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I'm David Nazar.

The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been overwhelmingly complicated and emotional for both rooted in decades of fear, anger, mistrust and war.

October 7t brought this crisis to the world stage, with Israelis telling the world never again and Palestinians telling the world free Palestine.

The war that ensued after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel has divided the United States, divided the world.

Today, the future of the Middle East is uncertain and unsettled.

Here in the U.S., there is anxiety and fear from both Jews and Muslims as both hope for a sustainable peace in the Middle East.

Southern California has the largest Muslim population and the second largest Jewish population in the US, and here in the greater L.A. area, people of both faiths live together, work together, coexist.

Can this coexistence eve be achieved in the Middle East?

Is there a sustainable solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict?

Here is part one of my two part interview with Care, the Council on American Islamic Relations Care, one of the most well known Muslim activist organizations in the United States.

I recently traveled to Orange County, California to meet with Hussam Elish, wh some is a CEO of Care California and the executive director of its greater LA office, who saw me with Care, the Counci on American-Islamic relations.

Thank you so much for being here.

My pleasure.

Thank you David.

It's actually been several years since we visited with each other, so I appreciate this.

I appreciate the invitation and the opportunity.

I should let our viewers know this is somewhat of a bit of a different format for the interview.

Normally, if you're a fan of sustaining us, we have two representative arguments.

I sort of moderate, and we go from there.

We fill reports in such.

Possibl you can explain to our audience why we have a bit of a different format, and then we get to the issue some.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you again for the invitation, truly.

I've been on interviews with various media outlets and they tend to be very aggressive, confrontational and I don't think we do service to the audiences, to the viewers.

Knowing you, I've known you for 20 years.

We don't agree on a lot of things dealing with the Middle East.

We agree on at least humanity.

And I felt when you approached me about the idea, having a dialog was way more productive, for the subject an for the interest of the viewer, viewership you have for us to have that dialog instead of a confrontation with a third party.

You know me, I know you.

Even if we don't agree, I know we're going to respect eac other's opinions and civility.

And you asked for a one on one interview, and I granted that request because to me, this is too vital an issue.

Whether you agree or disagre with Palestinians or Israelis, Jews, Muslims or whatever the case may be, this is a conversation that must be had.

This is a dialog that must be told.

And I said, yes, I agre to the format and that's fine.

So getting into our first question, it's been a lot of pai and suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Certainly it was brought to the forefront on the world stage as I mentioned just a moment ago, October 7th, Hamas attack on Israel.

There's a lot of history somewhere.

There has to be a solution.

Let's begin with your take on things, and let's try to present facts to this argument.

Let's let the viewer decide and have a dialog and a discussion, because there's a great mutual respect for each other.

Sure.

Well thank you.

I mean, the first thing to remember is one, we have to acknowledge that every human life is sacred, whether it's Jewish, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, Israeli.

And I think that's a given.

But sometimes we have to make that point clear.

Anyone who's an innocent person, man or woman or children or child should be protected and deserving of that.

But second point after that is immediately going to the fac that this battle, this conflict, this war that is happening today did not begin on October 7th, not even on October 6th or fifth.

This has been going on for over 100 years, even before the establishment of the State of Israel 76 plus years ago.

This is about the dispossession of the Palestinian people on their own land, by decisions or through decisions made by foreign occupiers.

You know, the British Mandate, even a decision by the UN deciding the fate of a lan or the land where people lived still does not make it a justified, legitimate or less painful of a dispossession.

So unless we go back to that history from the beginning of what happened and how we can address tha ongoing, it's not just 100 year or at least 76 year ol injustice, but it's an ongoing injustice that have cost a lot of lives and misery.

Mostly for the Palestinian people.

And yet there is the argument, and thank you for that.

When you say possession or dispossession of land, so to speak, there are thos who are going to greatly argue that this was the Jewish ancestral land for centuries and centuries, and they were kicked off their homeland by, let's say, the Persians and the Turks and the Romans and the Arabs, etc., etc.

the list goes on.

When you dissect it from that perspective and you try to decipher whose land is this anyway?

Obviousl the land was greatly contested prior to 1948 and statehood of Israel.

And yet you are correct in that Palestinians and Israelis sort of coexisted.

Right?

They shar the commonality of the land, but it was certainly in question.

Whose land is it?

So whether you agree or you disagree with the then British Mandate, which led to the United Nations partition of the land which split Israel in half, basically the Palestinian were allowed to take their half for eventual statehood.

The Israelis could take their half in 1948, certainly no sooner than Israel declare statehood, the entire Arab world swarms down in Israel and says, no, you're not allowed.

They tried to annihilate and exterminate Israel, and the Jews and the Jews fought back and said, so soon after World War two, and the 6 million Jews killed in the concentratio camps, they said, never again.

They took that land.

And they said, until we are recognized as equal partners, as a state, we have the right to exist.

There is no existential threat.

We have that lan and we will relinquish the land.

But since 1948, it's been constant warfare.

Everyone trying to annihilate Israel.

And many ask What is Israel supposed to do?

Sure.

I mean first of all, from a historical and legal perspective we have to separate two things.

I don't think anybody with any basic knowledge, minimal knowledge of history, denies the fact that Jew existed on that land and lived as a part of the indigenous people, along with the Canaanites, the Palestinians, the Arabs, tribes that existed there along many people.

There.

But we're talking about two 3000 year old history since then.

The last time there was that presence is about 2000 years ago.

If we are to use that 2000 year old history to come back from thousands of miles away from that place, I would be claiming a lot of land in a lot of places in the world, including Palestine.

Being a muslim, being an Arab, you know, Muslims have heritage as well as Christians.

We don't operate in this worl based on, hey, 2000 years ago, I'm sure one of my ancestors I know I did my DNA and I have like 20 different nationalities.

Imagine if I show up to, Central Asians or Albanian places or Turkish places and say, all right, everybody pack up and leave.

Because 2000 years ago, I have proof my ancestors lived there and find a place or let's split up your land.

No, no people in the world.

I mean, I thin Palestinians are not different and I'm not Palestinian, so it's easier for me to.

Give you your background in 30s anyway.

You know, you're Lebanese.

Of course.

You're my you know, my my parents are both, of Syrian origin who lived in Lebanon.

I was born in Lebanon.

Came here as a as a teenager to go to college in Texas, married to a Latina lady.

So you can imagine how mixed, mixed my kids are.

You know, I'm already very mixed with Arabic, Turkish, Central Asian, you know, partly even European DNA, if that is something we can look into, who.

Knows, maybe a little bit of Jewish and, you know.

Everybody I know has at least 1% or 2% because, again, we're all mixed.

Nobody is pure anything, quote unquote, if we can even use the word pure.

So for me, I'm looking at it less about that purity, more about as a justification to claim some land.

Palestinians, again, are not different than any other people who are, actually, I do believe they're among some of the most hospitable people, very generous people.

When Jews were being persecuted in Europe, especially after the Holocaust and even before before that, there was a lot of persecution of people.

Forget about that.

Palestinians ope their their homes and their land and their hearts to welcome a lot of these refugees.

And up until then, it wasn't the issue.

It is one, you know, in the late 1800s you're talking about probably the population.

The Jewish population of historic Palestine was anywhere from five, maybe at most 10%.

It wasn't until World Wa two happening and the aftermath where an influx of refugees arrived, maybe increasing the number of of the Jewish presence in Palestine to something close to 30%.

Now imagine if you are a Palestinian at that time.

And by the way, when we say Palestinian, at least from a muslim or Arab perspective, for us it does not automatically mean only Muslim or Christian.

A Palestinian is anyone who's indigenous to the histori land of Palestine.

All of them.

There could be Druze Muslim, Christian or Jewish too, certainly, or even of Armenia background or Greek background.

So imagine being tha Palestinian who suddenly in 1948 or 1947 when the partition was being discussed, seeing that 30% of of the of the people who are Jewish now, who own about 7% of the land, not more, suddenly are given mor than the majority, almost 55%, 56% of that historic Palestine.

One can see why they would rejec consulted about that decision.

And I hear you, but to give it just a bit more context and correct me if I'm wrong, certainly the land was contested only in the simple fact that it exchanged hands so many times and there had to be made a decision for both the humanitarian rights and the civil rights of both the Palestinians and both the Jews and the world eventually recognize tha both needed a two state solution for more reference, obviously for our view, or certainly Jews throughout history, for thousands of years, they were basically unwanted guests.

Wherever they went, they were ran out of every country.

There were inquisitions, pogroms, the Holocaust, and so on.

Thus, we have a diaspora of Jews.

You can travel all throughout the world, and whether you're in Morocco or Iran or in Iraq or Syria or all over Europe, there is a tiny fraction of a Jewish population.

Because Jews had no homeland, they were kicked out and persecuted, prosecuted no matter where they went.

So, in fairness, the UN governing body and certainly powers that be in the 1800s and Zionists, which I hope you can get into Zionism in just a moment, because I think that's certainly mislabeled.

The world agreed that there' got to be a two state solution.

So in leading to the UN partition, the world eventually, somewhat begrudgingly, but eventually accepted the two state solution a statehood for Palestine, a state of declaration for Jews.

The Arab world said no truth be told.

The Arab world said no Jews allowed.

End of story.

And that is how it has been over the decades.

Palestinian, rather Israeli leadership and prime ministers have in good faith tried to broker peace with the PLO.

Then Yasser Arafat of the PLO Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas, whomever Bill Clinton worked himsel to near exhaustion, near death.

If you go back in history and read about it to get the Oslo cards, the world was so close to a unification where the Palestinians could have these human rights and the statehood.

Israelis could be recognized and lived in peace.

Now, at the 11th hour, Hussam Yasser Arafat said no, he withdrew.

And it was heartbreakin because in the final analysis, he sort of fooled the world.

Everyone bought into the fact that there's going to be a relationship and a two state solution.

But he knew and there was grea pressure from Hamas on the PLO and Yasser Arafat.

To be fair, I believe at one point his heart could have been in the right place, and he wanted to make peace.

His life would have been in vain.

As a martyr, he was the Israel slayer, the Jew slayer, so to speak, the Palestinian protector he could not go through without peace.

And since then no Palestinian leader has.

And it's heartbreaking because now, yes, Israel has used a land grab for to get hostages back or to have peace or to say, just recognize it and really what is Israel's greatest crime?

They are asking, just don't annihilate us.

Don't exterminate us.

Let us have the rights to live here.

Because if you look at the reality of it, Israel would like nothing more than to have peace with its neighbor to have a two state solution.

Gaza could be an amazing 2 mile stretch like Miami Beach.

Israelis would be no happier to help them build that.

They don't want to be annihilated because Palestinians, Muslims in that region, they deserve human rights.

They deserve to not suffer any more.

But that suffering is from Hamas.

Hamas keeps them in an open air prison.

Israel has relinquished a lot of the border.

They have withdrawn from Gaza.

They have tried to make as much of a concession as they can.

And it breaks my heart.

I say that again that the leadership of Hamas and the Palestinians cannot help their own people.

They are given billions of dollars a year from the EU and from the United States.

Yes, President Trump had put a halt on that.

Biden reinstated the money to them, and instead of building an infrastructure of mosques and daycare centers and high schools and colleges and bridges and roads, they build an underground, intricat tunnel system to fight Israel.

How about building an aboveground infrastructure for their own people who are suffering because these Palestinians are suffering, and they need a state?

So much to unpack here?

Yes.

Starting firs with with the claim or assertion that the land was contested, the land was never contested.

What changed was not the people or the land.

What changed wa who was ruling over the people.

That happens all over the world, you know, just because we ruled over Vietnam, it doesn't mean the land of Vietnam was contested.

Just because France colonized Algeria or Morocco or Mauritania.

It means the land was contested, just means some occupiers came in and, you know, or authorities came in.

Come and go.

Persians, Romans, Ottomans, you BS British Mandate, etc., etc.

the land were the same.

So I just want to and I don't want to dwell on the past, but it's important for us to know when we're looking at it.

It wasn't a typical civil war.

It wasn't a typical you have foreign community coming from Europe, mostly from East Europe, coming in suddenly to a land where people actually lived Muslims, Christians, Jews lived in harmony.

I still hear stories from my parents.

I hear stories about their Jewish neighbors, Jewish business partners I visited.

I just came back a month ago from Morocco.

I went to the Jewish market.

I saw how thriving they are, and I know there is a sense of insecurity.

Many, many in the Jewish community feel.

And maybe I can say rightly so, because history, and especially modern history, has not been gracious to the Jewish community, especially what we saw in Europe.

But if you speak to Jewish people who lived obviously, in the Middle East, people before the the situation happened in Palestine and Israel, people were neighbors of friends.

They celebrated their holidays together.

If we read the history of th golden age of Judaism in history books and Jewish history books, we'll look.

We read about Muslims and Jew and Christians living together in harmony in Andalusia.

You know, some of the best scholars of Judaism thrived in that era of Muslim rule, for example.

That's not to say it's perfect, but I'm saying is we've had many, many positive bright spots and we can still have that because for me and for most Muslims, the conflict that exists today is not a muslim Jewish one might issue or probably if you speak to Palestinians, their issue is not with the Palestinian people, with the Jewish people, as Palestinians, they are with foreign colonizers who settled in their land and occupied their lan and dispossessed them from their right to exist.

Now with that, that is history.

I want to come back to what you're talking about in the present few things.

I mean, I you mentioned Israel would not want fo anything more than having peace.

I don't think that is Israel.

I think that is you, David.

You're a kind hearted person and I appreciate that.

And I, I God knows I truly believe and hope for the same thing.

Everything Israel has done since the day of the establishment of the State of Israel has been a Nakba, a dispossession, a catastrophe for the Palestinian people.

Israel literally destroyed 400 villages.

This is not the acts of a peaceful nation.

Israel for 750,000 Palestinians out of their homes and told them, you are not to come back in our day.

We call that ethnic cleansing.

We call that genocidal behavior.

We're not even talking about what has happened in Gaza.

We're talking about.

And one might say, well, it's a war, it's an establishment.

But Israel hasn't stopped.

Israel has had every opportunity to announce, we're allowing a Palestinian state.

We're allowing Palestinians to come back to their homes.

It breaks my heart when when I meet Palestinian friends and they introduce me to the grandparents, and the first thing they do is show me a key of their home their house in Yaffa, in Haifa, and in cities where they lived and thrived.

And they're denied.

They're the only reason they're not allowed to come back to their home is because they're not Jewish.

That's the only reason.

Nothing else.

So is the problem.

Hamas is a problem.

Hezbollah.

Well, let's ask ourselves, when did Hamas come to existence in 1987?

Were the Palestinian rights protected before 1987?

The answer is no.

Were Palestinians allowed to rule their own affairs?

No.

Was Israel expanding its control, very brutal control over their land in the West Bank and in Gaza?

Absolutely.

One was Hezbollah, established in 1982 as a result of a brutal Israeli invasion.

I was in Lebanon at that time.

My own school was bombed by the Israelis, my own high school.

There was no Hezbollah at that time.

And trust me, I've criticized Hezbollah till my face turned blue because of what they've done in Syria against Syrian people who are, again, like Palestinians seeking to live free on their land.

But this does not excus what Israel has done in Lebanon.

But that's a whole different story.

But at least the West Bank an Gaza, Israel has an opportunity.

It had it.

It continues to have to end the occupation because as long as there i an occupation, this is history.

There will always be a resistance.

And the uglier and the more brutal the occupation is, the uglier and the more brutal the resistance to the occupation is going to be.

And I hear you and thank you for that.

I appreciate you.

Let me let me counter that with some facts as well.

Because many scholars you talk to, I've talked to on both sides will often admit, often reluctantly, that the occupation is from within Gaza.

And you said, well, within Hamas.

Excuse me.

And you said it only began the last few decades.

You have to take into consideration that was the PLO.

And before Yasser Arafat, there was a faction in Palestine.

And so I have traveled to Israel often, as you know, we've talked about that, and I have interviewed or talked off the recor on the record, so many Israeli, so many Palestinians, Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians, Arab Christians, Arab Muslims.

Everyone has said to me the same stories, you have a personal story, I have a personal story.

They all say, David, life i so much better here in Israel.

And everyone wants to say Israel is the occupier.

Israel is the only nation of 22 Arab nations, 22 Arab nations that surround Israel.

But so you know what?

Get your citizenship.

Join us in Israel.

I mean, on the Israeli Congress, our version of Congress is there Knesset.

You have Muslims, you have Arabs, you have Palestinians, either on the Knesset running for office, living peacefully and saying that their lif has never been better in Israel.

And they all say the same thing unless Hamas and Hezbollah are dismantle and there is a more reformative system of government justice, even Mahmoud Abbas, they try to say, well, he's somewhat of a moderate.

He's not because he is not brokered peace.

I think that in part, sometimes it has to be looked at very objectively and not subjectively.

And when people use the term Zionist and it's the Zionist regime and it's an occupation, there is an occupation.

But Hamas is occupying its own people, and that is going to have to change.

Zionism simply means that there is always going to be a homeland for the Jews.

Choose that where kicked out of every country they ever try to live in.

And they finally said, we have to have our homeland.

But it's not to sa we're not going to allow others in, it's just saying we have our statehood.

Italians have a homeland, Iranians have a homeland.

Iraqis have a homeland, Lebanese have a homeland.

Syrians have a homeland.

Israelis are saying for our own serve evil.

History repeats itself as it always has.

October 7th is an example.

I'm sorry, but it is an example.

And they're saying the existential threat is not recognizing that we exist.

And I'm sure you have encountered similar stories where many people you speak with say their life has been amazing in Israel, and once they left Gaz or the Palestinians territories, as it's referred to there, sai life has been greatly improved.

So this argument and I hear you and I appreciate it, it can be skewed and it can be subjective and we have to find a solution.

There has been no country in the entire Arab world that has said to the Palestinians, hey, cross our border and live with us.

The Egyptians said, no way, no Palestinians here.

Lebanon said no, Jordan said no.

Syria said no.

And Israel said yes.

Sure.

And by th way, two truth can be correct.

At the same time, there's no debate.

The treatment of Palestinians in Israel is much better than the way it is in most Arab countries.

That is only because most of these Arab countries are run by corrupt, brutal repressive regimes in general.

I don't want to say all of them, but a big majority of them safely.

But that's not a great standard to compare for Israel, to compare itself, because Israel continues to b according to every human rights organizations, from amnesty to, Human Rights Watch to Israeli, B'Tselem human rights organization, Israel still imposes some form of an apartheid system on people who are not Jewish.

This is not a debatable issue.

There are two sets of laws in Israel.

You know, Jews are favored in a way.

And to use modern day language, it is a Jewish supremacist country people can not like, you know, I know, cringe when they hear the word supremacy.

But it is, it is it gives more rights and less right based on what you claim to be.

You know, simple one is what's known as the law of return.

I can be a Russian Jew.

I can be a convert.

By the way.

I can I can today decide to convert to Judaism, and I can have a process of going back to Israel because of th Jewish connection that I have, a Palestinians who might have traced their existence in that land for centuries with deeds of land and property, cannot have that land because they're not Jewish.

But I want to go back into, you know, yes, the Israel has some form of a democracy.

It is no, there's no debate.

It's a democracy that favors one group over the other.

We know of another countr that has a beautiful democracy that also favored one group over the other.

It's called South Africa under apartheid.

And I know a lot of my Jewis friends cringe when I do that.

But the reality is, unless we address some of the realities on the ground and and I don't disagree, those Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christian and Jews inside of Israel proper have a better treatment or receive a better treatment than probably how Palestinians are treated in Lebanon, in, in Syria and in many other places.

But what I want to get back, because you mentioned a few points, David, one is why haven't Arab countries taken Palestinians back or into their land and giving them citizenship?

Why should they?

Why shoul why should they fix and clean up Israel's problem Israel caused created this problem.

Imagine if I flip that and say, why aren't the Jews of Israe packing up and going to the US?

Because I have no doubt my country, the U.S, would be more than willing to open its borders and welcome Israeli refugees.

Shall we blame Israeli Jews for refusing to leave?

No.

People get attached to a land.

I'm sorry.

I have to jump in I have to pause the interview.

We have so much to talk about in this comprehensive discussion about Israel and Palestine.

Is there a solution?

Can you return next wee for part two of this discussion?

It will be my pleasure.

David who?

Sameh lush with Care, Counci on American-Islamic relations.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Now we're going to have part two next week for more information about our program.

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Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm David Nazar