It might
be hard to believe that a Palestinian would wish an Israeli Jew a happy
Independence Day, but I am only following in the footsteps of another
Palestinian I know, Ibrahim from Hebron.
Three years ago, I was cohosting
a bilingual (Arabic and Hebrew) radio show at Radio All for Peace in Jerusalem
with my Israeli cohost, Sharon Misheiker. Our weekly show happened to air on
Israeli Independence Day, and on that day we invited Ibrahim, a peace activist,
to talk about the land that had been confiscated from him for the building of
the separation barrier.
I remember that Ibrahim spoke with compelling
passion and heartbreaking emotions about the loss of his farmland, which had
been a main source of income. Before ending the conversation, we asked him how
he felt about Independence Day, and we received a surprising answer.
With
his characteristic candor, Ibrahim told us that he had already called his
Israeli friends and wished them a happy Independence Day.
Sharon and I
were shocked.
Ibrahim told us that he received the same response from all
his Israeli friends: silence, shock and disbelief. They didn’t know what to say.
They were caught by surprise. They had never heard a Palestinian wishing them a
happy Independence Day.
Some of his left-wing friends asked how he could
do so, when the holiday was celebrating the same event that was causing much of
his suffering. He could have used that chance to recount history according to
the Palestinian narrative: He could have said something about the Deir Yasin
massacre, or the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who were left
homeless after 1948 war. But he didn’t. Instead, Ibrahim simply said happy
Independence Day, and in doing so took the first step toward building a
different kind of relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.
WHY WAS
this step important? Part of the Israeli narrative describes a long history of
suffering which hit the highest point with the Holocaust and the fear that Arabs
would drive the Jews into the sea.
For years, Israelis have heard that
Palestinians would never accept Israel’s existence and would always work to
destroy it. Many Israelis don’t believe that Palestinians accept the reality
that we are stuck here together. They doubt that Palestinians also dream of a
peaceful tomorrow, where freedom prevails and safety is realized. This narrative
of pain and fear has captured the minds of Jews, even though Israel has
developed one of the strongest militaries in the world.
When Ibrahim
uttered the words “happy Independence Day,” he challenged that narrative of fear
and doubt, and assured his Israeli friends that he knows they are here to stay,
and accepts that. He wanted to let them know that he is not waiting for a chance
to strike back. In essence, Ibrahim was digging a grave for the narrative of
fear and replacing it with a narrative of hope.
For all of us, the past
is painful and our narratives are very real to us. For the Palestinians, our
pain of the Nakba is still fresh. The lost olive groves, orange groves,
vineyards and homes which are part of the Palestinian identity and heritage, the
stories, poetry and songs of Palestinian life in what became Israel will always
be there.
These are collective memories that will always be carved in the
heart of every Palestinian. But memories, pain and longing do not have to lead
to revenge and destruction: They can also be motivation for a new
tomorrow.
When Ibrahim’s friends asked him how they should respond to his wishes,
Ibrahim had a simple answer. He asked them to wish that next year both Israelis
and Palestinians can celebrate Independence Day together, with the creation of a
Palestinian state next to the Israeli one.
Although Palestinian and
Israeli narratives are different, our vision for the future can be one. We can
all unite and work toward the overdue dream of a viable Palestinian state before
it is too late. It is time for our people to not let the past rob us of our
future, but rather let it motivate us toward actions of hope.
The
writer is the director of Middle East projects at the Center for World
Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University and a
winner of the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Common Ground Journalism. His blog can be
found at http://azizabusarah.wordpress.com