By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent
While Middle East experts wring their hands in hopes that moderate leaders can prevail in the region, George Deek, Israel’s former vice ambassador to Norway, is calling upon Palestinian Arabs to take charge of their own fate and their own future, and to stop dividing the world into perpetrators and victims.
Deek, a 30-year-old Christian Israeli Arab and a descendent of a family with a 400-year-old legacy in Jaffa, is no preacher, but he exhorts Palestinians to quit blaming Jews for their problems. He believes they can do it — and they must — or be swallowed whole by their hatred.
“Israel is a place where a Christian like me can wear a cross, and a Jew can wear a kippah, without fear,” Deek told The Jewish Sound during a visit to Seattle on Feb. 27. “Muslims in Israel can wear a hijab anywhere, unlike in France. They can build minarets to their mosques, unlike in Switzerland. It is where the Baha’i built their dazzling temple in Haifa. It is where Druze feel safe.”
“Arabs serve as judges in the Supreme Court,” added Deek. “Some of the best doctors in Israel are Arabs, working in almost every hospital in the country. There are 13 Arab members of parliament who enjoy the right to criticize the government…. That diversity has made Israel a world leader in every field from technology to modern dance.”
Deek was Israel’s deputy chief of mission in Nigeria from 2009-2012 and the deputy chief of mission at Israel’s embassy in Norway from 2012-2014. He holds two academic degrees from Israel, one in government and the other in law.
Deek’s Seattle trip was sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, StandWithUs Northwest, Hillel at the University of Washington, and JConnect.
“At the end of the day, nobody will be able to save the Middle East except the people of the Middle East themselves.” Deek said. “There needs to be a new interpretation [of Islam] that accepts other people who are different.”
What that means, he said, is the rejection of the narrative of victimhood, acceptance of responsibility for past actions, and holding the same values that brought the Arab world success in the past: “Honesty, hard work, responsibility — these values will determine our success,” he said.
Deek’s family was one of thousands of households told by Arab officials to leave their homes after Israel’s founding in 1948 because Jews wanted them dead. They promised a quick victory in the war with the Jews and were assured a swift return to their homes in a matter of days.
Deek’s hastily wed grandparents took next to nothing and fled north toward Lebanon. However, when the Israelis prevailed, many of the Palestinian Arabs, including many of his relatives, did not or could not return, and are now scattered around the globe.
Deek’s grandfather, however, took a bold step, went back to Jaffa and reconnected with his Jewish co-workers at an Israeli electricity company. His co-workers got him his old job back, which allowed him to reestablish his family in Israel.
Today, according to Deek, what Palestinians now call the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, sabotages and frustrates the lives of Palestinians who use the past as a premise for continued fighting.
“Back then, it was not anti-Semitism,” said Deek. “It was contempt because there was a notion that the Jews should not have a state there. The idea was, ‘We are the Arabs, we are the dominant people here, we should rule the land, and the Middle East has no room for Jews, and what’s the big deal? They are Holocaust survivors. We can just go there, wipe them out, and have the land.’ I believe that it was the beginning of the rise of anti-Semitism at that moment.”
Deek believes these Arabs could have admitted their mistake and accepted the Jewish refugees in their new land.
“The Arab world started dehumanizing Jews and demonizing Israel using the same rhetoric as anti-Semites in the past in order to explain their failure,” he said.
Coincidentally, at the same time of the vice ambassador’s visit, Omar Barghouti, the outspoken de facto leader of the international boycott, divestment, and sanction movement against Israel, spoke on the University of Washington’s campus as a guest of the Simpson Center for the Humanities. The crowd consisted of roughly 200 people from the wider community and some 50 students.
“The goal of the BDS movement is not to help Palestinians,” commented Deek. “If they were really caring about the Palestinians, instead of promoting hate toward others they would promote cooperation and taking responsibility.”