Avi Mashriki Solves
the Palestinian Problem
By Ya'ir Avimor
When Avi Mashriki sits with his children and hears that Israel's right wing parties are demanding that left-wingers who met with PLO leaders be punished -- he laughs. Avi himself has racked up many hours of meetings with terrorist leaders of all types. Avi, formerly "Ibrahim Rabah al-Mashriki" used to be one himself, a Palestinian who was brought up to believe that it is inconceivable to leave, alive, a single Jew on a single grain of Palestine’s soil. “Palestine”, explains Avi, “does not refer to just Judea & Samaria as the Jews think, Palestine is from the (Mediterranean) Sea to the (Jordan) River.We interviewed him at home, presently in Kiriat-Arba. We heard his amazing story to Judaism and the State of Israel.
Ibrahim Rabah al-Mashriki was born in the village of Maska near Ramat Hakovesh. He was one year old when the war of Independence broke out (1948).
“My parents left the village of Tulkarm along with all the other villagers for fear of the Jews. They all hoped the Iraqi army would win the war in the Triangle and that we would all be able to return home in a few days,” Avi relates. Reality was different. The Jews won the war and the family went to Tulkarm instead.
“I grew to maturity as a refugee in the Tulkarm refugee camp. I grew up in a harsh reality. I saw my neighbors living in glorious villas while my family and I lived in a tent. We were waiting for the end of the month when the United Nations Relief Works Agency made its distribution – some rice, herring, cheese, bread and, in winter, perhaps some clothing that usually came too late and usually didn’t fit. Our holiday was whenever clothing came. I could never imagine a situation where I could walk into a store and buy clothing like everyone else. There was a social gap between the citizens of the town and the refugees in he camp. We could not imagine marrying someone who was not a refugee or someone who was wealthy. When we asked why this was so, the answer was: Because the Jewish murderers where murdered the Palestinians and took their lands. We vented all our fury against the Jews who were to blame for everything. That’s what our teachers told us, that was the atmosphere. That’s what all the radio and television broadcasts showed.
“They even changed their names. Instead of names such as Abdel, Rachman, Mamoud, new names began to appear: ‘Nadel’ (armed struggle), ‘Rifah’ (struggle), ‘Sumud’ (toughness). Most of the girls were called ‘Falistin’. Jew-hatred blossomed everywhere. Streets were named ‘Shar al-ahuda” (return home), ‘Shar al-tahrin’ (liberty).
That’s the atmosphere Ibrahim grew up in, the atmosphere that all Palestinian refugee children grow up in.
The Six-Day War found 19-year-old Ibrahim ready for glory. “This was our great hope: to at last throw the Jews into the sea and return to our homes. We went out to war singing: “We’ll butcher the Jews. We’ll drown the Jews in the Sea.” Throughout the Arab world there was great joy for our day of vengeance had come.
Once more reality slapped the Arabs in the face, and they were greatly disappointed. Avi relates, “There was much apostasy from Islam because of the outcome.
After that war, young Ibrahim and some friends went to work in Tel-Aviv. He became friendly with some Jews and discovered that “they were modern people, sensitive, understanding, intelligent. Their government was a democracy with equal rights for its citizens, and all working together for their country.”
The encounter left him stunned. He found himself attracted to the Jewish people despite his great anger. “I had no idea why but I found myself identifying with the Jews. Something internal.” Ibrahim boarded with a Jewish family in Kerem HaTeimanim in Tel-Aviv for two years, during which he learned Hebrew and also Yemenite songs. He grew attached to the Jewish songs and culture. He was especially impressed by the ability of he ordinary Jew to argue with his rabbi.
Ibrahim stopped working at Tel Aviv and enrolled at al-Najah University in Nablus (Shechem) where he trained to be a teacher. After taking his degree, he packed up and moved to Saudi Arabia where he taught in Shiite territory. He recalls, “I began to study the two Islamic sects, the Shiites and the Sunnis. As a Palestinian I favored the Islamic revolution in Iran. There was complete co-operation between Khomeni’s men and the Palestinians at the onset of the revolution. In the eyes of the Shiites, the Sunnis are all heretics, and the Sunnis consider all Shiites to be heretics. My personal study of both sects led me to the conclusion that they were both heretical. I believe that there is a G-d Who created the world. Yet I found a total contradiction between this belief and what is written in the Quran. I was not sure that the Quran and its laws were of divine origin. When I asked the Shiites for answers they replied, “You are a heretic. Don’t ask questions.” I recalled how the Jews would argue matters of faith with their rabbis. I contrasted the warmth of the rabbis with the unfeeling sheikh to the ordinary Muslim.
One day Ibrahim set out from his home in Daman to visit his brother Yussuf who was teaching in Qizan, some 1440 miles away. As he drove the last 560 miles from Taif to Qizan, he was shocked to discover an area there that looks like the Swiss countryside with clouds and rain in midsummer. There are no houses there, just an occasional gas station.
“I asked myself: If we are one people, why do then allow us to rot under shameful conditions in refugee camps? Why don’t they rehabilitate us here so we can live like humans? On the road from Iraq to Jordan I had seen vast empty spaces, and wondered ‘Why don’t they let us live on this land?’
“When I arrived in Qizan I learned that the entire region of some 310,000 square miles had belonged to Yemen and that King Abdul Aziz had annexed it to the Saudi Kingdom in exchange for some gifts to the ruler of Yemen.
“I found out that there was al-Mashriki family in Qizan who sold air conditioners and were called “al-Yehudi” (“the Jew”). When I went with my brother to buy an air conditioner, I inquired why they called this man ‘al-Yehudi’ – was he a stingy man or a usurer? I was taken aback to learn that he was descended from a Jewish family that had converted to Islam some 500 years ago. Although he is a good Muslim he is still called ‘al-Yehudi’ because of his family’s origin. I asked him some questions about Torah and Judaism but he knew nothing about them.
“That’s when I realized that perhaps I ought to find out about Judaism that perhaps my family was really Jewish.”
In 1978 millions of Moslem made their way to Mecca. The fifth principle of Islam is “Hajath al-Kuds,” going up to Mecca on behalf of Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat and all the al-Fatah members were present. The Palestinian teachers in Saudi Arabia, Ibrahim among them, were planning to distribute 2 million books that explained the Palestinian problem and the murderous Jewish conquest. On the first day 600.00 books were distributed. On the second day orders were given to stop distribution of the book and to tear out page 184.
Ibrahim took a took at page 184 and found tit contained a citation from the Quran stating that the Jews built the first and second Temples and that they will return a third time to build their state in the Holy Land.
“I came to the conviction that the Arab leaders would not be impeded by their holy book.”
At that time the meeting between he Arafat and the Palestinian teachers were taking place. As Avi Mashriki relates, “I represented the Palestinian teachers of my region. I asked two questions. The first: Why doesn’t the PLO work with the Arab governments to rehabilitate the refugees in the camps by settling them in more civilized locations such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq? The second: In view of the current situation how can anyone claim progress in the direction of establishing a Palestinian state?”
I told Arafat: “My parents have been waiting since 1948 for the fulfillment of the promise, ‘You’ll be going home in a few days.’ The days have become years and the years have become generations. Why not seek a solution in a land that is not Palestine? Why the superfluous struggle? Why force people to live in subhuman conditions?” I brought Arafat the example of thousands of men working in Germany who are married and have families yet remain Palestinians.”
“Arafat replied: ‘The tent symbolized the tragedy the Jews brought upon us. If we lose that symbol we lose the symbol of our struggle. If we let people live in Arabia and in the Sudan, Palestine will become mere history, a land for dreams, nothing more.’ Arafat added: ‘In the refugee camps are people from Jaffa, Haifa, Nazareth, Lod, Acre, Ramleh and Rehovot. We need them. If there will no refugee camps we will not be able to struggle for those places anymore. There will no longer be a problem at all. We must pay the price that living in these camps requires on behalf of the Palestinian struggle. So that we should not forget that that is out land and those are our homes. And so the Jews will not forget that they are the cause of our tragedy.’
“I asked Arafat: ‘I see that every action against a civilian target is, first of all, a world tragedy for our struggle and, second, it opens the door to a double punishment from the Jews. Why go this route? The same fellow who’s going to die attacking a civilian bus, let him die attacking a military target, let him die for something meaningful.’
“Arafat replied: ‘This is a holy war. We are not fighting for Palestine. Allah commanded us in to punish the Jews for the tragedies they caused us in Deir Yassin and Kibiya. We are carrying out Allah’s command.’
“After that confrontation, a senior PLO official came over to me and recommended that I not ask such questions I the presence of a large crowd because that weakens people’s spirits and is likely to affect my states in the Palestinian teacher’s movement in Saudi Arabia. What I understood from all the conversations I held with the PLO leaders is that their sole purpose is the destruction of the Israeli state and the realization of the Palestinian dream – an independent state in all of Palestine. There is no difference of opinion about that among Palestinians, young and old, and among all Arabs. So it is written in the Quran, and the only reason for not doing it is the Arab inability to do it.”
To clarify what the Arab struggle is all about, Avi showed me Bulletin No. 25 of the Palestinian National Council. It opens with the declaration, “Fight them and Allah will oppress them through you. The Jews will be debased and you will be victorious, and your hearts will breathe freely.
“This is the essence of the struggle.,” says Avi, “Exactly what Arafat told me It is a struggle to the death against the Jews. That’s what the bulletin is talking about.
“I returned to Israel in 1979 and began to see the reality. A Semitic people, the Jews, had returned to their land after 2,000 years of exile to establish a Jewish state recognized by Islamic history. There is no lack of land in the region. Israel occupies 7,800 square miles; Jordan 38,000; Syria 71,500; Iraq 168,000; Egypt 387,000; Saudi Arabia 840,000; Sudan 967,000. In all this vast expanse there is room for a state for the Jewish people that once lived here. The Moslem and the Jew are both sons of Avraham Avinu (literally: “Abraham our Patriarch”) so who needs this war?
“What’s the purpose of all this force and murder of children and innocent citizens? I knew that the State of Israel represents modernization. I realized that the only reason for the struggle is that governments of all he Arab lands are afraid of democracy and we, the Palestinians, are a card they are playing to retain their power. The archeological findings demonstrate unequivocally that the Jewish people lived here and that this is their land. The Arab holy book, the Quran, declares this. What else does an Arab need to in order to believe this fact? For me it was convincing -- our struggle is unjust and we must face facts. This was my primary impetus toward conversion.
“I made mighty efforts to discover my roots. I had found out that the Mashriki family was originally Jewish I investigated the matter through my parents and through the elders of the family. I found an answer that satisfied me, and it fortified my determination to convert. I believe there is a G-d who created the world, and I was not convinced that of the Islamic worldview. I began to seek my way in Judaism to link up with my Creator. Today I am convinced that this is the correct way. I found no contradiction between my thinking and Judaism’s message. I am at one with myself and proud of what I have done.
“On my way to Judaism I have come to know wonderful people such as Shelomo Kattan, Chairman of the Alfei Menashe Council; Rabbi Meir HaEitan the Shomron Regional Rabbi, Benny Katzover, Chariman of the Shomron Regional Council, Rabbi Lemanon, rosh yeshiva in Elon Moreh; Rabbi Yehuda bar-Yashish of Jerusalem; Shalom Vach, Chairman of the Kiryat-Arba Regional Council; Rabbi Moshe Levinger; and Rabbi Dov Lior, the rabbi of Kiriat-Arba. They befriended me and made me feel like brothers when I stayed in Elon Moreh and when I stayed in Kiriat-Arba.
“I, my children, and my sister who converted too, feel ourselves organically part of the Jewish people. I call out to the entire Mashriki family: Return to your people, to the faith of your forefathers. Return home from your Islamic exile.”
“Avi,” I ask, “as a former insider, do you think that there is a possibility of peaceful relations between us and the Arabs?”
“If you look at Israel’s territory you can see there’s no room for two peoples to live together, when each people has its own culture, its own religion, own mentality and its own scars from the past. Only one people can dominate this state I see no place for the Jewish people other than in a Jewish state whereas the Palestinian people has vast territories in which to live with their brother Arabs. The problem should be resolved once and for always: Jews in Israel and Arabs in Arabia.
“You should not rack your brain for fear of international reaction. Believe it: Israel was established without a peace treaty between it and any Arab state, and it will survive in the future without any such agreement. What keeps the state going is a strong army, a strong state, and her people filled with faith and its purpose.”
As to the Palestinian National Council, Avi comments, “This is an organization of the part of the Palestinian people known as ‘Fatah Arafat’ was pushed by Hussein and Mubarak into political exercises to pretend to the world that the Palestinians are making an effort toward peace. Any decision they make does not even reflect Arafat’s own position. This is merely an exercise to pacify Jordan and Egypt, and Arafat has no choice in the matter having been pushed into corner by Syria.
“You need to show that Arafat does not represent the Palestinian Right or the Islamic movement, only a small part of this people. And that part will never agree to a compromise any part of Palestinian soil. I wish the Jewish (political) Left would understand that what has maintained the Jewish state is a strong Israel, not a peace treaty with a Palestinian government. There is no Palestinian government that represents its people. If there were a representative Palestinian government you would never hear the word ‘peace’”.
Avi Mashriki has a proposal for ending the intifiada: “This phenomenon is an outgrowth of Israel’s democracy and its policy toward the Arabs. They made it possible to establish in all the schools and organization that did not exist in the Jordanian period, and they established the industrial basis in Judea and Samaria. They introduced democratic laws that are inappropriate and incompatible with Arab culture and this is the result. So long as the system is not altered the intifiada will continue.
“I recommend that Israel begin with a temporary plan to solve the situation:
1.) “Break up the refugee camps and keep them away from the rest of the population and from the roads.
2.) “Prohibit anyone who has committed a crime against the security of the state from working in (“Israel-proper”).
3.) “Punish the head of the family for any crime committed by his children. The Arab family is a traditional unit, and if they know their father will be punished they won’t (commit acts of violence).
4.) “Change the easy (Israeli) prison (conditions) given to (Arab) prisoners to conditions similar to those in Arab countries.
5.) “Consider a plan in conjunction with other world nations to accept refugees for their labor forces; to propose emigration to those countries.
6.) “Provide security for Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria. Make it possible for them to retaliate swiftly for every act of violence (committed against them) in order to instill fear in the Arabs.“Do I have to remind you how the state was established? The policies of 1948 are valid now, too. The situation is no different; it’s the same war – for the existence of the state. It makes no difference whether it’s Hebron, Shechem, Safed, Netanya or Tel-Aviv. In any normal state when the security of the state is endangered they do not talk about citizen’s rights, but about the security of the state.”
This was originally published in The Jewish Press, in three parts starting with the Friday 28 April 1989 edition, page 55. The above contains the entire three-part article.
