To the average Israeli, the Balad Party seems very distant -- situated way over on the outer space end of the political spectrum. In my opinion, it is the most interesting of the three main Arab parties because it is founded on a worldview that is so fundamentally opposite everything we (if I am allowed to use that word) believe in. That said, it seems that the philosophical foundation provides a certain ground for dialogue, even between polar opposites. In a recent conversation I had with Dr. Jamal Zahalka, the chairman of Balad, we discussed many thinkers and philosophers, all firmly belonging to the left-wing school of European thought, and not the kind that likes Israel. Zahalka is not a run-of-the-mill politician. Like his predecessor Azmi Bishara -- an intellectual and bitter rival of the state of Israel -- Zahalka understands ideology and its ramifications better than most politicians. We spoke at length, and only a small part of our conversation ended up on this page -- the little that I felt was more worthy of our readers than sweaty details of our local politics and wrinkled reality. In most instances, Israelis encounter members of Balad only on their television screens, and even that only during high-profile events or when someone makes a provocation. In the following interview, even if it isn't as comprehensive as it should be, the encounter will revolve around the ideological core that guides the actions of this party. We were as dreamers Q: What is the difference between Balad and the other Arab parties? "The deep difference is on an ideological level. There is the communist Left, that's Hadash, there is the Islamic party that is founded on Islamic ideology, and then there is democracy. On a political level, Balad has two main objectives: One is [Israel as a] state of all its citizens [as opposed to a Jewish state] and the other is cultural autonomy for the Arab population. We are a party that puts an emphasis on national identity, as opposed to the Islamic movement that emphasizes religion more. Hadash, meanwhile, puts its emphasis on Jewish-Arab coexistence." Q: Do you consider yourself more of a separatist than the other parties? "No. The biggest separatists are [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman and his gang. In the past, people would say that the Arabs want to detach themselves from the state. Now, we are coming out against detachment. We believe in true coexistence -- not in being a shadow under your Zionist umbrella. I actually think that cultural interaction is essential. I am sometimes appalled by the horrible things I hear, like a minister or a prime minister who says, 'We are not in Europe. Our neighbors are no good. They are barbarians.' How can a Jew say something like that, after what the Jews went through in Europe-" Q: Are you saying that Europe was just as bad- "There is no comparison. Come on! Your question is also out of line. It is two separate things. In addition, there is sometimes a degree of denial. Zionism raped Jewish history and defiled it. Everyone is so happy that the Jews of Iraq all made aliyah and came here [to Israel]. I think that everyone should cry over the destruction of the Babylonian Jewish culture, not laugh and dance about it. A community that existed 3,000 years comes to an end, and you celebrate-" Q: I celebrate the end of exile. "Exactly. That is exactly Zionism -- to deny; to be anti-Jewish. The glorious Jewish community existed for 3,000 years and you celebrate its demise." Q: Zionism didn't come up with the idea of returning to Zion. It is an ancient concept. Jews prayed every day to "build Jerusalem." Being in exile was always temporary. " When the Lord brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like unto them that dream... The Lord hath done great things with us; we are rejoiced." (Psalm 126) "Jewish history is not just Zionism. I think there is a messianic idea at play here." Q: Of course it is messianic. "So you say, 'I'm messianic,' and to hell with life." Q: I don't mean messianic in the sense that it is irrational. I mean it in the fundamental sense, of coming home. For years we were outside, and now we've returned home. Aren't you happy when you go home to your wife and children- "I don't have a problem with you dreaming and praying. But what Zionism does is to put a nationalist dimension on religious issues. My problem begins when you try to realize your dreams at my expense. You can't take my land without violence. I won't give it to you with a bouquet of flowers." * * * The end of the age of crusaders Q: You remarked that Zionism added a nationalist aspect to the religious issue. That is an interesting viewpoint, shared by the European Left and others, that Jewish nationalism is a 19th century invention. But all the way back in the scriptures there was a nationalist perception. The basic commandment was "and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein" (Deuteronomy 11:31). The commentary talks about inheriting the land and exercising sovereignty over it. The second commandment is to populate the land and to make the desert bloom. Here, we have a 3,000-year-old tradition of Jewish nationalism. "Mainstream Zionism was atheistic, not religious. What is Zionism, actually? There is no God, but God promised us this land. The moment you come down from the book onto my land, to take it, you fall on top of me from your books and your fairy tales and you say, 'This land is mine.' Why? It says so in a fairy tale." Q: It's not a fairy tale -- it's history. There was a people that lived here as a sovereign for a thousand years. "You are coming to me from your book, your narrative, and you say, 'The land is mine.' Why? Because you decided. In the way you see yourself, it is yours. Why? 'I have stories so I am taking the land.' So you clashed with the people that was here, and you couldn't destroy us. We are not the Indians, we stayed here and you have to deal with the situation. So the Palestinians are defending themselves." Q: What is the difference between your narrative and my narrative- "Excuse me, I live on the ground" Q: I live on the ground too. "I have no narratives. Sometimes I read in Hebrew about the link between the land and the forest in Hadera and all the stories and the longing and whatever. Then I ask a Palestinian farmer: 'What have you got to say about it-' and he says, 'It's mine.' There is no rhetoric. For him the connection is natural, he doesn't need to explain it. Those who need to explain all the time and write books about these things, it is only to make excuses for being an occupier. It is always like that. For every occupation there is an excuse. The whites in South Africa had the same excuses." Q: The whites there came back to a land that once belonged to them- "No, they used the same rhetoric." Q: Fine. Can you take a sculpture that looks like a man and say that they are the same- "No." Q: The whites in South Africa came to a land that was never theirs. But what is the difference between the Muslim occupation of this land and our? How did Islam get here? How did your forefathers get here- "There were wars all over the ancient world." Q: We're not talking about ancient history. We are talking about the seventh century onward. "We are not talking about a thousand years ago. What the crusaders did in this land was terrible, but it is over. There have been a lot of vibrations in history." * * * Who is an occupier- Q: So why is it called occupation when the Jews come home, but when the Muslims came it was not occupation- "In a lot of places there was conquest of the land and then there was integration of locals and conquerors. That is how the Muslim occupation of Persia and Iraq worked, for example. These are processes of religious dissemination. But you don't come one day and expel me from my land. We are talking about modern times, the age of human rights, the right to self definition, oversight by some form of international law. The fact that injustices were done in the past is no reason to commit new injustices." "As a historian, I fight to rescue the Palestinian story from the jaws of the occupier. Not just the land, but also the historical narrative. You occupy the history. You write the books, you have the newspapers, you have the power, and I, with my meager resources, am trying to rescue the victim's story. I don't believe in narratives. Narratives are sometimes lies. I don't view as my narrative, your narrative. I see a structural difference between the victim's story and the story of the victimizer." Q: And you are the victim- "Of course. I'm interested in the truth; the occupier is interested in lies. If someone comes to steal from my house and gets caught, then he makes up lies as an alibi. The victim seeks to expose the truth. That is the structure of the story here in this land. Zionism is like an onion. What is an onion? It has no pit. You peel the first lie and find another lie. You look for the truth in the center but there isn't any. It is just a collection of lies to justify the expulsion of an entire people from their land. And you dare cry that you're the victim-" Q: You realize that you can't escape the narrative, because as far as I'm concerned, I look at what you're saying as an onion a lie upon a lie. "Did I come here and take your land-" Q: Of course. "Israel came to us. We didn't come to Israel." Q: Who is "us"? How many people were here then? How many Arabs came here on the heels of Zionism and the waves of aliyah? How many came as a result of the [British] mandate? Let's take a look at how many Arabs lived here in 19th century, and then we can look at other things. You talk about a people, but what unites you, a resident of Wadi Ara, with the Arabs who live in Gaza? Aren't you closer to the Arabs who live in Hauran, Syria? And another thing: Your feeling of victimhood. It may be that within tiny Israel the balance of power is in our favor, thank God. We are the majority here. But in the general, pan-Arabic sense, we are a tiny minority. Why is your point of view more sacred than mine- "I am willing to make historic compromises, but I do not compromise on history. I collect the victim's story the way [Jewish-German philosopher] Walter Benjamin did. It is no coincidence that the only painting hanging in my office is Paul Klee's Angelus Novus. You see a collection of victims and suffering, and he wants to come back and save the victim but he can't. He is looking back. That is how I see it. But I don't compromise on history. I need to assemble my moral and political world. Not everything can be pragmatic. But pragmatism comes after you develop a certain perception. "Many years ago, in heated debates with Jewish students at the university, I said that for me a child that is a product of two people's love and a child that is a product of violent rape have an equal right to life. That is not to say that I condone rape, but there is a child there, and I can't it would not be humane or moral -- to treat one child any differently than the other. What crime did he commit-" Q: So the analogy is between rape and Zionism? "Exactly." Q: Do you understand that I see it exactly the opposite? "This is my starting point. As a child of this land, with my sense of victimhood, I am willing to view the Jews as equals. They are like me. So let's live together. Before we even talk about citizenship, let's talk about equality, rather than hierarchy, among the people. Let's start with that. Despite everything that has happened; despite all the pain. From there, we can reach a point of balance, of building some kind of solution to the problem that keeps dragging us down. A solution that is founded on a balance of interests and rights, not a balance of power." Q: On civil equality, I agree with you. But you are asking national equality in this tract of land, and to that I can't agree. That is the root of the problem. My assertion is that as long as you refuse to recognize that our relationship with the land of Israel did not begin with Zionism, and that we were here long before you and all the Muslims, we will not be able to achieve dialogue. This land waited for us for 1,800 years. "Waited? It waits for no one." * * * You are telling me to keep out Q: Was there a national entity here? "It doesn't matter. There were people living here." Q: So people lived here. Now they live with us. What is the difference between being a citizen of the Ottoman Empire or of the Israeli democracy- "The nationalist perceptions began in the 19th century. Modern democratic perception includes civil rights one of the most fundamental human rights is the right to belong to a group. Cultural belonging. You are not inviting me into your Jewish nationality, you are telling me to keep out. You are telling me to be a citizen without a nationality." Q: Without a nationality? Why? There are several nationalities here and you can decide that your nationality is this or that. You want the state -- as far as it is the only national state of the Jews -- to recognize that there is another nationality here on a national level. A "state of all its citizens" is actually a state of all its nationalities. "Are you aware that the moment you take my national rights away you are also taking my civil and personal and basic rights-" Q: Not at all. You have personal and civil rights. "You are stripping me of my right to belong." Q: I am not stripping you of the right to belong, but rather rejecting your demand for equal national status. There are dozens of countries that do that in the world. You don't recognize the historical Jewish justification, only your justification. That is your right. For me there is nothing more historically just than a single state in the world for the Jewish people called Israel that doesn't belong to any other people. Civil rights -- yes. National rights -- no. "Jews have a right to define themselves -- Jews in Israel, not the Jews in the rest of the world. The state does not belong to them. The state needs to be 'empty' from a citizenship perspective. I have a problem with your historical perception because you use it to strip me of my rights." Q: It could have been the other way around. If the Arab states had been successful in 1948, there would have been a massacre of Jews followed by expulsion and banishment. "I have always argued that the occupier always has more rhetoric, more sources, more stories than the occupied, the weak." Q: Boo hoo, poor you. There are 450 million Arabs around us, and they don't have a narrative
"A Palestinian farmer doesn't have any rhetoric. He says, 'The land is mine,' that's it. I live on this land and I have a natural bond with it. But anyone who comes to occupy and rape the land comes armed with artillery of excuses." Q: I see it differently. The ones who raped this land are the Muslims who conquered it in the seventh century. Most of Israel's Arabs, from the sea to the Jordan River, came here with the rise of Zionism, and many more came with the British Mandate. The British prevented only Jewish immigration; tens of thousands of Arabs immigrated from the Jordan area. You can look up the numbers of the Arab population. We have the map of the British census mission from the 1870s. * * * Who is a refugee- Q: What is your take on the Law of Return? "A law that discriminates against people because they are Arab is a racist law. It gives undeserved rights to one group at the expense of another. You are preventing refugees from coming home, but you allow people who never lived here to come." Q: Why does the United Nations distinguish between a "regular" refugee in the world and a Palestinian refugee? The definition of a Palestinian refugee is anyone who was here two years before the Partition Plan. Do you consider an Arab who arrived in 1943 a refugee- "It is a tiny minority. Because that is the definition of a war refugee people who were expelled. It doesn't matter, they lived here." Q: A war refugee receives compensation and integrates into his new environment. But you want to come back. Are you at peace with the fact that there are refugee camps that are not integrating into Arab states- "I am in favor of full refugee rights. In Jordan, incidentally, they have full rights. The prime minister is a refugee. But that doesn't come at the expense of refugee rights. According to international law, it is forbidden to violate the rights of a war refugee, to take their land or sell it." Q: Unless that refugee is an enemy that tried to kill me. "The definition of a refugee is not a man who was forced to flee but one who is not able to return." Q: It is true that there is a demographic issue. But you put an emphasis on the issue of right. An enemy that fought against me can't come to me and demand rights. It was me or him. "Your claim is in the name of power and occupation. Not by power of right, but by right of having power." Q: Now that's Jamal the politician talking. Come on. I never said anything about the status of having power. On the contrary, I talked about our right. We were talking about democratic worldviews, about history, about a point of view. "You want to make excuses for everything. You want to present your aggression not you personally on a moral foundation." Q: Quite the contrary. You can't just reject what I'm saying with the tired claim that I have the power so I am necessarily imposing my narrative on you. It is true that today, I, as a Jew, can openly present my narrative. That is a new historical development for 2,000 years we had no voice. But that doesn't make my right any less legitimate than yours. Furthermore, you have no less power than me. It is true that you are a minority in this country, but you are part of an enormous Arab majority. This majority wants to eliminate me. In that respect, my narrative is that of a persecuted victim, no less than you. * * * Who is a colonialist- Q: As long as you refuse to recognize my historic right, how do you expect an agreement? After all, your entire approach to a solution is that we are "bastards", but in retrospect, we are already here, so let's try and get along. That's no way to forge real peace, if you refuse to recognize my right. You keep asking me to recognize your right, so why don't you recognize my right too? The right of the Jews to their homeland? We are not invaders or occupiers. "So you are suggesting that I turn into a Zionist." Q: Don't be a Zionist. Recognize my right. "That would mean recognizing that Zionism is right. For me that is something that I cannot do. It would be a betrayal of the Palestinian victim. Letting you also rape the victim." Q: But this so-called victim tried to kill us in 1948. "No. You expelled them from here." Q: There was a war. "You killed us." Q: What happened in 1921? What happened in 1929? What happened in 1936? And in 1947? Who killed whom- "I see Zionism as a colonialist project aimed at conquering the land and expelling the indigenous people. " Q: I already said that the bigger colonialist project was the Muslim project that conquered this land. "Come on! There were Muslims here and you kicked them out." Q: Most of them were not kicked out. They left because their leaders urged them to leave until after they finish butchering the Jews. First Arab League Secretary-General Azzam Pasha said at a 1947 press conference in Cairo that the partition plan would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades." So are we not to believe him? Was he all talk- "Let's set things straight. Zionism sought to establish a Jewish state in a land where there already was an Arab majority, and that was not possible without expulsion and racist discrimination. Zionism employed both, and neither can be achieved without force and war." Q: Just like Islam did in the seventh to 11th centuries. There was a Jewish majority here, but the Muslims expelled the Jews by force, coercing many of them to convert to Islam and building a mosque on the holiest site to the Jews. "And if there was a Jewish majority, so what-" Q: What is the difference between that occupation and this one? Why is your occupation considered more pure? "You're going back to history
" Q: Of course. You are also a historical person. "But what you are saying is that you have rights in the name of the destruction of the First Temple." Q: Right. And the destruction of the Second Temple and the last 2,000 years. "And you expect me to forget about the Palestinian destruction. The biggest destruction of all." Q: No at all. Did you have a state destroyed? "An entire people was expelled." Q: How do you figure? An entire people left to allow the massacre of Jews. "Come on." Q: I can show you dozens of testimonies by Arab leaders who told the Arabs who lived here to leave until the Jews are obliterated. Do you deny that? "It is not true. That is a perversion of history. And even if it were true, people left because they were afraid of the occupiers." Q: What occupiers? The Jews weren't occupiers then. The British ruled here. There was a war underway between Arabs and Jews. The Jews wanted their own state, and agreed to a partition. The Arabs rejected it because in their view, the entire land was theirs. So some of them left to wait for the war to subside. Do you deny the testimonies? Why didn't they agree to the partition plan in 1947? Before the war? "Because they wanted a more just solution to their problem." Q: But they would have gotten most of the land. It doesn't get any more just than that. "Not true 55 percent would have gone to the Jews." Q: Excuse me? What about the Jordanian territory? That territory was part of the plan for a national home for the Jewish people, and it was handed over to the Arabs. Today, there is a clear Palestinian majority there. I think that the difference between you and me is that I recognize your justification. I don't agree with it, but I recognize it. You don't even recognize the possibility that I may be ever a little justified. I think that is the crux of the story. In the end, we can't come together, not as long as you don't recognize our right. You don't need to be a Zionist. You can say: "I disagree with Zionism, but I recognize your perception of being justified." As long as you refuse to recognize that, our conflict will continue. The same is true for our conflict with the Palestinian Authority. Was there or wasn't there? Q: What do you think of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria? "I think that all settlements are illegitimate and should be completely evacuated, because they were settled by force, in violation of international law." Q: That is a matter for legal interpretation. The land is disputed. Who we "occupied" it from and as a result of what (self defense in the face of an aggressor). "I think that a kibbutz built on the ruins of a Palestinian village is more immoral than a settlement built adjacent to a Palestinian village. Anyone will agree that building on someone else's ruins is far worse than building an adjacent community." Q: Like Al-Aqsa. "Forget Al-Aqsa." Q: What is the difference? You put your mosque right on the holiest site to Jewish people and say that's not occupation. "Let me finish my argument. The kibbutzim are worse than the settlements from a moral perspective." Q: Is that your complaint against the Israeli Left? "Sure. They come and occupy my land, and then they urinate on me from up on high in the name of morality. Why do I come out against kibbutzim and not the settlements? The difference is political, not moral. From a political perspective, there is an international consensus about kibbutzim, while the settlements, by law, are considered illegitimate." Q: I want to understand the difference between a kibbutz that was built on the ruins of an Arab village and a mosque that was built in the most important place to the Jews, which, until then, was not important to the Muslims. "There is a difference. There is a mosque there today. You are fighting reality with fairy tales. You come to me with a fairy tale about the Temple." Q: It's a fairy tale? "That you believe." Q: Do you believe there was a temple there? "No, I don't know where the Temple was. I believe that there is a story about a temple." Q: What is the story? "People believe it. You come to me from fairy tales." Q: Why fairy tales? Is there history or isn't there history? "The Temple is a myth and Al-Aqsa is a reality" Q: There was no Herod? There were no kingdoms? There were no Hasmoneans? "Fine. There were, there were." Q: So I'm asking if there was a temple on that mount or not. "For how long-" Q: For almost a thousand years there was a temple on the mount. "So what? Do you have any proof-" Q: I can give you a thousand proofs. There is no excavation allowed there, but even now, in the enormous mounds of earth that were tossed from the Temple Mount, thousands of pieces of evidence were found. "Al-Aqsa mosque is in a real place." Q: You understand where the story is, Jamal? You are denying the Jews' connection to this land and you want us to recognize your right? You refuse to recognize the simple truth -- a truth that every archeologist and historian in the world accepts -- for political reasons. "First of all, the history of the land, everyone's history, is my history. For me, whether it is true or not does not matter one git. It has no bearing on the existence of Al-Aqsa." Q: Of course it does. The meaning is this: Do you recognize the connection between the Jewish people and the land? You don't. "I know that Jews lived here once. So what-" Q: Thank you very much. You don't recognize the most fundamental thing: That the Muslim occupiers of this land put their symbol on top of the Jewish people's most significant symbol. "Believe in whatever historical perception or narrative you want. I only oppose you using it to strip me of my rights and to occupy my land." Q: But that is exactly what you are doing to me. "The problem is that you are using history to take my land. I won't let you do that. I have no problem with it as long as you don't derive conclusions in efforts to delegitimize Al-Aqsa." Q: We are coming back to the same point. The entire story is this: Is there truth or isn't there truth? Because there really was a temple up on that mount. There is no real debate on that point. And if you don't accept that simple truth, what are talking about? "I don't have to agree with you." Q: It's not a question of agreement. There is historical and archeological truth. "I have no problem with intellectual conversation, historical or archeological or otherwise, as long as it is not part of the colonial project in Palestine. But if it tries to justify that project, I am against it." Q: I already told you that the colonial project in Palestine began with the Muslims in the seventh century.
