This was no ordinary conversation, even though it was very pleasant. Mohsen Makhmalbaf is not just an artist; he is an educator. He has directed dozens of award-winning films. He has also authored a similar number of books, which attest not only to his creative mind, but also to his unrelenting effort to educate viewers and readers. In fact, he will impart his views on anyone willing to listen. When he was a teenager, he waged a campaign against the Iranian Shah, which led to his imprisonment. The Shah's security forces shot him in the back and the bullet pierced his abdomen. He was subjected to torture during his 4.5 years behind bars and the tormenting flashbacks will haunt him for the rest of his life. When the Iranian Revolution erupted, he was released. He became hopeful, only to be let down again by the ayatollahs. In 2005, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president, he decided he had had enough and left. He later sought asylum in France and has been living in France ever since. In the West he is occasionally referred to as a spokesperson for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the leader of the Green Movement who led the unrest following Ahmadinejad's re-election in 2009 (Mousavi was the challenger and claimed that the elections were rigged). He says Mousavi has been under house arrest for the past five years. The public wants him to be released but is too afraid to demonstrate. Makhmalbaf is very angry about this silence on the streets of Iran. I met him in Haifa, after trying to brush up my rusty university-level Farsi. Haifa was more beautiful than ever, and for the first time this year I could feel that the fall was approaching. Makhmalbaf had been invited to attend the 31st Haifa International Film Festival. (I was there, too, and it was great.) Having an Iranian director attend an Israeli film festival is anything but obvious. He was expected to boycott Israel, but apparently Western intellectuals haven't done their homework in 80 years. Makhmalbaf smiled them off with his forgiving attitude and chose to believe in Israel (albeit with occasional reprimands of Israel's conduct). Makhmalbaf wants us to get to know the other side -- the Iranian people. I spoke with him before the recent spate of terrorism erupted. Our conversation was mainly about art, history, politics, religions, Israeli-Iranian relations, and philosophy. I told him I was Hegelian when it comes to history. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said that history creates the individuals who operate within its confines. Makhmalbaf said he subscribed to Milan Kundera's philosophy. Kundera said that individuals change history. We agreed to disagree. Makhmalbaf's new film, "The President," deals with a North Korea-style dictator who goes from being an absolute ruler to a nobody in one fell swoop following a coup d'etat. He is forced to flee with his grandson, traveling his country as a vagabond in disguise. He gets a first-hand look at what it was like under his rule and how his people lived under his brutal dictatorship. This movie is about people becoming what they are through the tutelage of life's trials and tribulations (in this case, a dictator who has to adapt to being an ordinary citizen). There are many moral takeaways and a lot of symbolism in this movie, but above all it tells a fascinating story. I told him that to watch his film was like being punched in the gut -- and he nodded. Considering his personal history, it is very clear what lesson he was trying to convey with this film. There is a scene in the film in which prisoners argue among themselves as they escape. One of them proclaims that the endless chain of violence needs to be broken, or the murders will forever continue. This is reminiscent of something our own Jewish sages said more than 2,000 years ago, at the sight of a skull floating in the water: "You were murdered for having committed murder, and your murderers will be murdered as well." "In Persian we say 'murderer, who did you kill? You will be murdered too,'" Makhmalbaf says. He recalls being imprisoned before the revolution. "I can still feel the torture all over my body," he says. "I experienced the revolution on my own body, so I know from experience what it means to be in prison. "The Shah was a bad dictator. A modern king, but a dictator nonetheless. When the revolution took place we had a dream of paradise, but it turned out to be hell. As the years went by we grew to understand just how tragic the revolution was, and again in 2009 we almost had another revolution in Iran, led by the Green Movement. So, I experienced two revolutions, so to speak, in Iran. "I was in Afghanistan for a few years, and I was in Tajikistan when they had a revolution there. So I observed many revolutions with my own eyes; and I followed the Arab Spring during the past five years. I also read a lot of history, and I try to analyze it for the pattern that leads to dictatorships and then to revolutions and then to anarchy and back again to dictatorships. I wanted to see what goes on when revolutions unfold, what goes on when we have dictatorships and how nations deal with revolutions and with anarchy. I wanted to create a model and to let the audience look at themselves through my own story." Q: The scene in which they find the president hiding in a drain pipe bears a striking resemblance to the final moments of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. "Each scene in the movie is supposed to remind you of some president or king. I took different stories involving different dictators and combined them into one example. I placed a mirror in front of all the presidents of the world, but it is also a mirror for the people, who can use it to look at themselves and identify with what their societies are going through. People always keep silent as crimes unfold before their eyes; many people are silent when governments kill others right in front of them." Q: It is like the scene where the bride is stopped at a checkpoint and one of the soldiers rapes her and no one lifts a finger. "This phenomenon is prevalent all over the world, even in Israel. People expect their compatriots to stand up and say something when tragedies happen -- not just those perpetrated by or against the enemies, like in the case of the Palestinians. We need voices to be heard, especially when in the absence of voices the dictators seek more power. So in this film I wanted to address the role of the people. You can't just simplify things by portraying it as a battle between the president on the one side and innocent people on the other side. No. It is a collaboration between the two parties." Q: I want to talk about the scene in which the president flees and asks a prostitute for help. I look at it as a parable -- the prostitute is the nation, in that she was used by even the president himself. She represents the people who suffer and were taken advantage of, but no one cares. "At the beginning of "The President," he is at the height of his power on the hill overlooking the city. But the next day he is under the leg of the dirty prostitute in the toilet. I wanted to show how power can destroy a person. She is an innocent girl that becomes the president's girlfriend. Everybody rapes her -- ordinary people and the president himself. She can trust her power more than the president can trust his own power. She is like the nation, as you said, and the people move on her body -- her body is the homeland." Q: The movie forces us to sympathize with the dictator because we feel pity for him. Why do we have to feel pity for the dictator- "The movie is like a mirror. On the one hand, I tell the audience to look at this bad dictator. He doesn't care about anything when he is in power and then, when he escapes, he observes tragedy and at the end he is somehow regretful. But on the other hand, there are the people, who are supposedly innocent but they are not. They essentially sanction his actions. I criticize the audience and say: If you hate the ruler, you are duty-bound to effect change." Q: Karl Marx said the bourgeois need a criminal to mark the boundary between what is normative and what is non-normative, to shake society out of its moral stagnation. "I believe there are three things that allow dictatorships to thrive: first, the ignorance of the people. This was the case in Egypt during Hosni Mubarak's rule. When people become less ignorant, they carry out revolutions, and then when there is a counterrevolution they return to their home. But even then, once they return home they know everything, and there is no longer ignorance. But there are two other things that let dictatorships thrive: a lack of hope, and a lack of courage. The Muslim Brotherhood took over in Egypt because ignorance was still rampant." Q: This is also what happened in the Iranian Revolution. They wanted to replace the dictatorship with something better. "Before the start of Green Movement in 2009, you could say that people were ignorant. But then people started pouring into the streets -- every day for a whole year. But people eventually went back to their homes, although at that point they were no longer ignorant. They knew the truth full well when it came to their regime, but they refused to act. On the other hand, they lost hope. That is why it is important that people read treatises -- this gives them knowledge and hope. We need all three things: knowledge, hope and courage. People are taught in mathematics that the shortest line between two points is a straight line. Similarly, the shortest way to reach change is through violence. People think that with violence they will reach their destination sooner. But they will reach it later because violence yields more violence and so forth." Religion, politics and art Q: Revenge is a very natural tendency because it gives the feeling of instant justice. How can we educate people not to seek revenge against those who caused them so much suffering? I looked at the difference between Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat. During the same period -- the early 1990s -- Arafat was very close to his political demise and we saved him by telling him, "Let's make peace." But when he signed a peace deal he resorted to even greater violence. Mandela, on the other hand, advocated change without violence and he was true to his word. I have been thinking about this difference for more than 20 years, about how they were so diametrically opposed. We live in the Middle East. Mandela was in Africa, and Gandhi was in India. Maybe there are cultural differences. "Yes. There are differences. Even children have a lot of violence in their games. You will see the smaller children being attacked by other children and this requires education. Sigmund Freud said that violence is innate to human beings, it is like an ocean, and our civilization is like thin ice on this ocean. This thin ice can crack in war and this is how violence comes out. Human beings are a work in progress. We are in the process of being human. "Who is responsible for education? Religion, politicians and artists. Our role, as filmmakers, is very important because we know the language of politicians. This language is very aggressive and can destroy our world. Leaders are afraid, and they want to save and protect themselves. I met former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. I told him: I love your idea about nonviolence. But when Gandhi talked about nonviolence he was Hindu -- in Hinduism you can't eat meat, not even eggs, so as to protect the lives of others. Violence is forbidden in that religion. For some Hindus, even when they want an apple on the tree they can't pick it but wait for it to fall off. Part of their culture is shaped by religion. But these elements are not incorporated into Islam and Judaism. "Second, we always hear about the violence in 'primitive' Africa. Mandela was different but you cannot attribute this to the fact that he was a Christian because, unlike Jesus, Christians have been rather cruel throughout history. "That is why in this part of the world, you should try to find something good in your religion. In Iran, for example, we have two kinds of Muslims, the revolution kind, and the evolution kind. Khatami and his followers tried to find peace from Islam and a dialogue between civilizations. But the supreme leader does not subscribe to that approach. He wants revenge. Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani used to be like the supreme leader, but now he is like Khatami. "Why do we have a lot of violence in the Middle East? In part because of religion and in part to because of history, and in part because of artists, who unfortunately are not acting responsibly with art. I have a theory that I say, assuming that every person has 80 years from the moment he is born until he dies -- if a person only watched films all day from the moment they were born -- they could watch 292,000 films. It means that if I make a film, and I have 300,000 viewers, it is equal to the life of a person in this world. Because if it had 1,000,000 then a minimum of three people 'wasted' their lives watching my film! How can I say that I am not responsible for the audience, and that I only provide joy to the audience? No, I am responsible. And it is a special part of this life. Because people have a normal life and they watch only a small number of films. It is very important. We should teach them. We should educate them. They are coming to enjoy and learn. Cinema is like university. It can change the world. Because we have two teams -- those who make policy decisions and those who create atmosphere for those decisions. We are creators of decisions. If each Israeli filmmaker tried to make a solution for peace they could influence the audience's mind and the government could not ignore that." Q: The Israeli film industry is very pro-peace, and it calls out many of Israel's faults. But what about the other side? When the other side is not educated by such art and by such films there is an imbalance. You cannot just ignore this stark difference and say, "I want peace, I am Gandhi now, I want to be a sheep." You cannot ignore the wolf out there because it will devour you. "Yeah, I agree and that is why I told you we need three things -- artists, religions and politicians." Q: Yes but the international pressure is only on us, the Israelis. This is a little racist because the world essentially says, 'When it comes to the Arabs we don't care, but you Israelis have to behave yourselves.' History taught us that whenever Israel offered a territorial compromise the response has been violence. They know how to play this game -- use violence and then blame the Jews. Usually it works for them. "Palestinian filmmakers have a responsibility as well. That is, instead of depicting pitiable Palestinians they should display empathy for human beings. It is complex. When I came to Israel many people criticized me, even intellectuals in Iran and outside of Iran. I believe they are ignorant. They look at this area with racist glasses, but I take no part in this game. I am human -- I was born on this planet. Who divided this planet into different parts? Only religion and nationalism. And racism. When I talk about Israeli cinema -- I talk about Palestinian and Arab cinema as well." "The shadow disappeared" Q: Julien Benda wrote a book called "La Trahison des clercs" ("The Betrayal of the Intellectuals") in 1927. Here in Israel we feel that most Western intellectuals don't even look at us. The world feels very bad about what it did to the Jews during the Holocaust, so they are happy to think of us as being like the Nazis -- it lets the world clear its conscience. They don't care about the facts, about history or about who the sides are. "Intellectuals lie sometimes. This lie will destroy the future. We should change the philosophy of the audience through our art. Not as Jews and Muslims but as human beings that were born in Israel or in Iran -- we were both born on this planet. Yes, you can have your idea, and I can have my idea, but we must not decimate each other. How? We should change our philosophy and look at this planet, and appreciate it as a very unique and specific planet. Scientists couldn't find another planet like this. So we are alone in this universe, and we are destroying this planet. If we act with petty contempt against each other, we become stupid and our thinking becomes limited to a very narrow perspective. Each child could be born in one small family with a lot of fundamental ideas but we as artists or you as journalist, as well as religious leaders, can change many things. It is not enough to say okay, I am not with them, I am not aggressive. You have a responsibility to change things. Fine, you yourself do not engage in violence but you are silent now, and you are observing and doing nothing. We don't need courts to impose morality. Court is for weak people. From afar the enemy looks more strange. But from up close it becomes familiar. I remember when I was a child, my father once followed me and he had a big shadow. I was scared. But as he came closer, his shadow disappeared and he held me in his arms." Q: I agree with your ideas. But I don't think your views contradict the idea of particularism. Universalism is not necessarily in contradiction to particularism. It means you can be a nationalist and root for your own nation and religion and history even as you show compassion for other people and let them express their beliefs and ideas in their own way. There is no contradiction. "Absolutely. You don't need to shed your identity. Most people cannot do that. The movie I filmed in Israel, 'The Gardener,' focuses on the Baha'i people. They are persecuted and cannot go to university in Iran. Many of them are in prison, but they have good ideas. They say that human beings are like flowers -- we are in a garden -- our differences are our richness. It is not a reason to fight with each other. The Quran also says that we are made out of women and men and from various ethnic groups so that we can understand one another." Q: My upbringing was very similar to your ideas. Many Israelis are brought up that way, and many in Israel would welcome your approach. But you have to look at the big picture: We have a deep connection to the Iranian people from the time of Cyrus, some 2,500 years ago. Jews and Persians influenced each other culturally. How are we supposed to interpret the constant threats leveled by Iran's supreme leader who says Israel should be wiped off the map on a monthly basis? You said Netanyahu and Khamenei both use the same rhetoric, but Netanyahu is responding to these threats -- real threats. There is no comparison. We have never threatened to destroy Iran, God forbid. In your movie "The Gardener," you talk about religion's insanity. What if they indeed obtain a nuclear bomb? We cannot take the risk. We don't get a second chance. "I understand where you are coming from, but my point of view is different. You know the Iranian people are not your enemy and the Israeli people are not the enemy of the Iranian people. They can be friends. I am for the recent diplomacy regarding the nuclear deal, but Netanyahu is against that deal." Q: Why weren't the sanctions kept for another two or three years? Maybe the regime would have collapsed- "I have another problem with the West. I had meetings at the White House in 2009 when the events of the Green Revolution unfolded. I told them I represented the protesters. We said there was no point in tackling the knife -- it was better to tackle the person who was wielding the knife. We told them they had the power to reject the election results by holding off for a period of three months before recognizing Ahmadinejad's re-election, which triggered the protests. We hoped that during those three months the people would be able to topple the regime. "Second, we asked that the Voice of America radio station be used to report what was really happening inside Iran. They looked at us with bewilderment and told me that Obama would not listen to us because he was in a hurry to deal with Iran. We told them that if the president was toppled they wouldn't need a nuclear deal. People were in the streets. They were telling Obama - are you with them or with us? But Obama was with them, the regime, I was told. For him it didn't matter whether the president was Ahmadinejad or Mir-Hossein Mousavi (Ahmadinejad's challenger). He wanted to deal with Iran and the nuclear issue the way he was used to doing and have nothing to do with the opposition. He refused to heed our advice. "Had Obama helped us then, he could have had a nuclear deal much earlier. That is too bad. In Farsi we say -- if you cannot have the sea, at least have one glass of water. The current deal is like one glass of water. I agree with the West's approach of lifting sanctions but it would have been much simpler had they tried to depose Ahmadinejad." "Iran's regime is bad" Q: So in the end, he didn't help, he didn't stop the atomic bomb, and he made a bad deal. "No, it is not a bad deal. It is a good deal. Inside of Iran, we know how much the Iranian government is a failure because it had to accept this deal. Why are they a failure? Because of sanctions. Because people pushed them to accept this deal. This is where we disagree." Q: But you didn't convince me that the West should not have kept the sanctions for two or three more years. "The Iranian people are willing to accept little problems, but if they have more problems -- in the form of continued sanctions -- they will become more aggressive. If you continue these sanctions, the nation will not accept that. Look at Iraq -- when Iraq attacked Iran, Iran stood firm. But had we not been attacked, we would have been more democratic, because we would have had the chance to engage in dialogue. "You know, in the first year of the revolution, Iran was a democracy and then two things happened. The first -- the attack of Iraq that forced the nation to unite and stand up. The second was terrorism inside of Iran. We had a lot of terrorism. One of the terrorist groups was the mujahedeen. Saddam and the mujahedeen affected Iranian democracy. They were worse than the Savak (the secret police) and Shah. So it was a mistake. We lost our democracy because of those two things -- Saddam and the mujahedeen. During one bombing, some 80 Iranian leaders were killed right after the revolution. This is how we lost our democracy. If the sanctions stay, they will create more poor people, who will naturally rally around the regime because in Iran we have a middle class and poor class. The poor tend to forget about freedom. The middle class is essential in order for democracy to exist." Q: So what is your answer to what I said earlier, that Israel and Iran are not equal? We are not equally threatening. We didn't threaten Iran. "Iran's regime is bad. It does not only threaten you but also Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon. There are two countries that prevent Afghanistan from becoming free -- Iran and Pakistan. Iran also controls Iraq. Iran's supreme leader is like Adolf Hitler. If he had enough power, he would control the entire world. He believes that his ideology is the only truth and he will spread his truth through his might. When someone observes the situation in Israel and Gaza, they say you are bigger than Gaza. But up close, it becomes clear that you are a very small country. Q: Iran will now get $150 billion -- much of this money will go toward terrorism all over the world, just because of this deal. "No, I don't think so. You are looking at it from one angle. And I am taking a different approach. This is my point of view, as an Iranian exile. In Iran we have different classes of people -- a few are very rich and the rest are middle class. Six of seven million left the country but still think about Iran and want to give hope and do something to better the lives of the Iranian people. They left their country but they didn't forget their country. It means that if we can do something for Iran, we do it. I think this deal is much better than doing nothing. You are saying it is not enough -- I say you are right, it is not enough. There are two things at stake now: democracy and atomic bombs. Which one is more important? Democracy is more important. Because if we have democracy we won't need an atomic bomb." Q: Can Obama decide that Khamenei is not the legitimate leader of Iran? "Yes. Khamenei is the worst person in Iran. He is the real president. We say he is the director, and the Iranian president is his actor. The main person is Khamenei and he controls the president's assistants and actors and decides who becomes president. But the president is just an official title, nothing more." Q: But the deal now gives the ayatollahs the power to continue to rule for another 30 years. "Yeah, I agree and I don't agree. I agree that they can say something like that to the outside world, just to show off their power. But inside Iran more than 90% of Iranians know that the ayatollahs failed. They had to give up the prospect of an atomic bomb, they agreed to let someone come in and control them." Q: Do you think Iran will comply with the terms outlined in the deal- "I don't know. They are so smart, and they can do a lot of things that the world may not be able to control. But I think they failed. In my view they failed. They are like a very weak, drugged man who insists that he is invincible even though he is about to die. The fact is that they agreed to forgo a nuclear bomb. The Iranian leaders spent, even wasted, a lot of money on something that they ultimately agreed to destroy. The people's point of view on the issue is very different than that of Iran's leaders. That is why the Iranian people were so surprised when Netanyahu did not support the deal. The talk in Iran is that perhaps it is not a good deal, because of Netanyahu's reaction. I think it is a good deal." Q: Do the people in Iran listen to Netanyahu? "Yes. The Iranian leaders say: Look at Netanyahu, he is against the deal so we are the winners." Q: Can you please explain why Iran is so preoccupied with Israel? Why do they care so much about what we do? Why does Khamenei care about us? I read the English translation of the book he wrote when he was in exile in Najaf. Right at the start, in the first page, he talks about the Jews and Israel. Why would a person who is in exile be so obsessed with the Jews- "It is ignorance. I am in danger too, but I don't just say look at the Iranian government -- they tried to kill me several times." Q: I understand why they want to kill you -- you endanger them. But we don't have anything against them. "When the government is too weak to control the nation -- they need an enemy. For example, Iraq's attack in the 1980s was a good opportunity for them. Sometimes it is America that is the enemy, sometimes Israel. Now that they are striking deals with America, Israel becomes more of an enemy, because they need an enemy. It used to be America and Israel and now the role of America as enemy has transferred to Israel. So you will hear Israel becoming more and more of an enemy. Not because Israel is really an enemy but because they need someone to point at and say, 'We are going to destroy them and you, the people, should shut up and stop asking for democracy, because we need to destroy Israel first.' "The second reason is the regime's antagonism toward Arabs. As Shiites and Iranians, they would like to unite with the Arabs, which are mostly Sunni. The only way the Shiites can obscure the fact that they are a minority is if they say, 'We are all Muslims and we are all against Israel.' It is another way of doing politics. "Inside Iran there is no discourse about Israel. No one is talking about Israel on the Iranian street. Only the Iranian media does. When they talk about America in the media they say, 'Death to America.' But under the table they make deals with America. I don't believe they really want to do something truly menacing. Yes, they support Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Palestinians, but nothing more." Q: They also support Syria, Hezbollah and Shiites in Argentina. Iran is like an octopus. "Israel is not the main focus, as far as they are concerned. It is just a convenient target. If they could, they would have tried to hurt Russia as well -- like they are doing in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Those countries are not Jewish. The secret police of Iran controls Afghanistan completely. Iran wants to be united with Muslims and create a common front against America. They want power. They are like Adolf Hitler. If they could, they would have overpowered the entire world, including Russia. In fact, they were more at odds with Russia than and with America during the Cold War because communism and religion are incompatible, even more so than liberalism and religion. "But now they are friends with Russia. It means that they are very pragmatic. That is why when we were at war with Iraq they bought guns from Israel. At the end of the day they are very pragmatic. They try to appear more ideologically hard core than they actually are. If they were hard core, they would be saying that they were willing to die for their cause. But lo and behold [Iranian President Hassan] Rouhani realized that it is better to have economic relationships first and mend ties with America. Can you imagine what would have happened had he advocated this policy ten years ago? He would have been sent to prison." Q: But a few months ago I heard Khamenei say that Iran does not want to be linked to America, and they burned American flags. "When you are looking on from the outside, you don't know exactly what takes place inside our nation. The regime is just a few men who try to show off. They are good actors. When they lose, they claim they are winners." Q: When Arafat was alive, every time he applauded a terrorist bombing people said that this was only for domestic consumption, that he doesn't really mean it. Now we know that he meant everything he said. That under the table he controlled all the terror that targeted the streets of Israel. He had a secret language. He didn't say, 'go and bomb them,' he said something else, but they understood his code. Maybe you are right. But can we afford the luxury of not believing dictators when they make declaration? We didn't believe Hitler. In fact students and intellectuals at Oxford refused to oppose Hitler during the 1930s because they believed he was not dangerous. Even the German Jews said, 'No, the Germans are so civilized, they will control Hitler. It couldn't be that he was so bad.' "The main reason behind your take on things is the scaremongering in Israel. When you are scared you are willing to do a lot to protect yourself, and that is the first step toward violence and war. There are two different approaches -- one is viewing everyone as human beings -- not as Iranian and not Israelis. This is the best way to understand one another, better than what we have now, where both nations view each other through their own national prism. The second involves scaremongering. Forget about Khamenei, think about the Iranian people. "If we had no conflict with Israel, we would have had a better life in Iran because then we would have tried to create a democracy and usher in freedom. Every time we try to find liberty the regime ends up finding a new enemy like Israel. On the other hand, you also have a shadow that scares you -- the perception you have of Iran. If you use your smarts for peace, I think you can achieve it. I think a scared man cannot achieve peace." Q: But ever since 1919 -- some 100 years ago -- the Jews have always agreed, time and again, to divide the land. The Palestinians didn't agree even once so we know from experience why being scared makes sense. We were on the brink of a civil war in 2005 when we pulled out of Gaza, because we wanted to give the Palestinians a chance to prove to the world that they can self-govern. We gave them all the greenhouses in the Gaza Strip, and they turned the area into one big bunker from which they have fired tens of thousands of rockets at us. Reality speaks volumes. "I suggest that instead of talking about the enemy and how to protect Israel, Netanyahu tells the Palestinians about how the Arab world and Muslim countries are using them. The Palestinians are being used to unite the Arab and Muslim world against Israel. Tell them that they are the victims and the Arab world is the perpetrator. The dictators of Arab countries and Iran are exploiting their victimhood. Why don't you engage in dialogue using this voice to show that Israel wants peace-"
