Dear Avi, Did Arabs Have to Pay for Your Suffering?

Let us set the recods straight before we can discuss peace. Road-mapping and hand-clapping might make sense to the Americans, but not to us, the race of prophets and problems.

Avi Nadra is an Israeli (Hebrew) Journalist. He describes himself as a Zionist and champions peace. He is my new friend, first online friend from Israel. He prides himself on interviewing Late President Sadat on his famous visit to Israel for 40 minutes. He named his daughter, born then: Yoni ( Hebrew for the dove of peace).

Whenever it comes to communicating with an Israeli Jew, I feel like asking a question: “Could not we be just the best of friends; why did you have to do it?” What Arabs have with Jews is not just a conflict of thousands of years. It is a blood bond. Both races, Arabs and Jews have a superiority complex. Arabs always and still think, if you are not an Arab, a pure Arab, you are nothing! They might not say it because they do not define themselves as a race, but as a culture. Jews, though the majority do not deserve the title since they are agnostics, still subscribe to the theory of the Chosen People. It is so funny to see the most arrogant races making a joke of themselves and needing the help of people they recognize as inferior mediating between them for “peace”.

Avi, let me tell you about a story that happened to me and cut deep in my heart. When I was a child, I had neighbours living in the opposite flat. It was a big family. The man was married to a Jewish woman (who converted to Islam) and had five children – all good-looking people who were much older than me. They were not rich; they were poor. It was the 60s and early 70s, when I came home from school or the club to find at least one member of that family at our home. I loved them all. Then one day, my mother was overheard talking to another neighbour about Samir, the eldest son who has got engaged to an Egyptian beauty. Samir, shame on him, left for Israel in an attempt to find a better life. Samir was brought up as a Muslim Arab; overnight, he became an enemy. Samir died in the October war ( Yum Kipur) fighting the Egyptian army that was trying to return Egyptian land (which was returned later, Sinai).I felt betrayed. We all felt betrayed.

Jews were Arabs all the time, before they immigrated to Western countries and before they took away Palestine and changed its flag inviting European, Russian and African Jews to become citizens of the usurped land. What did Arabs do to you to deserve this? Were Arabs responsible in any way for the Holocaust? What makes Egyptians of yesterday, the Israelis of today? Egyptian Jews are only Egyptians. How dare you take our own people and turn them against us? Only after the immigration of Egyptian Jews to Israel, did the Jews in Egypt receive a frown hard enough that most had to convert to Islam. We still have a few hundred Jews here; they are our people, not yours.

Avi, did you hear of Leila Murad? She is the famous Egyptian singer dead but very much alive and loved. She is a Jew. She is our national pride. Many stars and important Egyptians are Jews; they are our people. We cannot love them less for being Hebrew, the same way we cannot love Egyptian Christians less for being Copts. Why do you love us less for being Arabs.. You were Arabs all your life. Look into the history of Islam and you will discover that the Arabian peninsula was populated by a grand number of Jews. They fought the Prophet as Arabs. We were one people, always intermarried and have one blood line. Why did you choose to make us two?

In Morrocco today, a vast population is Jewish. They are Arabs. What do you mean when you make Arabs your enemy? You are ignoring the fact that Arabs are sometimes Jews? Heard of Sameera Saeed? A famous Morroccan singer, living in Egypt. She is a national treasure in her country. She is a Jew. We hardly remember that when we love her. Last year, a big hotel put up a Jewish celebration for her sake. But she is an Arab and will remain. Why don’t you feel the same about Israeli Arabs?

And may I ask you Avi as a descendant of Jews (since I cannot call an agnostic a Jew), where were the first Jews born? And where should they seek a ‘zion’ if they would? And again, was not Moses an Egyptian? What makes a race an entity but racism? And how can we promote peace and racism at the same time?

The Jews of Palestine were called Arabs. Arabs belong to several religions. And Palestinians are not just Muslims. Is it not crazy to call Palestinians living in Israel today: Israeli Arabs? What does this phrase really mean? I lose my sense of language whenever I hear this, the same way I lose my sanity when a Jew claims that Palestine never existed!!!

Road-mapping and hand-clapping can have a meaning to the White House and to the rest of ‘foreigners’. But it cannot have any valid meaning to us, the race of prophets and problems.

About the Author

Al Seidi, Nevine, Egyptian-born (1961) obtained her BA in English Literature(Honours) from Alexandria University Egypt. She grew up in an artistic literary home where her dad acted and wrote scripts while keeping a private office of law as a Solicitor. To please him, she had to read the concise version of Shakespeare at 8 for her summer holiday. She trained as a painter at 6 under the patronage of world-famous Seif Wanli. At the age of 13, she started composing poetry in both English and Arabic. She won many contests as a painter and a poet. She has been a writer to her own circle of literary society, eversince. At the age of 18, she started getting interested in fashion seriously.She was determined to follow a career in fashion albeit studing literature. Highly, interested in theology, philosophy,sociology, economics, politics and very well informed in fashion, beauty and business. She tapped into various professions, before a career in fashion that ended at the threshold of creative writing again.Her moment of initiation was the birth of her only son Omar,now3. "Suddenly, the fashion world seemed a little too selfish a pursuit; motherhood anchored me to the reality of things. Unfortuanately, reality is not as beautiful as the fashion world" - She explains. She is an active journalist writer and poet with a deep interest in political and social affairs. She writes on many web sites on various subjects as well as various publications and periodicals. As a poet, she is published in the US. Some of her work appear in an anthology published by the L ibrary of Congress entitled: Nature's Echoes One of her most interesting poems is published in Millennium Poets by Cader Publisheing. The Poem is titled : Surrogate God . Though amusing, it hardly expresses the poet's belief. It is rather an expression of a mood. She is presently writing her first book: The Cultural Predicament of the Third World The Ethical vs. the Ethnical

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