An Open Letter to Shimon Peres

Dear Mr. Peres: As you make your way through the crowds into the John F. Kennedy Jr. forum at the Institute of Politics today, and as you stand on the podium and look at the hundreds who have come to see you, I want you to know that amongst those eager to hear you is a young Palestinian who has parents and brothers in Ramallah, cousins in Nablus and aunts and uncles in Jenin and Gaza. This young man is me, and I believe that you, Mr. Peres, and I have so many things in common.

Mr. Peres, just like you, I wasn’t born in Palestine. Both of my parents were Palestinian refugees living in Jordan. Your parents taught you to be proud of being Jewish at a young age. My parents taught me to be proud of being Palestinian before they taught me how to read and write. Your parents and family told you stories about the Promised Land. My parents used take me to the east bank of the Dead Sea, where my dad would carry me on his shoulders and point to the other side of the border and tell me about our home there behind the mountains and between the orchards and the olive trees. While you made it to the Promised Land a long time ago, it was only when Israel signed the peace treaties with the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993 that I was able to move there.

Palestine wasn’t really what I expected. After all the talk from my parents and family members about how beautiful it was, I expected nothing less than heavenly cities and villages. Instead, I saw crumbling buildings, old roads and grey, aging refugee camps. But there was something special at the time; there was fresh wind in the air, and a young spirit in the streets ready for a new beginning. It was going great for a few years, elections were happening and I saw my parents vote for the first time in their lives. And there was the olive harvest every year, and there were weddings, new kids in the family and life.

Life like that didn’t last, however. I witnessed the peace between Palestinians and Israelis gradually become something of the ancient past. Calamities took their place in line, awaiting their turn to strike both of our peoples.

Ever since the beginning of the second Intifada, many in the world have asked whether Palestinians really wanted peace with Israel. Very few asked whether Israel was sincere in its efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians. After all, settlements in the West Bank and Gaza started expanding at really high rates directly after the Oslo accords, during Yitzhak Rabin’s term as Prime Minister, and later during your term. This was followed by procrastination on Israel’s part in fulfilling the commitments it made at Oslo. The Palestinian state was supposed to be declared no later than 1999. Instead, the Palestinian dream of independence collapsed.

Today, other developments on the ground, including the unilateral disengagement plan from 17 Israeli settlements in Gaza, also puts into question Israel’s real intentions. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s adviser Dov Weisglass declared in an interview with Haaretz a few weeks ago that, “The significance of our (unilateral) disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. It supplies the formaldehyde necessary so there is no political process with Palestinians.”

For me though, a more important question than one of sincerity is why are my brothers, family and the majority of Palestinians paying for crimes they have not committed? Their only guilt seems to be their calls to end the occupation of their land. Unlike groups that adopt violence against Israel, Mr. Peres, the heaven most Palestinians seek is right here in this world, between the orchards and the olive trees.

A year ago, I was visiting my parents in Ramallah. As I was walking home with two of my brothers, a 14 year old and an 8 year old, I heard loud gunshots close by. My first gut reaction was to kneel down and hide my head. I looked up a second later and found that my brothers kept walking as if nothing had happened. They didn’t even notice that I was still behind. That was a moment I shall never forget. It went beyond the fact that they were used to the sound of bombs and bullets. They were overburdened by a reality they didn’t create, so overburdened for their age that it made them so detached from the horror surrounding them. Fear made them fearless, Mr. Peres. I believe this is not right.

It was your predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, who once said that, “The pain of peace is preferable to the agony of war.” Mr. Peres, you and I have a lot in common. I am still optimistic, and I still see another sun being born tomorrow and a new beam of light emerging like a final shout for peace and reconciliation. I hope you share my belief.

Mohammed J. Herzallah ’07, a Crimson editorial editor, is a government concentrator in Adams House.