I respond to these charges by holding the shield of international law. “To single out and criticize Israel for doing what other countries have done is anti-Semitic.” “Israel has valid legal and historical claims.” “Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.” “Israel is our safeguard against another Holocaust.” “No one has the right to ask a country to return land that was won in war.” After 53 years of carrying this challenging banner, I am familiar with the justifications, accusations, and fear: I returned to NYC with a Palestinian husband, a new family, and an important message- Palestinians are not an existential threat to Israel, and in fact could become friends and allies if given the chance. I felt no rancor from them, just profound sorrow that they could not join me on such a sojourn. The Palestinians (generically referred to as Arabs) encouraged me to pray beside the Wailing Wall, got permission for me to enter the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, welcomed me in their village, and suggested an itinerary when I told them I was going to Israel. When we first met, I had no idea they were the feared enemy I’d been warned about all my life-they hate us they want to drive Israel into the sea they prohibit us from visiting our holy places.
In 1967, a Palestinian family from East Jerusalem offered me sanctuary during a war that changed the face of the Middle East. Peter Beinart, an influential Jewish-American journalist and intellectual, recently claimed that Jewish dehumanization of Palestinians is the greatest threat to a peaceful resolution. A debate that has been raging in my family for 53 years, is now being argued across the American-Jewish community.
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