a Muslim family, and we had Jewish and Christian neighbors.” I later learned that his ancestors had come to Nazareth with Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, who conquered Palestine in 1831. The family had a cemetery of its own in Nazareth, where generations of the Elbanna family had been laid to rest.

Nader continued: “In 1948, we had to leave Palestine, to leave our beautiful home in Nazareth, and were forced to live in a tent in Zarqa, in the desert.” Nader was two-and-a-half years old when his father, acting as any responsible father would (and thousands of other Palestinian fathers did), took the family across the Jordan River, intending to return once the fighting was over. They ended up in a refugee camp in the city of Zarqa, north of Amman, Jordan. During that time however, Palestine was destroyed, its people were scattered, and the state of Israel was founded. The new state did not allow any of the Palestinians who left to return to their homes and land. They were to remain refugees forever.

Nader lifted himself by his own bootstraps and began a career in the Jordanian military, eventually graduating as an officer from the Royal Jordanian Military College. He remained in the Jordanian army until September 1970,
¹
when he retired from military life and became a businessman. He decided to bring his family to the U.S. in 1988, around the same time that Gila and I did. He has six children, and his two youngest boys are about the same age as my boys Eitan and Doron.

At one point during the meeting, Nader said something that really caught my attention. “I was a captain in the Jordanian army, and I fought in the battle of Karame.”
In Karame! On the other side!
My brother Yoav was in Karame; a lieutenant at the time, he commanded a tank platoon. I was not sure my Jewish-American friends could fully appreciate the significance of this historical battle.

It was a milestone in the relations between Israel and the Palestinian resistance, particularly Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement. The battle began on the night
of March 21, 1968. At the insistence of Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, a major Israeli army offensive took place in the village of Karame, east of the Jordan River. Fatah headquarters were located in the village, and Yasser Arafat was based there with a few hundred Palestinian fighters, or
fedayeen
. In what was the first open battle between the Jewish army and the Palestinians since 1948, Israel mobilized more than a hundred tanks, the entire 35th Airborne Brigade, Special Forces commando units, several air force squadrons, and an entire reservist infantry brigade. The massive Israeli forces were too cumbersome. The tanks got stuck in mud, delaying the attack and ruining any element of surprise. Arafat, who was barely known to the world until then, was informed by Jordanian intelligence that a large-scale Israeli military attack on the town was underway. During the battle that ensued, the Palestinians suffered heavy loses but they held their ground, surprising the Israeli military with their audacity. The Jordanian army, in which Nader served as a young officer, got involved in the fighting, supporting the Palestinians and defending its sovereign territory against the invading army.

The U.S. was vehemently against the attack. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg, said that actions such as this, on a scale so out of proportion, “are greatly to be deplored.” The battle achieved mythic proportions in the Arab World and on December 13, 1968,
Time Magazine
did a story about Fatah, and Arafat’s face appeared on the cover, bringing his image to the world for the first time. The title on the cover was, “The Arab Commandos – Defiant New Force in the Middle East.”

In Arabic, Karame means “dignity.” For Israel, the battle of Karame has become synonymous with humiliation.

Nader ended with his personal narrative of the battle: “My best friend, Ibrahim al Shahshir, was hit by a phosphorous rocket shot from an Israeli tank, and he died slowly as I held him in my arms.”

When the meeting was over, I wanted to go up to Nader, but I was not sure what to say. So I walked over, told him that my brother had also fought in Karame, and gave him my lapel pin. It had the Palestinian and Israeli flags side by side, one of the few such pins I still had from the days of my father’s activism. When my father wore it, displaying the Palestinian flag was illegal in Israel. It meant a great deal to me, and I wore it to all the dialogue meetings. Later Nader would say, “At first I thought Miko was a spy sent by the Mossad, and I was sure that I would have to fight him that night. Then I saw he was wearing a pin with the Palestinian flag. I had never seen, nor did I ever think I would see, an Israeli wearing a Palestinian flag.”

Several months later, Nader’s daughter Rania came to a dialogue meeting. She is tall and thin and wears glasses and a
hijab
, the scarf that devout Muslim woman wear over their head. With her quiet demeanor and traditional Muslim head covering, it was hard to anticipate what she would be like.

“When I decided to become a devout Muslim, I learned I had to put aside my prejudices.” She spoke quietly and articulated her thoughts clearly. “Islam drove
me to get to know the “other” and to be a better listener. So I decided to reach out and meet Jewish people and Israeli people, which is why I am here. I think it made me a better person.” Rania’s words took many of us by surprise. None of the Jewish-Americans in the group had ever met a Palestinian woman who was also a devout Muslim, and neither had I. She was also the only one among the Palestinian women who wore a hijab.

A few more months passed before I saw Nader again at another meeting. He mentioned that he was a member of the Rotary club of Escondido, a city in north San Diego County. I had joined the Coronado Rotary club several years before. I had no idea what Rotary was when I joined, but I quickly learned about the tremendous amount of important work Rotary does around the world. Even with its conservative reputation and my less-than-conservative views on just about everything, I made many friends and colleagues in the Coronado Rotary club and throughout the Rotary world.

When I learned that Nader was a member of Rotary too, it gave me an idea. We were both from the same land, we both participated in Jewish-Palestinian dialogue in San Diego, and we were both members of large Rotary clubs. We had important stories to tell, and I knew his manner of speech was capable of moving audiences deeply. So I made a proposal: “Why don’t you and I start speaking together at Rotary clubs?”

Initially, he was skeptical, but he was also a little receptive. Although it took time, eventually trust grew between us, and Nader became more confident in expressing himself and his identity as an American who is a Palestinian and a Muslim. We began speaking at Rotary clubs all over San Diego County (there were 33 in the area), and we were a hit. We became known as the Israeli and Palestinian Rotarians who saw a bigger picture and managed to get along despite their obvious differences. We ended up spending a lot of time together, and we started to become friends.

“You must bring your family to visit us in Coronado,” I said to Nader one day. He was hesitant at first. I think he was not completely comfortable because he did not know what to expect. He had never been to the home of an Israeli family. The fact that Israelis had destroyed his country and driven his family into a refugee camp in the desert was no small thing. It took a leap of faith to place his family at the “mercy” of another Israeli family.

Eventually he agreed. As Nader likes to tell the story, “We came to Coronado to visit and share lunch, planning to stay no more than two hours.” At around 1 p.m., he and his wife Afaf and their two younger boys, Sami and Yusef, arrived. Afaf, a devout Muslim woman from a very conservative background, and Gila, a secular Israeli girl from a kibbutz, hit it off right away. They went off talking, and I took
Nader to show him a video I had just seen about Palestine. The boys disappeared with Eitan and Doron, only to come out from time to time and announce, “We’re hungry.” We all had lunch and the two hours turned to four, and four to six. We kept talking and the kids kept playing. We all went for a walk on the bay.

“Look.” I pointed to our kids, who were way ahead of us on their scooters. “Israeli and Palestinian kids who don’t even know they are supposed to be enemies.”

Nader looked at them and sighed. “They are the future.”

Before we knew it, Gila and Afaf were talking about preparing dinner. “After dinner we really must go,” Afaf insisted. It was nearly midnight when they got up to leave, and then the boys emerged from the playroom. “Can Sami and Yusef spend the night?” I looked at Gila, who didn’t seem to mind. “Sure, why not. As long as their parents say it’s OK.” Afaf and Nader were caught a bit by surprise. It took them a minute or two and finally they gave their consent.

I thought little of it at the time. Our kids have friends spend the night quite often. But it turned out that for Nader this carried a special significance. He never imagined his two sons would ever spend the night at the home of a Jewish-Israeli family.

The year 2002 was marked by the birth of our daughter Tali. Gila’s pregnancies were not easy, and so it took me six years before I was able to convince her to have a third child. After yet another difficult pregnancy and painful delivery, Gila gave birth to Tali on September 28, 2002.