forty eight and a general in the war of one thousand nine hundred sixty seven when israel conquered the west bank gaza golan heights and sinai unlikely opinions reflect his father's legacy general powell was a war hero turned peacemaker it's time to sweep away some of the myths and to uncover the truth so that we can finally live in peace together and so the three myths that i like to uncover the three probably most popular myth the most common myth the myth in one hundred forty eight where well the myth was that there was a country without a people and then the myth of the existential threat of nine hundred sixty seven and then finally the myth of the israeli democracy growing up we were taught to believe that the arabs had left there to survive partly on their own and partly at the directive of their so called leaders and it therefore taking their land and taking their homes was more it never occurred to us that even if they did leave willingly we had no right to prohibit their return but then israeli historian that's just as palestinian have been saying for decades none of this was true and it's interesting that when palestinians claim something we tend to doubt it but then when israel historians come up and say the exact same thing well then now we accept it as of the palestinian word is not is not good enough and so it's really historians that confirmed that israel was created on the ruins of palestine now obviously palestine was not a state yet at the time we're talking about nine hundred forty eight but  it was it would have been a states very shortly thereafter had not been so completely destroyed that had bustling cities it had a middle class it had trade and commerce palestinians had judges and scholars and they had a rich political life and they had all the all the all the characteristics of the state to be but the one thing which they didn't invest the one thing which palestinians did not have was a military any kind of militia and so when the jewish militias attacked even though the palestinians constituted the vast majority of the population when the jewish militias attacked they were helpless the jewish the jews on the other hand in palestine at the time were a minority probably less than half a million but they had put together a state like institutions so they had their own schools they had their own universal health care system for example that a quasi government of which my grandfather was a member and all of these were created based on the principle of how for which in hebrew means segregation in other words to be completely separate from all the institutions that the palestinians had and the one thing that they did which they did invest heavily was a very strong militia a militia of young men well indoctrinated well trained of which my father was a member and they were determined to create a jewish state in palestine completely disregarding the fact that the majority of the population were not jews but were palestinian arabs it turns out the creation of israel had not after all been a haphazard fight in which the arabs but their homes due to the directives of their own leaders had been an unprovoked systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by the jewish militia involving massacre arizona in the wholesale looting now it's interesting my mother was born and raised in jerusalem she was born in one thousand nine hundred six and she recalls the palestinian neighborhoods in west jerusalem and when the residents of these neighborhoods were forced to  leave their homes which are still in jerusalem the beautiful spacious homes with beautiful gardens were offered to jewish families and one such home was offered to her being the wife of an officer and so forth and she refused it she said she could not bring herself to move into the home of a family that had been forced out and is now living in a refugee camp she also said and i heard this confirmed by many people that when the jewish forces came into homes the coffee was still warm on the table the people had just left and then the looting began and again she recalls seeing the truckloads of furniture and rugs and what have you armies of three arab countries were invading and miraculously the jewish forces were able to beat them all and conquer huge huge huge tracts of land now setting aside for a moment the fact that endless countless books have been written in hebrew in english and arabic in other languages and that documentaries have been filmed disproving this completely and showing that the purpose of the war was conquest and my own research in my own research into print preparation for this book i went i spent days at the israeli army archives and i read from the minutes half in order to be prepared for this point was that the time to strike a devastating blow against the egyptian army was now not because of an existence of threat but because these gyptian army was not prepared and it was an opportunity to destroy it once again the other generals agreed but the cabinet was has hesitant the prime minister was not sure a full scale war was the right thing to do and a tug of war of unimaginable doing that saying stormy meeting my father said to the prime minister strike your hesitation is working to his advantage later on he accused the prime minister of insulting the army this army that had never lost in battle by not allowing the army to talk right now so there was never any mention of an existential threat just an opportunity to once again assert israeli strength in the in the cabinet succumb to the enormous pressure placed upon the by the general and they and they the generals turned their attention to the west bank in the golan heights to a region that israel had coveted for many years both regions had strategic water resources and hills overlooking israeli territory in the west bank in six days israeli casualties were seven hundred and the territory controlled by israel had nearly tripled in si israel had in its possession not only of the land and resources it had wanted for a long time but also the largest stockpiles of russian made arms outside of russia israel had once again asserted itself as a major regional power or as the neighborhood bully now here's something of immense proportion that takes place and take into account that this is over four decades ago and again i quote at the first weekly meeting of the general staff after the six day war chief of staff  being was beaming with the glory of victory but when the meeting was nearing its end my father is this hand when he was called on he spoke of the unique chance the victory offered to solve the palestinian problem once and for all for the first time he said in israel's history we were face to face with the palestinians without any other arab countries between us now we had a chance to offer them a state in the west bank in the g with certainty that holding on to the west bank and people who live in it was contrary to israel's long term strategy popular resistance to occupation was searched her eyes in israel israel's army would be used to quell that resistance with disastrous and demoralizing results it would turn the jewish state into an increasingly brutal occupying power and eventually into a bi national state and this is precisely the reality in which we live today nearly four and a half decades after that so does anyone seriously expect can we really expect that five million palestinians will keep living under a regime that is democratic to jews but is brutally oppressive towards palestinians with about six million jews and about five or five and have been palestinians living under the same rule under the same government but with different laws my father who is a military expert had spent the rema his life after he retired from the military fighting for justice for the palestinian cause and being a former military man he was often asked about palestinian terrorism one one such occasion when he was being interviewed by the israeli television he said this about terrorism he said terrorism is a terrible thing but the fact remains that when a small nation is governed by a larger power terrorism is the only means at their disposal my father's predictions of all come t now the work of the israeli lobby in the united states notwithstanding more and more people around the world are beginning to realize that there are in fact two nations who live between the jordan river in the mediterranean and that the conditions under which palestinians live are completely unacceptable recently we had an event here in san diego which was a vigil to remember the names remember those who were killed in gaza by the israeli army and as this vigil was taking place there was a large contingent of israeli supporters we were separated from them by a line of police and what i think is a sense of morality and they were dancing and singing as those of us that were at the vigil commemorated tried her or tried to recall the names of fourteen hundred people that were killed these are just three weeks of such death and destruction the one can hardly comprehend and i remember the stories of these really air air force pilots who flew shortly after sortie dumping hundreds of tons of bombs on a civilian population in gaza and would then return home to celebrate the festival of hanukkah see because the attacks in gaza at the end of two thousand and seven took place during the jewish festival of hanukkah then these same pilots having celebrated with their families slept in the comfort of their beds got up the next day and did it again and again and again i recall there while we were at the vigil these are the supporters of israel held signs that said but these are the army had warned them the israeli army had dropped thousands of leaflets warning the palestinians that this horror was about to begin and i can only imagine the mother seeing these warnings knowing that this horror was impending but also knowing that there's nowhere to go there's nowhere to run there's nowhere to hide there's no order to save her children from the bombs and from the fire from the smoke and from the chemicals and from the phosphorus that consumes the flesh and won't be extinguished because gaza is locked down gaza's under siege siege that was imposed by israel on the people of gaza so for these young israeli pilots these young men who most israelis and and israeli supporters around the world consider their finest this is really nothing seventh two thousand and eight will forever be etched in our memories as the darkest and most shameful day in the long history of the jewish people as israel began a shameful and merciless attack on the people of gaza the attacks began at eleven twenty five in the morning the precise time that the children of gaza on the streets between eleven and eleven thirty children of gaza are either on the way to school or on the way home from school as that is the time that the two shifts of the school day change now the israeli supporters who come to the vigils who always maintain they support israeli brutality their claim is that israel had the right to defend itself but israel's actions were justified because israel was defending itself against the onslaught of rockets were being shot into israel by hamas militants out of gaza thousands and thousands of rockets that were designed to harm israeli citizens now i know a thing or two about these rockets i recall sitting on a saturday afternoon with my family and my children in a kibbutz not far from gaza and at one point we heard those rockets flying overhead and we heard the sirens and the warning signs and we all had to run into the protective rooms that were built for that and it was frightening all the last december i visited the kibbutz again and because some rocket fell by the kindergarten on the kibbutz while the children were present and were outside there was shattered glass everywhere children were hurt they were bleeding some of the children had to be hospitalized some of the children were in shock it was horrible i went and i walked in i saw the hole in the ground created by the rocket the size of a large soccer ball and then i remembered what a crater that is that is created by a one ton bomb looks like it's the size of a city block children aren't scratched and they're not in shock as a result of that they're decimated they are burnt they choke under the choke from the fumes and they are buried in the rubble now multiply that by a hundred and then again and then again and remember or keep in mind that gaza is one of the most highly of most densely populated areas in the world yet israeli supporters will justify many jewish people will recall the story in the book of genesis chapter eighteen where god decides to destroy the city of sodom because they were sinners in the picture the patriarch abraham the shared patriarch of and arabs chastises god and says to him both also destroy the righteous with the wicked perhaps there be fifty righteous in the city you see abraham is chastising god and god promises that if you finds fifty righteous people he will spare the city well that israel there is no abraham today and no palestinians are righteous in the eyes of the israelis and as we know the eight hundred thousand children of gaza were not spared this horror you know i'm often accused of being one sided and of not mentioning palestinian terrorism and the suffering that israelis have to go through so i'm going to touch on that right now as my father said decades ago when a larger power rules a smaller nation some form of violent resistance is to be expected and as for my own family's brush with terrorism in our case it drove all of us to engage with the palestinians and to reach out and the same thing happened to me personally and again i want to quote a passage from my book the general's son then in the fall of one thousand nine hundred seven disaster my niece my daughter was killed by palestinian suicide bombers in jerusalem several hours later there we were driving along the road to the cemetery police escorted our procession on motorcycles making way for vans carrying the devastated family members of another just as we got out of the van someone approached and asked me to carry the small coffin my heart felt far heavier than the heartbreakingly slight weight on my shoulders israelis and palestinian family members and friends famous leaders and ordinary people all came to give eulogies and to express their sorrow when my sister did come out to greet the mourners the thousands who came to mourn she did not ask for a television she did not talk about the first words that came out of her mouth were these no real would want the same horror to happen quote again from the book i stayed in jerusalem for the week of the shiva the seven days of mourning it wasn't easy to return home and return and resume my routines after it was over how do people do this i kept thinking to myself how do people keep on able to carry on but my mother always says that life was stronger than death and so we went on but something had changed i knew i had to do something and i knew that the right thing to do was to meet with postilions and i did this right here in san diego and i was welcomed by the woman brace of the local palestinian community the experience of meeting with palestinians was comforting it was liberating and it was also heart wrenchingly difficult was comforting to know that we're all very similar and it was liberating to know that we don't have to be enemies but it was heart wrenchingly difficult to realize that i did not possess i did not have full possession of the truth and that is wh think israeli supporters mostly jews are that's i think where most of them are and i think it's time for israel the israeli jews an american jews to join what was very eloquently described by clovis maksoud as the constituency of conscience you know one can only one can only imagine what white south africans went through when they saw that apartheid was coming to an end clearly they wanted to hold on to their way of life corrupt as corrupt as it may have been the whites in the southern states were probably trying to hold on as much as they could when they saw the end of legalized segregation and discrimination and racism come to an end in this country we see this with leaders in the middle east right now holding on to the last minute not wanting to give up their way of life and their control and zionists in israel around the world are not doing the same trying to hold on we see brutal tyrants everywhere these days from libya to the gulf states do the same thing holding on even as they fall one by one now zionists and their supporters do the same holding on to the notion that a racist regime can last that injustice and horror can last and the crimes against others who are different can go unpunished but we are near the end the zionist dream of an ethnically homogenously states was shattered by the zionists themselves with their insatiable hunger for land in their own hands they created a binational state where almost half of the population are not jewish or israeli palestinian arabs true that they have no rights it's true that they're not counted but this will come to an end sooner than most people think i think it's safe to say that the nonviolen moscow and still won in other places they face the brutal force of the israeli army every single week but they're dedicated and they will prevail and the dedication of these people is the reason that people like myself who believe in justice and democracy are optimistic enough another beautiful spot in the west bank where settlers have made their ugly mark israeli reservists clumsy and armed to the teeth are faced with the undaunted courage of mothers and their children who just want the settlers and the army out of the villages and out of their lives it seems uprising that israeli soldiers young men and women who are raised on what is similarly a democrat in a democratic society are willing to enforce this brutal occupation because they do it very willingly and they do the very brutally but we need flag the fly that has come to symbolize intolerance hate racism and brutality they can feel free to do so but they need to know this that when the trials begin and the tribunals take their place and when this truth and reconciliation commission begins its work and they're finally shamed into admitting that they were wrong they need to remember to go down on their knees and beg forgiveness from the people they so blatantly wrong because they need to realize that we will never forget them and that their conscience will never allow them to forget that they supported the killing they dragged themselves in the flag and they mock the bereaved the rest of us to move on and along with the rest of the middle east we will follow the example of people of egypt to create something that will surely be a tremendous accomplishment a democratic secular state in our shared homeland a state where muslims christians and jews live as equals and educate their children to love their diverse homeland with its multitude of cultures its rich history and its promising future