Those delegates or the leaders, who initiated this somber idea to punish Israel, are damn wrong.  They forgot what they did to the millions of Jews for centuries, not to mention during WW2.  For the generation which witnessed at least a part of these injustices the bad, the discriminatory and the criminal behaviors are still alive in their minds, despite all the suffering, and their spirit is high.  All these malicious undertakings against Israel will fall back on those who initiate them. Not any Jew will avenge his suffering, as in our belief and culture is not allowed the keep any grudge against a human being, but   your descendants will one day have to pay back. Shame on you! Those who came with this irresponsible idea, you will not be able to sleep during the night, until you feel your conscience. The people of Israel are not only in Israel but everywhere and among you. The noise of the mass of the people who screamed “death to the Jews” is still resounding in my ears and certainly in the souls of those who suffered from it and not to forget all the dead who lost their lives by the Europeans.

Please tell your children that you are unjust in your mind and in you behavior because you know the reality and the truth but you chose what is in fact a lie and not the truth. You know too that this land of Israel never belonged to any nation, including the Arabs. Have they not enough land in the entire Middle East to let their brothers, the children of Abraham live in peace? You know that the name “Palestinians” in that place never existed. Never the name Palestine belonged to any Arab nation. This is the creation of the British. Israel never attacked any nation called Palestine. You think we forgot the truth? All the Arab nations know the truth, but they prefer to conquer without any effort what does not belong to them, as they did it in many countries of the world.

 I came from North Africa which belonged to the Berbers and the Arabs conquered them and converted them to Islam with the power of the sword. We know that well, as we were with the poor Berbers. But since then the Jews lived among the Berbers and the Arabs peacefully for thousands of years and now the Arabs cannot tolerate the Jews as their neighbors? We left all our belongings, our real estate, and our businesses in these Arab countries. We never complained. Some went to France, some to other European countries, some to Canada, to South America and the United States. I wonder why the Arabs didn’t do like the Jews who helped each other. Are the Arab countries poor? Not to the point of not being able to help their Arab brothers. They will be the losers. The Berbers were brothers in arms with the Jews when the Arabs conquered North Africa. We never claimed the land where the Jews lived for thousands of years. Since Israel regained its ancestors’ land, they brought prosperity to the Middle East, as never before. We all were refugees and we never complained. The Jews helped each other.

The European countries rarely go deep into the Arab cultures, which do not derive from Christianity. They certainly know the history of each people, country or nation and all historical facts, but in order to better appreciate other cultures and civilizations one needs to have lived with the Arabs and Berbers and immersed oneself in their daily life, in order to realize certain values and the feeling of each civilization.

Men feel strong when they know their subject but they withdraw into themselves when they approach an unknown subject. It is actually a weakness not to respect another culture. The weakness is dangerous as it invites men to aggression or to supremacy dreams.
Today I am trying to sort out among certain cultures and civilizations which I have come to know. I have barely learned to distinguish between the deep values and the superficial ones.

In fact there is good in every culture and in every civilization. It is upon us to know how to extract it. One needs to find the links that unite us. Tolerance and respect for others is the elementary base of coexistence and of peace.

One should accept people as they are, without trying to force upon them our will and our way of life. As Oriental wisdom has it: “Those who do not honor the stranger and the man of another tribe, are not worthy of being called the sons of a great nation.” Those who do not respect this principle harm others.
We recognize that democracy does not have the same meaning in every culture. It varies from nation to nation and depends on their culture and their way of life. What is good for one nation is not always good for another one. It is essential that each nation should be able to blossom and realize its potential according to its way of life, in security and in peace.

I feel that it is a pity that Israel and the Arabs are fighting each other. In fact they have much more in common, which could unite them, than the differences that divide them. But there are other countries which are neither Jewish nor Arab and which are trying to divide them. Feisal mentioned in his letter at the Paris Peace conference in 1919:  “We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them [the Jews] through: we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.”  Feisal himself recognized in this letter that the land is the home of the Jews.
As Bourguiba said it when he was in Jordan, the Arabs should make peace with Israel; they can only gain.
The Jews do not object that the Arabs live among them but to pretend that the land belongs to them is wrong. Over sixty five years have passed since the Arabs chose to fight the Jews in Israel instead of receiving the Jewish refugees with the word “Marhaba” (welcome) to your land.  They fought them altogether.

Now the Arabs from almost the entire Middle East made a kind of revolution called the “Arab Spring”. They should have called it the “Arab Winter”. The Westerners helped the Arabs in many countries to revolt without any brain or guidance. The Jews could have helped them in the right direction.
Where is the European brain? We the Jews gave them hundreds of years without asking anything in return. In fact they owe the Jews a fortune for these hundreds of years of work and scientific discovery and development.

As for the United States, my country which I love so much I can tell the Obama Administration and its leader: “I would advise you not to bully either the Jews or Israel and not to use the Europeans to help you with that. We know them better than you know them. For them, to have anything to say to Israel, they have first to wash their hands from all the atrocities they committed during centuries. Is the US no longer capable of saying the truth? Do not deceive our American Jews or Israel, who trusted us from the beginning. We promised Israel not to let it down in reference to Iran, and you, Mr. President, didn’t stop reassuring the Israelis and their government in reference to Iran. This is not the time to interlink borders and a nuclear armed Iran. This is a dangerous game. The Israelis mean business.”

Copyright 2013 Emile Tubiana