If I Were An Israeli…

If I Were An Israeli…

Feature Writer. By Feature Writer Husam Abdullatif
This article was authored by a GlobalComment Feature Writer. To contribute an article, please see the guidelines here.

About ten years ago, just before Ehud Barak was elected Prime Minister of Israel, he was asked by Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy what he would do had he been born Palestinian. Barak replied frankly: “I would join a terror organization.”

I admired that honest answer as it showed that he may have understood the mentality of many of his Palestinian occupied subjects. He was elected on the basis of going ahead with the peace process and I always thought that if he really understood the Palestinian mentality he would do his utmost to prevent young people like from joining terrorist organizations.

Alas, he didn’t achieve peace back then, nor do his actions now show that he really understood the Palestinian mind. Being myself a Palestinian and knowing how many of my people think, I dare put myself in the shoes of an Israeli citizen and try to reach any new conclusions. Continue Reading »

“It was too much, I’m glad we’re attacking,” a cab driver told me Sunday, then complaining about Russia’s call for peace by referencing Georgia. “[The war’s] no good, but it’s scary, a rocket hit the house next to mine,” a girl on the train said to me about Beersheeva.

“What can you say about the latest Israeli assault against Hamas? Do you think that the Olmert government would like to send a signal to the Obama administration?”

How do you defuse a situation in which civilians have no one left to trust but the very people who can easily, and, it seems, without many regrets - considering the reward that surely awaits the suffering in paradise - get them killed?

recent contributions