welcome to the listening place where we listen to life from the inside out i'm your host nancy was an off my guest today is mark braverman he is an american jew whose family roots go way back in to palestine and all jerusalem his grandfather was born and raised and mark him self has made many trips to visit the middle east the old city of jerusalem and to see what's going on in palestine mark welcome to the show i know that you are deeply committed jewish men here in america yet what we want to talk about in the show is how your heart is breaking when you have gone to see what you're seeing in the middle east and what's going on in the name of being jewish so to start with your broken heart ok well as you said i was raised here in america as a conservative to i was born in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight the same years the state of israel was established and really you know for people born and raised at that time israel and zionism was very very much a part of being jewish for jews of all stripes and i like say that really zionism was mother's milk for me we talked about the state of israel we it's part of our prayers three times a day and we talked about israel being the first flowering of our redemption very much a part of jewish history that we've survived centuries of persecution and now got  hand and given us this gift of a state a haven for the jews and that was very very much a part of how i was how i was brought up and when i first visited israel at the age of seventeen i very much i fell in love with the place and felt a strong connection to it reunited with my vast family there that the still mostly there my grandfather came over here by himself in recent family here so you can say that israel is very much in my blood and still i feel very very rooted to the land  the seeds of my own questions about israel and about what has happened israel and what the whole idea of the jewish state means and my issues with that really were planted fairly early as well when i first visited with a jewish synagogue group in sixty five i was seventeen years old and i was reunited with my family there love them very much the just jews i still love them very much of that we don't talk about politics but i noticed and remember that you know i'm a kid from philadelphia i was raised you know before the civil rights movement and grew up in the civil rights movement when they talked about arabs these are my israeli family i could it was unavoidable for me i had to acknowledge that they were racist that they talked about arabs as they called them in the same way that people here white people talked about black people so i knew at that time that there was a fatal flaw or a serious flaw with the zionist project and the story goes on from there well so what do you mean when you say fatal flaw what is that fatal flaw because isn't it true that there are terrorist acts and that jewish people are threatened by things that have gone on and that many jewish families have suffered let's talk about terrorism in a moment but let me just say something is israel is a jewish state as a jewish state it's doing exactly what he jewish state would have to do which means it has to preserve its jewish character it has to preserve its jewish majority has to preserve its jewish supremacism and superiority has to do all of those things now in the twenty first century we don't have or we don't agree with religious states or states that belong to a particular ethnic group we don't have islamic states if we do we are very worried about them we don't have a christian state that went out with the crusades what happens and what are the implications of having a jewish state and i think they're very serious implications and i think that israel's experiencing the consequences of that today what we have is not a religious struggle but a struggle over land and a struggle over demogra israel's real bind right now is if we're going to be jewish how do we maintain a jewish majority and that has harbel devastating and i think tragic implications for israeli society and israeli they do you think that's what it has to be that they because it's a jewish state they have to eliminate i mean you could say the united states in a way is a christian state i mean it's not part of it's not in the constitution but you would say the majority of people here but we like to think that we can live peacefully with people of a lot of different and we do yeah and non christian americans first what america is not a christian state we have a constitution th guarantees free rights and that clearly separates trick from state israel does not have that israel has religious parties that have clear power in government the government has to make concessions to really just parties with a religious jewish agenda in order to stay in power there are religious laws in the state in america you have full rights with your christian or not that's not true in israel there are non jewish citizens and arab citizens do not have full rights in israel they don't serve in the army they have very low job ceiling in terms of what kind of jobs they can have in the economy some of it is formal some of that is informal ninety percent of the land is owned by the jewish agency and by law can only be sold to jews right so you know i don't want to have a democracy i'm not going to argue with you and i don't want to get into a political cause what i'm not i'm not that interested in the whole politics of it but what i want to talk about here is to get into the more inner life of what's going on here and see if we can understand a little more from your perspective that ok so you caught your raised with this history of devastation of your culture through the holocaust and and so you've grown up with this idea of being threatened by some outside force that no one likes you in the world very much that there is no space for you here right and then you're given the space but then with that space you're saying that the the group that was the tyrannized has become the tyrant and i think i want to say just first off i think you'll agree with me that we're not talking about individuals there are probably millions of jewish people who are loving caring seek peace seeking individuals which you say that's true yes but the  number of jews who are able and willing to take issue with israel is not millions it's a small majority of jewish people in israel and the united states who are willing to risk being branded as anti semites and self hating jews are going to say we don't like what's going on and we think we challenge the idea that we have to have a jewish state for jews on so what's important for us to understand from your perspective about that mentality that's going on how can we understand what's happening it's a very very good question there's several things that are going on first of all i think it's deeply embedded in the jewish identity and sort of the jewish soul to feel like we are a people apart and that we have to be a people apart and that we're  special i reject that i do not think that i'm special we're in a sense of better or exceptional because i'm jewish i happen to be jewish i regard that as an ethnic identity for some it's a religious identity that's fine but we're not special now the old testament is full of the jews being special and god in the old testament makes a covenant with the jewish people and says you will be my special people and if you don't step out of line and  obey me and you worship me i will give you that special status and i will give you will land and you're allowed to annihilate the inhabitants to occupy that when it's right there in the old testament now the prophets came along and challenge that and so the political power is not a good thing it's not what god wants what god wants is justice and that you live justly with the people of the world and jesus who was greatest of the jewish prophets came along and took it one step further and said in fact this covenant is for everyone not just for the children of abraham and for the whole world and said this is too good to keep to yourselves this needs to be universal i think that's really really important and i think that because of the accident and the tragedy of political zionism we are very very much jeopardy of sliding back into a full embrace of jewish exceptionalism which i think say it again i think it's tragic for the jewish people i think it's very bad for the jews well it's just like the germans thinking that their superior right or the wise thing in that their superior it's any group that decides that it's appear we are to another group and that that entitles them to domination and control and manipulation that's true and what you find with modern with the modern world is that somehow and the rest of the world is complicit in this in the united states somehow the jews somehow have the right to do what other people are not allowed to do and we can say that men and women men you know we've been through a time where it was looked at that men were superior to women and we're still struggling with all of these things even though we all know now that it's not true it seems that we have to understand that there were all unique but that's very different than being special yes it's a very important very important distinction and maybe that's what was even meant in the old testament that the jews are unique in their understanding and that's a great gift and could be a great gift in the world and was a great gift to the world was a great get they brought one god you know a whole understanding of one universal principle that unites all what a great gift and one thing that i'm finding as i speak in many churches i have not yet spoken in the synagogue to the synagogues and jewish leaders out there i'm saying i'm ready and  and willing to come into dialogue with you spoke in many churches because christians in the united states are very interested in this interested in the holy land interested in issues of justice as many jews are many christians are very hesitant to enter into this kind of discussion and in fact to say the things that i as a jew with said because they do not want to be branded as anti semites and they also feel as christians and as good people responsible for anti semitism and i would even use the word guilty about that and so they want to be sensitive to their jewish friends and there's truth to that truth to what well truth to christians having mixed idea that there's something in the back their head what was i responsible for look at the semitism is one of the great evils of western civilization right led directly to the nazi holocaust it's a great horrible evil several things one is jews do not have a monopoly on being victims of evil secondly we have to look forward we can't look back we can't use the holocaust as a way to justify the evil that's being perpetrated in the injustice that's being perpetrated by but there will be no peace without justice so let's understand what do you mean by justice i mean fair and just treatment for all the inhabitants of the land we cannot have a democratic society in israel and we cannot have peace in israel with our neighbors if there is no justice for the indigenous population of the land it was not a land without people for people without a land one million palestinians lived in greater greater palestine no more than that several eighty eight when the state of israel was established seven three quarters of a million of them were cleansed from that territory israel has to have a jewish majority in order to be a jewish state israel by definition as a jewish state cannot be just toward non jewish inhabitants of the state there will be no peace i firmly believe we were going to talk about politics but it's been there i've seen the  is now occupied my fear is that whatever quote peace process that is going to be put in place by the western powers will be basically rigid visitation of the occupation exists i do not think that will bring peace not politically and not in our hearts right and that's what we want to try to understand is how do we is justice just an eye for an eye tooth for tooth that's what we've learned about from the old testament that's not just so what how would you what how do you understand justice s someone so a group comes out and takes away a farm from a palestinian family that's had been on that land for a thousand years what then then they say yes but you took it from someone else a thousand years ago land that's not justice and when you when you occupy territory in a war and then in violation of international law wipe away all property rights settle your own people in territory and we're talking about cities infrastructure roads water and tell those people you have to either live with it or leave and you are under military occupation that's not justice anybody who goes and sees as i have and thousands of other american jews christians and muslims have gone to the west bank and have not gone on the what we call the dead stones tour of the holy sites but have actually seen the occupation a close  doesn't matter what your religion is what your political ideas are you know what you think i believe you see what is happening you see occupation you see people humiliated dispossessed pain tortured and basically being cleans out of the territory and we're going to get to how that might happen in a political way in a bit but i also want to talk about what's the healing there's another healing that has to happen because if i say look your family raped my mother and killed my uncle and so i'm justified in kidnapping your kids and you know so how do you deal with that kind of horror horror is the word horror is what you experience when you see it hard is certainly what i as a jew experience when i saw what my people was doing in my name as part of the of the jewish state and don't make no mistake i love israel is a wonderful place full of wonderful people who are being victimized by living under understand that that there would you say there's a lot of israeli citizens that are horrified also and i want anyone also who do not know what's going on for you know when i go in i see my family or in the room the israelis on the street and i say here i am inside israel inside the green line and tomorrow i'm going to terrorists but let me get back to this whole issue of what's the answer with the he'll wait to hear again it's very very simple you acknowledge and you mourn and you grieve over what you have done there's a wonderful wonderful group and its records across which in hebrew means we remember interesting these in the first first first person plural feminine we remember and they are dedicated to educating the israeli population about the knockabout which is arabic for catastrophe which is what the palestinians call nine hundred forty eight which was what the jews call the word independence of abrasion nakba three quarters is a million people were subject to atrocities cleansing and loss of their homes and and villages and this is officially denied in israel just like the generation that grew up after nazi germany of germans grew up with the whole nazi period being whitewashed now israel is not nazi germany but israel has perpetrated grave injustices and some atrocities on posting now you cannot have healing and you cannot have peace until that is acknowledged until we say yes we did it one of the big political issues is the right of return and it's one of those deal breakers you know jerusalem the right of return and borders right of return basically says i'm palestinian and i grew up in the village of thought which is in the galilee and i was moved out people who are mostly in refugee camps in lebanon and some of them are living in villages nearby inside israel are not going to go back and reconstitute that so much but they have the right to it and if i who dispossessed her sister then yes this happened to you and i am so sorry and what can we do about it now that's a hole that palestinian on in need to hear this i did it to you thank you very much let's go on from here how can we live together and in fact the overwhelming majority of palestinians only want to live in peace and co e with their new jewish neighbors it's part of their character you know and if we cannot we must not at our peril characterize them as terrorists and violent people overwhelming majority are nonviolent there is an enormous amount of nonviolent protest and activism and work being done in palestine and for those poor souls who out of desperation  strapped explosives to their bodies and when it blew themselves up i ask you what makes somebody  so we have to acknowledge what we did and we have to acknowledge the situation and then we have to go on from there truly regret it there's got to be a true regret which is the waking up and i think what you're saying that this part of what goes on i think i know i can identify with everybody can you you've been engaged in some behavior your life you really didn't know what you were doing and then all the sudden one day something help you wake up and you realize you were actually not being very loving to someone that you you know you love yes and there will be enormous amount of regret now some of your viewers may be watching this in a car and they're going to be saying what is he talking about the jews are fighting for their survival they've been kicked around and massacred for years they finally have a homeland you want to take it away from them you want to give you know give your throats to to the slaughter how about about picture how about the jews sense of threat existential threat how about terrorism how about hezbollah how about the bombs how about the kasam rockets how about that and to them i would say look to the root cause we came there we took their land that's the root cause for the violence since the twenty's since the arab rights of the twenty's was a set their sense of threat you're coming and you're taking your land and you're taking our country and yes we did it so you know we can play who who started it but who started it but people say well you're not presenting a balanced picture you're pro palestinian and to them i say i'm not pro palestinian i'm not pro israel i'm pro justice and i'm pro peace i want to see this stop as a jew and as a member of the people who are now in control real complete control the situation does not a level playing field i say we have to take the first step and we have to say we want to make peace with you and the beginning of that is yes we dispossessed you yes we took your land now where do we go from here it seems almost impossible to go there as a large group and i'm usually a very hopeful person but i'm reminded of what about here in the united states and the tragedy of the native americans who are here right we still haven't had knowledge to as a country that there was this land grabbing murder genocide horror right we have acknowledged it and apologized and become a lot further than we've come a lot further but we still have not as a group said we're sorry but many individuals have been educated and have acknowledged that some terrible injustices happened and they're like you're saying there's no solution it's like we can give the land back it's it's completely different and now and that to some extent that's true in palestine as well we can't turn back the clock and go back to one thousand nine hundred seventy nine six you know the jews are a major major force and presence in that land that needs to be shared that needs to be shared and how benefit all and we can't be in control keeping the palestinians in bantu stands and really and you know people you know there's a lot controversy about jimmy carter's book to be carter has it right he's got the occupation nailed less rights than blacks had under the apartheid regime and it's going to direction that's even worse than that but it's going in that direction and you know i don't know how you turn the clock back with a two state facts on the ground lead directly to apartheid palestinian state has no control over borders water infrastructure or economy has no viability without israel of sovereignty without borders so your idea it is for most i national that's a controversy now how about let's talk about a one state solution well a one state solution would be a fair and just solution there's only one problem you wouldn't have a jewish state and i say do i as an american jew need a jewish state to feel safe and i will say to you as a jew who study jewish history thank you very much i'm very realistic about it if i am it is and it is deeply embedded in ingrained in western culture when societies fall apart it's bad for the jews if our society here started to fall apart disintegrate i would be scared miss right there and i'd be looking around but i am not willing to say i want this militaristic racist state established in the heart of the middle east so that if at some point i need it i can go there can have a haven for jews right that doesn't have to be a jewish state the disadvantages and becomes a military dictatorship for a whole population of dispossessed people that were not responsible for the holocaust never did anything to the jews it's wrong it's simply wrong and i can't live with that and my it's not that i'm a bleeding heart and it's not that i am a quote self hating jew i love my people and i love my jewishness which is why my heart is broken over what has happened to this wonderful place called israel well we're coming to the end of our show and so i want to end with that your thoughts on what what is the view from your from what you could say about of the jewish god what would the jewish god as they be spoken through the prophets what is the wisdom that would help us direct ourselves in this difficult challenge we're facing as a world pursue justice look at yourselves clearly be suspicious and defy the authority of the state do not trust the priests and do not trust the kings of the theocracy or the monarchy remember what god really wants from you to justly with your neighbor to justly with your own people justice thank you mark on that note thank you for coming to the listening playwright and sharing for the opportunity of those great wisdom with us this is nancy with an eye for the listening place saying thank you for watching and off the next time bye for now