 My name is Colin Schindler. Welcome to London. The conference, of course, is the centrepiece of the activities of the European Association of Israel Studies. And this indeed is the, it's the second academic conference, but it's our third conference really, because we started two years ago with a launch conference at SICE itself in 2011. And last year, many of you were at Munich for our first academic conference. I just want to say a couple of words about the European Association itself. And then to Clive will say a couple of words. Four years ago, in November 2009, a few academics gathered at SICE people that had not met each other before. People that talked some aspect of Israel. And the meeting was a very constructive meeting, because that's where the European Association was founded. And what was amazing is that the meeting was on a Sunday afternoon, due scheduled to finish at four o'clock. And in fact, people were still talking by five, if not after five. And it indicated the fact that people needed and wanted colleagues, and people discovered colleagues that they'd never had. The fact that many of you were talking to each other is an indication of that. The point is that the European Association of Israel Studies is not an artificial construct. There's a real need, a genuine need for Israel Studies in Europe and some sort of network to connect with it. And what is also interesting is that Israel Studies is expanding globally. We have our colleagues in the Association of Israel Studies, which is essentially North Americans and Israelis. But there are people in India and China and Japan and Australia and Brazil and South Africa who all teach Israel Studies. So we are moving towards this global network, and it's expanding at a rapid rate. In Europe itself, we have contact with people, let's say, in Russia and in Poland. We know of no one in Spain. We've just made contact with people in Hungary. We've got Romanian colleagues here today who have come into this family of people that teach Israel Studies. It's probable that we will have our next conference this time next year in Warsaw. For myself, I've been doing this for several years and I told my colleagues on the steering committee that I wanted to step down at the beginning of the year. I'm really delighted that Professor Clive Jones of Durham University and Professor Rory Miller, King's College London have taken over. They're really two great guys. They're really two people that are committed to developing and expanding Israel Studies. And the EIS does not simply belong to individuals. It belongs to all of us. Things are developing. We have Ari Roth here from the Israel Institute in Washington. It's symptomatic again of how Israel Studies in Europe is connecting with everyone. But there's still much work to be done. There's still a lot of improvement to take place. All I'm saying is that I hope that you will strongly support the cause of Israel Studies. You will attend these conferences. You will work well with Clive and Rory. And you will support them in everything that they do. They have the right ideas. They have the energy to move things forward. And they have the enthusiasm that they will share with you to take Israel Studies really to another level. Thank you. Getting the European Association of Israel Studies up and running was not just like that. It required dedication. It required hard work. And then actually from the initial stages it actually required a vision. None of us would be here today without that vision that Colin provided at the very beginning. So publicly I want to pay tribute to Colin for setting this up. I think it's testament to his vision that we'll hopefully have over the next day and a half. Some 130 delegates, people giving papers or indeed just attending the conference from over 15 different countries. It demonstrates that Israel Studies as a viable ongoing concern has deep roots across Europe. Which if we are careful, if we have a strategy can actually be nurtured in the years ahead. And to that extent I also want to pay tribute to the steering committee. We have some very, very enthusiastic individuals within our steering committee who actually want to make this work. And we are developing strategies which engage in more outreach activities. Trying to develop hubs over the next two to three years in countries across Europe and Central Europe and Eastern Europe in particular. Where we can try and support Israel Studies related activities. This may relate in for example trying to support particular workshops and hopefully eventually if we can raise the funds. It would also include giving bursaries to postgraduate students, both postgraduate taught students and postgraduate research students. We are very, very well aware that the future viability of Israel Studies across Europe will depend upon helping, encouraging the next generation of students. Your PhDs, your master's students. And my great plea, and I won't labour the point before passing over to our guest speaker tonight. My great plea is for all of you, if you come to this conference, if you're engaged in Israel Studies in any shape or form. Is to tell your peers, your colleagues about what we do. Because the more members that we can attract in the years ahead, the more that we can do. And the more that we can support, help and encourage and sell Israel Studies. At a time, let's be blunt about this, of great tension across many campuses in Europe. But sell Israel Studies, not to advocate for the case of Israel. But to legitimate Israel, as I would argue, a legitimate subject of scholarly academic inquiry. If we can do that and put Israel Studies and the European Associates of Israel Studies on our firm footing in the next three to five years, it would have been a job well done. So I urge you, actors and ambassadors, wherever you're from, for the European Association of Israel Studies, and spread, like the Gospels, the good word. Thank you very much, Indy. Okay, so it's my pleasure to introduce Saad Kashua now. I would imagine quite a lot of people here read his column on a Friday and laugh out loud at the way he frames words. To show really the absurdities of life. And there's no better place to show the absurdities of life than in the Middle East. His series on television, Avodar Arabit, indeed holds a mirror to the ignorance on both sides of the division. And he won the award for the best television series at the Jerusalem Film Festival. He's the author of four books. He won the Bernstein Prize for his book, Second Person Singular, and his new book, Exposure, has just been published 2013. The thing that I find about reading Saad's column on a Friday night, you can get parrots sent to push through your letterbox. There's someone in South London who does it, so I read it every Friday evening, and it's my weekend treat. He shows maps inner truths about the Middle East and about what happens in Israel in particular. But something that perhaps we as academics who dissect situations, analyse theories, miss because we go into it too deeply. And it's the ability to show this, which I think comes out in his columns. That's my opinion anyway. He's going to speak tonight on the Arabs in Israel, the unheard cry for citizenship. Please show your appreciation. I published only three novels, but the Second Person Singular was translated to in the UK. It got the title of exposure, but it's the same novel like Second Person Singular. I thought it might sell better with the title, Exposure, but I doubt it. So actually I have to say that I was really very nervous because of my English and because of London and because of academy people. I'm really very scared of academy people and Israeli studies, but now I feel like I have a feeling that I can speak in Hebrew and it will be okay and even it will be much easier. Am I right? I just arrived because of the Kipul Day. I landed a few hours ago actually from Tel Aviv. Usually I don't like to land in the same day that I put them supposed to talk because there is not enough time to drink before the talk, but it's okay. Then actually it was the nicest flight ever and usually I'm very scared of flights. A very nice taxi driver was holding my... I really like it when I go down from the airplane and someone is holding my name because it makes me feel more secure about my identity and they make sure that every one of the Israelis on their flight see that I have a taxi driver waiting for me. But he was a Muslim, I guess, because the first phone call that he received was... He said, As-salamu Alaikum. And I said, it's very cold. I said, where are you from? And of course Jerusalem is always the answer. The reason that I live in Jerusalem is to give this answer when I'm abroad to different people. I live in Jerusalem. So yes, you're Palestinian. Sayed, I said yes, I'm a Palestinian. So do Israelis let you fly from Tel Aviv because I noticed the flight is from Tel Aviv. And then I really tried maybe to explain what's the meaning of a Palestinian who their villages were occupied in the year 48, but we are actually carrying Israeli citizenship. And then I thought, would he understand? They just stopped right there and said, yes, I'm Palestinian. And yes, the Israelis destroyed our airport in Gaza. And now we are forced to fly either from Amman or from... And said, and actually, to be honest, it was the nice trust ever because if he knew what a relationship or what an attitude I received at the airport in Tel Aviv, which usually I count on these flights, I like to fly a lot because it's usually helped me to write the next column next week because I've been writing for hours now for 10 years and it's really very difficult. I'm short of materials. So usually flights give me the opportunity to write about the people and the flights from Tel Aviv. And the security lady, she just immediately knew that I'm Said Qashua. By the way, the last episode of the fourth season of Labour will be broadcasted tonight. You're Said Qashua. Come with me, sir. And it was the first time ever that I received the number one which only a Jewish kosher who served in the army can get. And she took me to the desk of a business class and in five minutes I was in the duty free. Usually I arrived to the airport four hours in advance. And so what I should tell this taxi driver now. And to be honest, to be a successful writer, an Arab-Palestinian successful writer in Israel is a little bit of a problem because of identity problems and okay, so what should I do? I'm supposed, Jewish people are supposed to hate me because of the materials that I'm dealing with actually and also because I'm Arab. And the airport, the Ben-Gurion airport, one of the places that I also like to go there, not only for the columns to know, okay, I'm different. I'm the Arab. I'm carrying an Israeli citizenship, but I'm in the line of the strangers of the security threat. So nothing of that happened to me today. Anyway, so I'm a writer and I live in Jerusalem. I married and I have three kids. Five years ago we moved from East Jerusalem, from Batsaflaffa neighbourhood in East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem to Roma-Dania. It's a really nice, secular neighborhood, which is very rare, if you are aware, about the reality in Israel because it's all about identity and roots and narratives and different stories. I'm not sure that my little son yet knows that he's Arab at all, and then he's two years old and he goes to the Daker and the neighborhood and he speaks only Hebrew and I'm really very worried when he will realise that he's Arab. He doesn't speak even one word in Arabic unfortunately, although we use Arabic at home, we shout at each other in Arabic usually. And it was really very sad. We were very nervous because he was born after seven months of pregnancy and when he was already one year and a half and he didn't talk at all, we were really very nervous about it and they told my wife, according to the statistics, only the fourth kid should be an Arab and I'm not sure what's the problem with this one. But it was that I came back from a writer's festival in Berlin and I brought him a car, a red German car and then he said auto, which means car in Hebrew and we were so happy about that because we were trying to teach him Dao, it's light, it's the first sentence that you teach an Arab kid, you turn on the light, if you're lucky and you have electricity in your village and then it's light, Dao, but he never said that and then we discovered that oh, oh, oh, without an accent with a Hebrew perfect Ashkenazi accent. He calls me Said, swear to God, and it's really... And then the second problem with him was the fact that he doesn't sleep at night, still till now, he's two years old and he cannot sleep at night. And when he started talking, when we discovered, okay, he speaks Hebrew but at least he can't talk, my wife said, okay, now we need him just to sleep and we'll be on the safe side. And I wondered how can you expect this kid to sleep if he thinks that two Arabs are ambushing him in the night in the flat. But I'm talking about my kids because I hope that I will get to them and their identity problems later that we don't actually have identity problems. We are okay and they think that the Jewish people and the Arab people got identity problems. I was born in Tira in 1975 and it's really very rare to move from your village. I was born in Tira and I think that more than anything else I would say that I'm a storyteller. And I think that it was because of my grandmother, she was really a great storyteller. Although she was illiterate, just like most of the Palestinian population, especially if we are talking about women, the Palestinian population who remained in Israel or became citizens of Israel after 1948, we are talking here about a very poor group of farmers, generally speaking, fellahi, that's the kind of population that stayed in Israel. Living in small villages on the shade of what used to be the Palestinian city of course demolished in the year 1948. So we are talking about a very simple group of people and my grandmother was just one of them. And as I mentioned she didn't know to read but she was a very great storyteller. And it's not only full-chloristic stories about Sandok el-Ajab who used to tell stories or the storyteller when she was a kid who used to tour the villages and tell stories but also a lot of stories from the Quran, perfect stories, fairytale stories and I used to be a very scared frightened kid, my wife says that I'm grown up but I'm still scared in the dark but anyway. My grandmother used to live in our house and my parents never allowed me to sleep with them so I sneaked every night and waited till my parents go to bed and then I go to my grandmother's room and just listened to her stories. If I have this some kind of longing to childhood it is there beside my grandmother listening to her stories, stories that she kept telling again and again. And of course beside all of these wonderful stories about Shater Hassan and different stories it was also her personal true story, many stories about the war. And believe me we talk a lot in Israel and in Israeli studies about narrative and the struggle between narratives. My grandmother got no idea what the word narrative means. So there were many stories that I heard so many times about the war, about how tough was the war and about her husband, my grandfather. My grandfather was killed in the war in 1948 and they listened to these stories, it was part of my childhood and they were always trying to imagine my grandmother telling me how she used to run away when there were battles around Tira and there were a lot of fighting around Tira during the war with my father. My father was born in the year 47 so he was few months when his father was killed running to the mountains in Tulkari and Calculia to hide and to take cover of the fights so I always imagined her there and maybe the saddest thing about the stories that she always took her white khirca, how it's called, I don't know, it's this Arab thing that you cover your head with and every time this special moment that she talked and they told us that the war was over and then I said okay I have to bring food on the fields to the orphans, to her kids and then she always cried when she remembers and told me the story that she went out of the village to her fields still actually owned or registered by her name and the soldier told her that she doesn't have no more land anymore so actually the land of that's the story, one of the many stories is the land, so actually the piece of land that remained for my grandmother and the family is this small piece of land nothing to compare with the family land outside the municipality I don't know how to call it in Tira and actually my grandmother used to work as a fruit picker most of her life and she managed also to send my father in the year 66 to the Hebrew University but that was her job and that is I think the story of most of the people who remained in Israel and Tira was just a perfect place for me to grow up to be honest I knew that my grandfather was killed but I didn't know exactly what Zionism and what are Jewish people what does that mean exactly we used to live in Tira and we barely met Israelis or Jewish people I think that there was this when there was this discounts in Kfar Saba for in the 80s there was this the pita that you can buy a pita and you can take how much falafel that you can afford my father as a communist used to take us to Kfar Saba to abuse the Israeli falafel which became Israeli but that's the story of Tira and they think very much that the Arabs the Palestinians inside Israel are always very proud of not becoming refugees one of the things also of the stories of my grandmother and my parents is the land and how holy is the land and how important Tira is and the land is like a family honour and the one who sells his land it's a big disgrace and it's something that you grew up with but I think that we are refugees and I think that we are a very good example to show that you can be a war refugee even if you stayed in your village and in your home I don't think that the situation of being a Palestinian citizen of Israel is easier and then explain that of course it's easier now than being a refugee and a refugee comes in Lebanon in different places but I think that yes we became refugees in our home land and culturally and nationally refugees we're talking again about a poor minority, a poor population, poor communities who are not really nationally aware that the Arab nationality or the Palestinian nationality started in this area actually but I'm not sure how many of the falach and the peasants that remained in Israel were nationally aware so we were disconnected from the year 48 till 67 from the rest of the Arab world and we became refugees in Israel disconnected culturally and nationally from the rest of the Arab world till the year 66 as you will know they used to live under a military regime one of the stories that my father used to tell us is that the only day in under military regime it means that you need a permission to get out of your village to the Israelis town or city and only on the Israeli independence day it was allowed to go out from the village without permission so my father said always that the few cars and trucks that they have in the village all the kids will jump on the cars and trucks and go to Kfar Saba to celebrate the independent day only because it's the only day that they can leave the village so yes and of course Tira of the village it's a very sad story and when I talk about Tira I'm talking here about the meaning of homeland and many sociologists mentioned that because when we talk about homeland the immediate meaning if you are a Palestinian citizen of Israel is your village so Tira is the homeland maybe it's because of the military regime maybe because I don't know but maybe it's because again the land is becoming so holy but the problem is that Tira became the homeland and it's a very sad place it's nothing like Tira of today it's nothing like Tira that I used to live in as a child and I left Tira 23 years ago and actually you don't have any alternative it's a homeland what used to be very convenient for the Israelis you are an Arab, you live in a village or a town or whatever it's called and you go as a worker to the Israeli city and then by the end of the day because it's very close you go back to your village and you sleep there like it's a big motel, cheap motel for workers this Arab village so it was very convenient for the Israelis unlike the foreign workers now for some of the Israelis which can be cultural or social problem because they have to stay until they live or for sub or whatever so what used to be the expectation of the Israeli from us also became the expectation of ourselves nationally the village is the place that you belong to that's your homeland, you got no other place it was very clear since the beginning by my parents and by my grandmother that even if you go to study in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv or whatever you like this is your home, you have no place but Tira and actually till now I think that I have no place but till five years ago every time that I visited my parents and I do visit my parents twice a week because of the identity of the kids or whatever no because I like my family although my mother is the most cook ever till five years ago my father kept saying that to me that I have nothing to look for in Jerusalem you are just wasting your time and money and look at your kids and what's going to happen to them so Tira became the homeland and the village became the only alternative for the Arabs for many years to protect their identity and to protect their culture and not to become total Israeli not that we can be total Israelis at all but in that sense that the folkloristic sometimes religious maybe is your only identity that you have to protect so most of the Arabs in Israel do live in their villages and they think this is the major no there are many major problems a lot of problems but one of the major problems is the fact that you live next to your parents and it created some kind of mutation called the Arab village or the Arab town mega village let's call because in Israel if the population of a village is over 20,000 inhabitants it becomes immediately a town or a city but it doesn't mean anything of a city even Nazareth the biggest Arab city is actually a big village based on family structure and one of the problems that it looks the same it's just bigger with the same families so the immediate connection is to the family and they don't think that I cannot see really a way that you can break through the circles of family structure and create any kind of democracy or modernisation in such a structure and now there is the municipality the local government elections in October I think it's huge fights and they can understand that and it's family, it's based on family connections the elections, it's not really democratic we can't really talk about democracy although Israel is a democracy but when it comes to the Palestinian citizens the Arabs in Israel we cannot really talk about real democracy even when it comes to the Knesset elections it's still based on family structure and relationship in many times and it's really sad because sometimes I can one of the really important elections for the Arabs is the municipality elections the local elections because if your family wins the municipality it means that you have the control on the employer number one in the Arab village which is the education system and to be a clerk or to work for the municipality so that's the reason it's important and sometimes it really feels so sad when I listen to the candidates in Tira for example now they all talk about the future of our kids and the future of the youth and in many many ways it's look at us how we turn to be and they're not mentioning the crime I will get to that if I don't fall asleep and you feel this kind of nostalgia nostalgia, nostalgia when they talk about the Tira or what it used to be like we are yearning for the Arab village in our imagination that doesn't exist anymore and we refuse to understand that it doesn't exist anymore that the homeland, this Tira cannot really be a solution for the youth and the children it cannot be, I don't know how to make that happen and that is one of the sad stories and the reason that my father stopped telling me why don't you come to Tira back and he accepts the fact that I live in even in a Jewish neighborhood I really hate the title of a Jewish neighborhood I live in a neighborhood in West Jerusalem it's a very good neighborhood where the only Arab family there but the reason he stopped because life in Tira of today became not worth living like it used to be because of crime becoming the major power and not only in Tira for most of the Arab villages in Israel we cannot really talk about enforcement of law when it comes to the Arab citizens, Palestinian citizens in their towns and villages that was the reason actually we are so busy in our personal security that we don't have the time to think about the future of the kids and the future of Tira and how we can break through this family structure because there is no any kind of urbanization your organization for us and for the Israelis it's amazing because the Israelis they always talk about mentality it's like this, it's the Arab mentality to live in the Arab village actually people from Tira before 1948 used to it was rare but people used to leave Tira in order to work in Jaffa for example but now it's the Arab mentality I've been asked so many times by Israelis why did you choose to leave your village why don't you live in our Arab village and my immediate answer is go ahead, you yourself live in an Arab village but it's much more complicated than that actually this simple that should be natural if you are educated Arab who studied in the universities it's almost impossible to move from your village to a city or look or seek for a city life not only because of the expectation of the family not anymore now we are trying to get out of the villages and the Arab towns but it's really very difficult actually if you are an Arab you don't have the ability or you don't have access to more than 80% of the land of Israel owned by Israel as you well know since 48 not even one Arab village or town was established the other hand more than 700 community settlements not settlements in the west bank but Mosheveem and Kibbutzim were established in Israel I'm sure that you will know about the Bagatz Qadan the case of Qadan he bought a land in a Mosheve called Qatzir in Israel and he really needed to petition to the Supreme Court of Justice in Israel in order to let an Arab live in a Jewish Mosheve and actually immediately after that the Knesset brought a new law called Aqif Qadan which means we have really wonderful names like Judaizing the Galil and Oqif Qadan passing by Qadan I don't know sorry for that which means actually that every Mosheve or every community in Israel can make this acceptance committees and based on criteria of cultural differences you have to pass these committees and it was very clear that it meant to stop and exclude Arabs from moving from their villages to land that owned by the state the Israeli Kaqal and the Jewish Agency and of course to the cities we all know about the rabbis letters and they can tell you it's really very difficult even for me it was very difficult and I'm a known writer in Israel to find a Jewish owner who was ready to sell me his flat I received answers like I have no problem but I need to ask my neighbors and things like that and according actually to Amjad the protagonist of the main character of Arab Labour he moved to a Jewish neighborhood it was because this Jewish owner that sold him the house really wanted to linkom to revenge of the neighbors because he really hated them for a reason again it's really very difficult now to talk about the future of being an Arab Palestinian citizen of Israel because the equation was always okay we know you are discriminated in Israel and I mean the Israelis we know that you are discriminated but you are not supposed to compare yourself to the people in Kfar Saba as citizens you have to compare yourself to the poverty neighborhoods in Cairo and in Syria and actually we did that for many many years that was the reason and of course after meeting also the Palestinians in 1967 I mean the Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza we knew very well that we have some advantages of being citizens of Israel we are not under immediate occupation we can work, we have security insurance and things like that but sometimes to be honest yes it is very difficult to talk about that these days very difficult days and but I think that the way I look at the and I'm not a person of academy at all but I think that the future of the Arab community in Israel is very very dark I really cannot see if the policy of the government and not establishing new cities I'm against separating Arabs and Jews in new cities but if that's the only way and still we don't want Arabs and Jews to live together just like in a I don't know if it's in a normal country it happens nothing normal about this place but you know it's just a normal country that everyone hates the government and live according to his bank account and so I really don't know sometimes I do think that sometimes even Syria for example despite the massacres happening there and they know that maybe they will have better future at least they are making their future I don't know what kind of future it's going to be because I am also a student of the Israeli method called the Arab identity actually I'm sure that you know very well that it's not a national fight or a religion fight or an economy or a fight about land it's a mentality it's a cultural fight and when Israelis use the world culture they use actually the meaning of it's not the music that we play but it's the mentality it's the nature of the Arab and actually the people in Syria Iraq and anywhere else in the Arab world is giving more proofs for the Israelis that we are okay because it is their mentality the killing is their mentality even when it comes to crime in the Arab towns and villages it didn't happen 10 years ago and it is of course the responsibility of the government we are still part of Israel so it's the Arab mentality we are okay because it's the Arab mentality and what's happening in Syria is part of the Arab of the Arab mentality and of course no one talks about the European mentality millions and hundreds of millions were killed in Europe but it was not the killing was not part of the European mentality but when it comes to us it's their mentality it's their mentality to live in their village and it's mentality to kill each other we just love to shoot one another and we cannot live without it and and it's it's it's really very very sad and and unfortunately but still but still I think that that maybe yes although I am a writer and probably I will stay in Jerusalem and say you know I write in Hebrew but it looks that the future of people in Syria and Egypt is more promising let's say how sad and straight to say than the future of the Arabs in Israel I really cannot say see a way out of it you have two alternatives and the other alternative is really really very very difficult and tough because you cannot be accepted by Israelis unless you are Jewish and one is to keep living in the same form of living in your town and village and ask for I don't know more budgets from the government to make the education system better which is not the reality right now it's just getting worse and or move to the to the Israeli town and city and then and then you'll need to take off many identity nationality and to try to be the good Arab the good Arab in the sense that okay you'll still have your mentality for the Israelis but at least now you are so much educated that at least you can thank Israel for its being or at least admit that your situation is much better there is no way that you can live in Israeli city or town keep telling the Palestinian narrative to yourself there is no way there is a way but it's a very difficult way to live in Israeli society and to want to be accepted without accepting the the Zionist narrative for Israel actually to be honest if it was the story and I know the story a little bit the history I heard it from my grandmother if it was okay we we really beat you badly in 48 your suckers you were really very bad we won the war just shut up and be quiet and thank God that we let you live I would accept that I know how to be a loser but the fact that we have to admit that they are right and they are we are always right and still now everything done in Israel and everything in the Israeli policy including building new settlements in the west bank and taking your land and taking the land in the negative is right it's because we don't have any other way and this is the only right way so it's really very very complicated situation but again and okay boring one of the things that we talk about now and there's the peace negotiations now going on no one, not the Israelis and not the Palestinians at all think that anything will happen with the peace negotiation and talks but already whenever there is peace negotiations there are voices and new people specialized and demographic problems I love them, demographic Israeli I hope you're not sitting here suggesting this offer to get rid of as much Arabs drawing the green line or the border again actually I don't know what was the reason that Tira is in Israel and Calculia is in the west bank but anyway so this to be honest I think that most of the Israelis I'm not talking about the Arab citizens of Israel would be very happy to get rid of I don't know 500,000 Palestinians just drawing the maps again we are poor, we are criminals and almost there are many Israelis that already can't repair by themselves but so again this plan of getting rid of Wadi Ara and Amisholash area and to be part of the Palestinian authority I'm not talking about transfer like get from Tira to the west bank this is your homeland Tira is your homeland you'll stay in Tira and actually we are fixing your also national identity problem and you'll be Palestinian and that's it and if you ask most of the Arabs they will be really very scared of the fact and most of the Israelis actually Liberman now uses the term of Palestinians when he talks about the Palestinian citizens of Israel we used to be the Arabs in Israel we said that it's awful name and then we became Arabs the Israeli Arabs sorry and then we are the Arabs in Israel and for many many years we used to or the politicians used to use the Arab community that was okay recently it's the Palestinian citizen of Israel and it takes me time to get used to it and actually if you're super Palestinian you should say Palestinian citizens of Israel by force but but most of the Palestinians would disagree with this plan of course it's and in a very sad way also I have a very strong feeling that if you ask the people in East Jerusalem that were occupied in 1967 they also would refuse to be part of the Palestinian state because first of all there is no Palestinian state so when you come to the Arabs in Tira would you like to be part of the Palestinian state you think immediately about the fence and not being able to to work and I'm not talking here about democracy at all because as you know according to our mentality we don't care about democracies but I'm talking about economical reasons and and for me I just saw this another professor with new maps getting rid of of Tira and several places as a suggestion an offer of land exchanging with Israel and the immediate feeling for me it was that Israel is betraying me I'm okay I need to know where is the perfect place in Tira if we become part of the Palestinian state to put the Catechia and surely the Palestinian Authority people will arrest us immediately but then I thought why is this feeling of revenge or being betrayed by the Israelis our life is really bad there and I think and then it took me a while because it is a threat and because it was never a plan that we or there is no we cannot really talk about leadership inside the Arab local Arab Palestinian society if it was a plan that already demand of ours that we wanted to be part in a Palestinian if we know if one day there will be a Palestinian state I think that it would look different to be honest I know that it might be of course if there will be a state and I'm not sure if it's a plan but it might be and I don't know how it's going to look like so many settlers and villagers I mean separated places so you have again to disconnect this community again but I think that that although more than 90% of the Arabs if they are asked will say no we don't want to be part of the Palestinian state in this situation of course I don't mean if Ramallah one day will become the Silicon Valley of the West Bank and then the Middle East I'm sure also people from Kfar Saba will try to find Palestinian girls in order to get green cards I'm not talking about that but I do think that being part because people in the West Bank do leave their villages in order to live in Ramallah because Ramallah is a city and there are different although the situation is very very sad and they live under immediate immediate occupation but I think that that it can promise a little bit of a better future than to stay in the state of Israel the way it is of course the wet dream of all Arabs now is just one state solution but to be realistic it doesn't look like it's going to happen and that's it I think and I just wanted to say that that I don't want to talk about the meaning of being Israeli I don't want to talk about about being a citizen of a state that that was not established for you the opposite is true actually it's a state for many people who never lived in in Israel don't speak one not even one sentence in Hebrew no idea who won the big brother in in Israel but still it's their country more than than one who control the language and live here and pay taxes and live in Israel but and there's a struggle and there's a very huge struggle what I'm trying to say is that when I grew up as a kid this fear the stories of my grandmother of losing her land was which is the real meaning of the Nakba was so scary because I really till now know that house cannot be a safe place that it's not secure place and they wondered for many many years if I really want to tell my kids the same stories that I heard the truth as I heard it from my family do I really want to create this Palestinian identity and let them fear and know that that house is not a secure place and again this there is no one Israeli story and my kids do study in the bilingual schools in Jerusalem and when you hear the Israeli stories and it's since the age of three actually in the Arab schools it take us years to understand what really happened because we study in Israeli education system and actually we study about pioneers and somewhere in high school you start to figure out what's the meaning of the Nakba and what really happened in 48 and what's the meaning of becoming a refugee but in the Israeli schools since the very early age it's very very nationalist and it affects the kids so I remember one day my daughter came back home and said perhaps they didn't accept the partition plan and sorry, why didn't you accept the partition plan said come here baby I will let you know now I will tell you the truth and nothing but the truth and I really don't know I hope one day the meaning of citizenship will will be a reality I don't know how it's gonna happen while the state of Israel is called Israel which means Jewish and and while you are nothing to do of the story as a Palestinian Israeli you are not part of the story I don't know if one day there will be one story that citizens of Israel will or this region will tell kids just one story that can have more than the Jewish Zionist side but I really hope and to be honest I'm just trying to teach my kids or Muslim up in a Jewish neighborhood unfortunately on the basics only, really the basics of democracy, all people are equal and when it comes to education and identity and citizenship it's just like the song Imagine is my method and really it sounds like a Miss Universe contest not anything more than that ok, usually it's questions but I am sure that you don't have any questions I don't know if it's accepted I'm sorry for this song and wish you a good life we do have time for just a few questions I think we would like to many proceedings Yes sir I basically agree all what you said that I would like to hear something more next step in a way in the narrative or in the storytelling in Israel now we talk a lot about the question of religious and non-religious Ashkenal et cetera especially the problem it's definitely the main problem is the Arabs and the Jews in Israel whether they'll be peace with the Christians or the Greeks and this problem is really crucial and as you call it it's definitely the situation is becoming worse and worse but how worse do you seem to become and what do you think can be an answer and whether this recent event of the Israeli politician to a clash, a real clash I should answer Yes Yes it's a big problem for the Israeli democracy because as sociologists like to call Israel now ethnocracy but because it's a democracy if you are in the Jewish group if it's going to bring to clashes I think that the economical situation and living in overcrowded places is the major reason that will bring to clashes of course no one will say it is ignoring and neglecting the Arab community for many years of course because of national reasons and some of course immediately it will turn because of of the religion and I can promise you that in two days the Israeli media if it will keep the same and the politicians will talk about the Arab mentality just like in Gaza last war I heard this very very known Israeli journalist interviewing a military Israeli man I said actually we are facing irrational enemy it's nothing to do but fight them if they are going to be clashes I think that that will be the reason not the reason but of course based on nationality and best of discrimination I don't know only few people till now because it's just it's the question of Raibach Fawifsaid so till now watching what's happening in the west bank in Syria and Egypt it's a little bit okay we should maybe shut up meanwhile and see I'm not sure what will happen and they wrote that in one of my columns when the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt started we were really really very happy unlike the Israelis young people, young Arabs in the streets of Tunisia calling at the beginning for freedom and democracy were really a very huge disappointment for the Israelis what happened to the Arab mentality for that same and we were very happy and I wrote in my column because I was naive and stupid enough to think that it can happen I still believe that it can happen one day maybe I don't know that okay you always ask us to look at the Arab world and keep quiet so what are we supposed now to do should we also go out in the streets and fight for equality and I'm not talking about only equality when economical or equality but to be accepted as equal citizens inside the state of of Israel so I don't know it's really also depends on the Arab world because I don't know how we should get disappointed or lose hope to go out in the streets without having some hope from the situations surrounding us Syria and Egypt mainly but I really don't know meanwhile it's it's that the Arabs should live in their Arab villages and their gate and meanwhile if there are problems of killing or crime going on there but it's not really a part of a problem of Israel illegal weapon it's not really it doesn't look it doesn't seem like a real Israeli problem so I don't know what should happen again I said there is reality there is what they imagine I think that just the basics I think that Israel should maybe first of all decide what are the borders of the state I really don't care and they would very much love to have also the West Bank and say inside the state of Israel but anything that just let us know what are the the borders of the state of Israel and let's say that everyone who lives in the state of Israel is a citizen of the state of Israel and let's say maybe it's about time to close the borders of Israel and they wish actually to live in a state that would be a shelter for anyone who is under threat and of course if it's for Jewish but we have committees acceptance committees for Jews who want to move to Israel they have to prove that they are suffering there or they have money but they also wish very much that it also will be the situation for the Palestinians as well in order to become citizens of Israel really the basics of of a modern democracy I you know sometimes well now in the French and Jerusalem I just read it in the news in the Friday news and yes between and this neighborhood and this neighborhood actually it was occupied in 67 many Arabs do like to live there because it's very close to the Mount Scopus Campus University the Hebrew University and many Arabs like very educated and everyone believe he wants to be a neighbor of the Arabs in this place and then bringing that for example living together and then it's really very sad when we read an interview with the one who was in charge of this neighborhood and he is really very worried about the Arabs living in the number of the Arabs who moved to this neighborhood and you can actually hear Arabic in coffee shops and maybe one day they will ask for an Arab kindergarten and maybe one day also they will ask for an Arab mosque and it's like a shock for everyone actually talking about a mosque or an Arab kindergarten is a huge shock for the Israelis and to be honest also for the Arabs and why not I always in my talks to Israelis and the Arabs I told them that there are mosques in London but there are mosques in London and churches in London as well as in New York it can happen and there are Jewish schools all over and it can happen and always the Israeli immediate question is as if you will let us live in your villages I would love to see as much I think that you have to be a very I don't know not rational Israeli to live in an Arab village you have no reason to live there but I wish that it can happen one day really just like that again as I mentioned I hate this Jewish neighborhood thing an Arab village an Arab town and I think that that there are that the language and the narrative and all these stories are now very very holy is so holy for the Israelis and also for the Palestinians inside Israel of course Hebrew is part of our daily life but when it comes to cultures it can be really like neglecting your culture and your identity but all these things are now holy because of the situation because you are a demographic threat because you are the enemy because you are a fifth column because you are rejected and because there is an occupation so a huge problem not solved with the Palestinians I think if there was a kind of peace agreement or another kind of of government or policy things would can look a little bit easier now it doesn't look good at all I try to watch one more question so I think sorry the success of your TV program and the Arabic how do you explain it? a few weeks ago it was a comment by Yair Asouly you read it I think the success of your program that is not so you are criticizing Jewish racism joking and he said the point is that this is the first Mizanfi program as a matter of fact the Mizanfi Jews identify with the optics of the treatment of the Jews to their they identify with their grandfather like their own grandfather they identify with their culture so do you agree with him? do you think in this borderline between Jews and Arabs and the possibility to be both Jews and Arabs there is a kind of hope? there is hope between Jews and Arabs or Jews from Arab countries I don't know well every second year I cannot talk now a big note well it explains actually I have no idea I didn't read the article by Yair Asouly I assume that he writes in her I know that he writes in her so maybe that's the reason I hate my job no but it's it's always amazing that a lot of Mizrahe people the other day the taxi driver when he said you are talking he was shouting at his like a guitar fan totally I couldn't understand how can he love such a show showing a Palestinian flag in the last episode and now actually the last episode of today is very very sad nothing to do with the comedy it's usually a lot of humor but we are dealing with also very very complicated issues but yes I thought I really understand I never thought about it like that but yes it happened to me so many times that Jews from Arab countries said that you are talking about me and I see myself there maybe one of the reasons I'm always aware actually of that fact for example the first episode third season Amjad goes to the big brother show that Arabs and Jews can live together and as soon as he enters the house his mission is to hide his identity and then there is this and the rest have to know who is the Arab and actually everyone because Amjad of course he talks about his father from Krakow and all the Israeli story that he wish that it is his story about his father coming from Krakow directly to the Palmaq and same things like that they blame the Mizrahe guy and by the end he shouts did you think that I am the Arab did you think that I am an Arab and my answer was while writing that and watching that and editing it was yes actually you are but I'm very very careful I'm very very careful using the I refused one of the episodes and the second season was dealing with with the road of the war in Gaza and I refused totally I said well it's not reliable that you are bringing Ashkenazi family to be as the road I said it should be Ashkenazi family and one actually the most racist characters in the show are actually left between Israelis that the first time that they met Amjad told them we vote merits so maybe that's the reason that but it was I love merits by the way like I don't love merits but other groups so maybe maybe it is the reason but I don't know to be honest as Amjad says in one of the episodes his dreams become true he had cut his dream in life that the neighbors, the Ashkenazi neighbors with the merits bought an espresso a machine and actually the boat said last night what a machine I said it's very typical to your Mizrachi culture I said I don't know I never meant I need just like me but I think it's successful I don't know why it's successful I truly believe that people in Israel we are frightened and we are scared but I think that when it comes to a personal relationship with the Mizrachis and more than the Ashkenazi there is no real war going on the real problem is and your identity and your mentality and your problem and you are the Arab enemy it's there when you when you are not an individual and you turn for them to be part of this for this group so maybe that's the hope that I keep telling myself that I have really wonderful relationships with my neighbors and it was not easy I was really very scared when I moved to a Jewish neighborhood at the beginning and I see my kids in the bilingual school and they see that they sleep over and other kids sleep over and they can control two languages and they have the Nakbade in their school and they have also the independence day in their school so I can see that it can work in small groups of course and they do very much think that politicians and decisions can make a lot of differences I do remember very well that one week before the second in the Fada at the end of September broke out one week before that I spent time drinking beers and listening to jazz music in clubs in Rwmanla and I was there and it was my first actually world to see how I am not actually I realize that I am not a citizen and it's anymore with October when the Arabs in Israel took part in the demonstrations I was there as a journalist and I think that we were fighting as citizens we thought we are citizens fighting it's not fighting for me it was very important to be I was a journalist but I also noticed because please don't let that collapse please stop that and of course there were many photos and pictures and a lot of killing going on gas and respect at that time I think collapsed and in few seconds you become the enemy and in few seconds you are two separated fighting camps and and that was very very sad but they know that it can happen It falls upon me to offer a vote of thanks to Saedd for an informal talk I listened to what he had to say I was very much struck by an old academic joke that many of us here go around the world we go to academic conferences and occasionally there's always the one individual who makes a career out of giving the same paper in different forms but various conferences and the old joke goes that on one occasion he was sitting or giving a paper and there was a respondent to the paper and as he sat down the respondent said I really enjoyed that paper in fact I always enjoyed that paper on this occasion I can't level that accusation against you what you had to say was witty it was profound but I'm sure for some of us here it was actually difficult perhaps uncomfortable at times but nonetheless it has acted as a perfect primer for many of the themes that we're going to be discussing tomorrow and for that we're very much in debt to you so Saedd, thank you very much and then