Published: 6 June 2024
Last updated: 22 August 2024
Recently my car broke down and was collected by a very pleasant and cheerful tow-truck driver who took the car and me to the mechanic.
It was about half an hour’s drive, so we got talking.
The conversation was light and breezy. The driver was smiley and convivial as we swapped stories about the various cars in our lives and how they had either disappointed us or filled us with joy and pride.
After a little friendly chit-chat, the driver realised we hadn’t introduced ourselves, and told me his name, effectively informing me that he was a Muslim Arab. To protect his privacy, I’ll call him Hamid.
“Joseph,” I said. I felt apprehensive about using my obviously Jewish name in the wake of the antisemitism, violent threats and intimidation that the Jewish community experiences daily.
I asked him about his background. He told me he was a Palestinian from the West Bank who had migrated here seven years ago with his wife and four children.
“Welcome,” I said. The pleasant conversation about cars, the weather and anything but the elephant in the room continued.
My conversation with Hamid reminded me of how much anger and distrust there is towards our community. But it also gave me hope.
But the elephant grew too big to ignore so I asked him if he was following what was happening in Gaza.
“Of course,” he said, “Just like you must be”.
Comments4
Ian Grinblat26 August at 10:08 am
I think that Jack Morris is right.
Yossi’s conversation remained polite because he went much further than allowing Hamid to express his own opinion – he seems to have raised no objections when Hamid insisted on his own facts.
The world expects Jews to be silent and die without fuss but I feel that far too many of us have accepted this imposition.
Furthermore, may I respectfully point out that while the death toll in Gaza is shocking – it will stop tomorrow if the hostages are returned.
Wesley Parish14 June at 03:39 am
Zionism is a dirty word. It’s a capitulation to antisemitism, an annexation of the worst in toxic European nationalisms of the late 1800s and eraly 1900s, that we are seeing a resurgence of again, in Europe and elsewhere. It’s constructing a LaLaLand in Canaan (used to avoid the Israel/Palestine bunfight) by using exactly the same methods of conquest, dispossession, expulsion, that we in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, the US, New Caledonia/Kanaky, etc., have to face up to, if we want our societies founded on justice. (Christchurch NZ was founded by a group of people with very similar objectives to those of the earliest olim. It’s fascinating to read.)
Mohammed11 June at 10:59 am
The idea of Zionism in its inception: the right of jews to self-determination or the historic claim of living between the two rivers is not contested. I think your Palestinian friend was talking about extreme Zionism; the one that thinks of Palestinians as sub-human, that they have no right to their basic rights and that they should be ‘kicked out’ to make way for a Kahanist society.
I suggest that Zionists, in all factions, get together like during the inception of the idea via the Basel Congress to see what they would accept a future with Palestinians to be. Once that happens, there will definitely be peace.