QUESTION & ANSWERS
We spent hours interviewing both Dov and Said, and while we used some of their most important and insightful quotes in our video and accompanying stories, we had to leave out some equally interesting tidbits. Read those left-out portions in the transcribed interviews below.
Dov Avital
An interview with Dov Avital, member and former secretary of Kibbutz Mezer.ON HIS JOURNEY TO THE KIBBUTZ:
Q: Where are you from?
A: I was born in Uruguay. I came here when I was twenty. My family survived the Holocaust. They reached Uruguay and were saved. We are extremely grateful for Uruguay, but this was only a stop. This (Israel) is our land. I have a lot of gratitude for Uruguay, but that’s the past.
Q: When did you decide to move to Israel?
A: I came here as a Jewish socialist in the '70s. I wanted to bring the revolution of America and Che Guevara. I decided I would do it in Israel.
Q: What was your motivation to join Kibbutz Mezer?
A: I decided to join a kibbutz with a group of youngsters, but we joined another kibbutz first, not Mezer. I went to the army and by chance became an officer. And after a year I met a girl. It happens that she was born here at Kibbutz Mezer. Her parents were from Argentina and were one of the founders, but she was born in Israel. We married and we decided to come here.
ON THE EARLY YEARS OF THE KIBBUTZ:
Q: When was Kibbutz Mezer established?
A: Kibbutz Mezer was established in 1953 by a group of young Argentineans coming here. The particularity of this area is that the kibbutz is located in an area that is mainly Muslim. This area was never conquered militarily by Israel. It was annexed in the framework of the 1949 cease-fire agreements. There wasn't a refugee program, and the people of the Kibbutz came here trying to be a socialist utopia.
Q: How did they decide on the location of the kibbutz?
A: The kibbutz was established here since this area was incorporated into Israel peacefully and there was no Jewish population. It was established with the idea of reaffirming the border to the full extent of Israeli sovereignty. We believe that you can move an army, but people working and plowing the fields, that’s different. They really mark a border as long as people build their lives there. Civilian life really marks the sovereignty of the country. So that’s the real intention of the establishment here, but Kibbutz Mezer took it one step further and tried to prove that Jews and Arabs can also live together.
ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KIBBUTZ MEZER AND MEISER, ONE OF THE NEIGHBORING ARAB VILLAGES:
Q: The names of the two communities seem very similar. Is there a story behind that?
A: Mezer means “border” in Hebrew, because it marks the border of Israel. And Mezer sounds like Meiser, which was done intentionally.
Q: What were the major differences between the Kibbutz and Meiser?
A: Arab villages were basically middle ages. Survival farming. Very close community. Very close to Islam. No contact with the outside world. No electricity. No radio. No road. And with the kibbutz, these people came from Argentina to bring the Marxist revolution to the Middle East. Everything is absolutely different. These are Jews and Arabs. They speak Arabic and they speak Hebrew. They are old fashioned, and the other are Marxist. The people in the kibbutz believe in weird things like a woman working in the field with shorts or pants like men. Everything....they eat different. Everything is absolutely different.
Q: How did the two communities first interact?
A: Meiser was already established, and the first thing that the people did was share the water. Because Meiser has the only natural well in the area and they agreed to share their precious water with the kibbutz founders. Once the kibbutz had their own deep well that was drilled by the government, both wells were interconnected and we are since then sharing the water.
Q: Do the communities socialize with each other?
A: Of course because the founders of the kibbutz were Argentineans, the first major joint venture was a soccer team. It was called Mezer-Meiser and they use to play in a league until soccer became very professional and they could not compete anymore. And the story goes that they were playing in an Arab village, so they got beaten because they have Jewish players. The next week they play in a Jewish village and they are beaten because they have Arab players (laughs). And that's it. Normal things. It's not that you don't argue. It's not that in neighbor relations you don't argue. Just normal things.
ON THE 1967 WAR:
Q: Was the relationship strained during the 1967 war?
A: In 1967, on the eve of the war, all of the men of the kibbutz were mobilized into the army, and the people of the Arab village decided to come work in the fields and save the crops. You ask years later, "how come?" Because before the war everybody thought that the Arabs were going to win and destroy Israel, so how come you cooperate with your enemy? And they will tell you it's nothing to do with the enemy. If my neighbor is in need, I should help. The crops are rotting in the field. I should help. For us really, that's it.
ON THE GOVERNMENT'S DECISION TO BUILD A WALL:
Q: Why did the government decide to build a wall?
A: Because of the second intifada and the suicide bombings, the government of Israel says to stop the terrorist attacks they are going to rebuild the fence that was in effect until 1967. Everybody was glad. We are so stubborn that we even have border markers every 200 feet. It's the only place in Israel where the original border markers are in place.
Q: How did this effect the neighboring Arab village, Kafin?
A: The people of Kafin came to us and said, "Look, we were served with a map that is completely different than where we remember the border being. They are going to build a fence in a way that separates us from our farming land.” All their farming land will be separated from the houses. Now, this is really the middle of nowhere. No water. The people are not allowed to come to get jobs in Israel anymore because of the fence. And now they are not allowed to go to their own field because there is a fence. The only industry they have is the oil industry. What are they going to do? This is the best way to increase terror. If somebody cannot feed his own children, he will fight.
Q: What do you think was the government's motivation to build the wall with little regard for the green line - and in a manner that would take away most of Kafin's farmland?
A: These people were sitting in their air conditioned office in Tel Aviv with a thick (green) marker and only two directives. One – never bend the green line. Never put the fence along the green line. Why is that? Because the politicians in Israel understood that everybody would understand that whatever is beyond the fence is not Israel anymore. So once you put your fence there, the settlements are absolutely illegal and you have to dismantle them. It's not that the Palestinians would understand. It's not even that the United States and Europe will understand. It's that the Israeli public would understand that. So, never bend the green line... so we can claim that this is a military border without any political implications.
ON DEFENDNING THEIR NEIGHBOR'S LAND:
Q: How did Mezer become involved in lobbying for the people of Kafin to save their land?
A: After some debate, the people of Kafin asked for our help. Why debate? Because there are a lot of Hamas supporters in Kafin. And Hamas has a completely different position. They don't accept the border. They don't accept the existence of Israel. But the people of Kafin said, "Okay, we will accept that border." But let's work with the people of the kibbutz to build the separation fence on the border. And we had some meetings. Since they weren't allowed to come visit us, in order to reciprocate and be on the same level...we did not go to Kafin. We just had meetings by this big tree here. We'd walk from here. They would walk from there. We'd sip coffee and in just three meetings, we made peace.
Q: What was the agreement made between Mezer and Kafin?
A: We say that both communities will support the construction of the Israeli fence, provided two conditions. The first is that the fence should be built roughly along what we call the green line. The line before 1967. Why roughly? Because this line was modified between 1949 and 1967 many times by mutual agreement. The second is that if you have to expropriate land, it will be done equally from both sides. Fifty percent from our side. Fifty percent from the Palestinian side.
Q: What was the government's response?
A: Since we are in a western democracy, they made a compromise. It was midway. Not where the army asked for it, and not where we asked for it. It was in the middle of the way. Half of the Kafin families lost one hundred percent of their territory. But we try to keep our contact with Kafin more or less in the wake of this crazy situation. We will take care that nobody will annex not a single inch of their land until there is a peace agreement and their land is returned. We can't pick their olives for them, according to the military because these areas are again under military rule. And so we wait for better times....
ON CURRENT POLITICS:
Q: What are your thoughts on the settlements?
A: The reason that the Israeli government keeps building settlements is because they want to survive politically. The shift in power is now towards the rights with the settlers. And Netanyahu is smart enough to understand that this is not sustainable. And his circle has to understand that this is the surest way to destroy Israel. Because let's think for a moment what would happen if the Palestinian leadership becomes smart.
Q: What should the Palestinian leadership be doing? I always tell my Palestinian friends that that they are being stupid. They shouldn't fight. They should surrender. And my Palestinian friends say, "How dare you say that we have to surrender." But what happens if you surrender? Bring all the weapons, put them in a pile and say, "look Mr. Netanyahu, here are the weapons." And then once they come to get the weapons, they should say, now bring us schools, factories, hospitals, municipalities, roads, sewage systems, water...Israel cannot afford it. And then they should say we want to become citizens and part of Israel. And we want to vote. That would be the end of Israel overnight. Or we would go into a real apartheid like South Africa. So everybody, including Netanyahu understands that we have to separate. If we can't find a reliable partner...that's a big question mark.
ON THE UNITED STATES:
Q: What role does the Unites States, if any, play in the road to peace between Israel and Palestine?
A: The settlements are an obstacle, but an obstacle that can be removed. Nobody really envisions a peace agreement with the settlements in place, so that is not the problem. I usually say jokingly that Palestinians and Israelis have already agreed on Article 1 of the peace agreement. It says, "Whatever the cost of peace is, the Americans will pay for it." Everything else is open for discussion, but in that we agree. So you have to move people to other houses. It's okay because we are going to pay. So it's not our problem anymore. End of story. Not far from a joke, but not far from the truth.
Said Arda
Interview with Said Arda from the Arab village of Meiser.On the the village of Meiser after 1948:
Q: What was life like for Arabs in Meiser once Israel became a state?
A: If we go back to 1948 when the state of Israel was started, the Arab people here were like enemies of the state because they belonged to the Palestinian nation. Israel occupied this place and the Arabs here lived under a military regime for maybe 17 years. We were not allowed to move freely to get work.
Q: When the people of the Kibbutz arrived here shortly after Israel became a state, was there any apprehension in trusting them?
A: The trust was there from the beginning. The ideology (of the Kibbutz members) was that there should be equality between people, freedom for every person, and that they have the right to live.
On the nature of the relationship between Mezer and Meiser in the beginning:
Q: Can you describe the relationship between the two communities from the beginning?
A: They (the members of the Kibbutz) were wise enough to treat the people here as an equal people. Not as an occupied people or enemies or something like that. They even helped them (the people of Meiser) get work because they needed jobs. And the people of Meiser helped to build the kibbutz and work in agriculture. The people of Meiser were born here on this land, and the newcomers wanted to learn from them how to live here,how to survive. So it was something like a win-win situation.
Q: Who brokered the initial communication between the two communities?
A: It was a socialist community and people shared everything together. It was easy to communicate with the kibbutz because if the head of the kibbutz decided that they wanted to do something, they could do it. And it was the same for the village. If the head of the family or the hamulla(sp?) decided that they want to make relations with the kibbutz, then they made relations with the kibbutz.
On the attack on the Kibbutz by a Palestinian extremist:
Q: Describe what you remember about the night of the attack.
A: I have special feelings about this night. It was nearly at midnight. We hear very clear that there was shooting. Somebody was shooting. But we thought maybe it was hunters in the area. We hear the news that says it was an attack in Kibbutz Mezer. They said to us here in Meiser that we have to stay at home and to dark[en] the houses because they didn't know if the terrorist -was still in Mezer or if he ran away to another place. Normally, I think maybe he come to Meiser because it is an Arab village and he might think to hide here.
Q: How did you feel? Were you afraid?
A: We were very afraid. I started to think about how I could hide my children. And how would I behave if he knocked at the door and said he wanted to come inside? And maybe kill me if I don't open? I started to think about it the whole time. And it was dark here. And later we heard that some people were killed in Mezer. In the morning we knew that more people were killed, and the people here really shared the sorrow and were in Mezer for the seven days of mourning.
On the present day relationship between the two communities:
Q: Has the relationship remained the same over the years?
A: These days the situation has changed. The kibbutz has become less and less common. It is less socialist. Everybody works for his family and for his account in the bank. And he can decide if he wants to make relations with Said or not...or with the village.
The people here in Meiser also became more independent. I don't have to get permission from the head of the family if I can do something or not. So also people in the village changed. So this makes it less close between the two communities.
But it is not because the relationship between Mezer and Meiser has especially changed. The whole dynamic and the way of life has changed. It is like everywhere, in every community. Relationships change because the way of life changes.
On the recent attack on the Israeli settlers in the West Bank:
Q: Did the recent attack on the settler family in Itamar,in the West Bank, remind you of the attack on the Kibbutz in 2002?
A: I am very ambivalent about the people (the settlers) who live in the West Bank. The people of Itamar are very extreme. They hate the Arab people and the Palestinians and they want to take their lands. As a person, as a human, it is really hard; but as a people who believe in special ideology...people pay sometimes for their behavior or for their ideology. I can't identify with them so much. Really. Sorry that I say it, but I feel like that.
Q: How do you think the Itamar killings are going to effect the peace process?
A: You know, in this area, we have countless up and downs. All the time, all the years, ups and downs, ups and downs. So it is not important which event. Sometimes it’s in Gaza. Sometimes in the West Bank. Sometimes the Israelis kill Palestinians and sometimes the Palestinians kill the Jews. I think temporarily the tension can be down and then it can go up. And the relations between the two sides can be suspicious at times. But for the long term, I don’t think an event can [change?] the relations.
Because at the end, the leaders have to decide. Not the people like me or Dov. We can love each other, but we can’t change the reality. But leaders can do it. And we saw examples like that in many places in the world. We can take for example Egypt. The relations between Egypt and Israel and between Jordan and Israel, between Israel and the Palestinians where Prime Minister Rabin lived., who was also killed because the extremist, the Jewish extremist killed him. So, I mean if the leaders decide that it’s enough, and they want to change, I think they can do it much better than ordinary people.
On what the Israeli and Palestinian leadership are doing wrong:
Q: What do you think the Israeli government is doing wrong?
A: I think the main mistake is that they are looking at conquered land as part of Israel. If Israel changed this thought... If I occupied any land, it's not mine. It is not part of my state. This is the big mistake. The main thing.
Q: What do you think the Palestinian leadership is doing wrong?
A: Ah…Palestinian? They have no leaders. And they are not united. They have no leader that can represent all the different kind or types…all groups of the Palestinians. And because they have no law and no central power, everybody can do whatever he thinks. He can kill people. He can steal cars. And if you don’t have a mainstream... to make the whole state behave like a state with laws, then you can't deal with or make deals with anybody, not only with Israel, because you have no law in your state.
This is very bad. For example now, they have the state of Gaza and the state of the West Bank, the other land of the West Bank. They have [Abu Mazaan(sp?)] and they have [Asmail Amila(sp?)]. You can't manage a state like that.
On how Said identifies himself:
Q: How do you identify yourself?
A: Oh, Dov. (Said looks at Dov) I was waiting for that question! I thought that you forget this question!
I am Said; I am Arabic; I am Muslim; and Israeli-Palestinian. But sometimes I say I am Said, Arabic, Muslim, and Palestinian-Israel. It depends how I feel at that time. It depends on how I can identify with what's going here in Israel. In the whole atmosphere and what's going in general. I have roots in the Palestinian nation and I have roots here in Israel. I was born here. But my parents were born in Palestine. And half of their lives they were Palestinians with passports. They were Palestinian citizens. And from '48, they had to accept the new citizenship.
So I have many. I like that. The stories that my parents told me about my life and Palestine, the relationships, the family. So I like it. I feel that I belong to there. But also half of their life they were in Israel and I was born here and I accepted the Israel education and the language. So I have both. Sometimes this side more and sometimes the other side more. It depends.
Q: What language do you speak primarily?
A: Our mother language is Arabic. But because in the daily life we have to communicate with Jewish people and we have to go to Jewish institutions we communicate in Hebrew most of the time. I finished my studies at the University and I studied in Hebrew. And I work in Jewish places so it is very easy to express myself in Hebrew.
(Dov interjects a thought into the conversation. He says, “For some reason Arab people can learn Hebrew, but we cannot learn Arabic! We are just lazy! But personally I feel ashamed. I really feel ashamed because we live in an Arabic majority, we should at least understand it. The elders from the kibbutz, a lot of them learned Arabic. In the first generation they learned Arabic, and they spoke very good Arabic. And we teach that in schools but nobody cares. That's part of the curriculum. It's mandatory. From my children only one speaks Arabic. From the three only one speaks Arabic, the other two, once it was not mandatory anymore and they were not forced, and they forgot everything.)
On his family in the Occupied Territories:
Q: Do you have family members in the Occupied Territories?
A: Yes, most of my family, all of my family, the big family, lives in the West Bank.
Q: Can they come to your house in Israel to visit you with all of the restrictions on travel placed on residents of the West Bank?
A: Not now. Before, yes. Since maybe nearly 20 years they can't come here. But I travel sometimes there and I visit. I have a big, very big family. But I visit very close relatives, yes.
Q: How often to you visit them?
A: Once every two or three months.
Q: What is life like in the West Bank?
A: It depends. There are a lot of different equations. Some people live in places that they have clashes with the army. It looks bad. In other places they live in small villages and they depend on agriculture, but many times they can't send their produce to the market. And in the cities it is like every place; but it's less than the level of life here. But it depends where they live there also. It's not that everything is bad.
On religion:
Q: Does religion play a major role in your life?
A: No it doesn't, no. I respect it. My wife is Christian. And I asked her to be a Muslim just for the papers, not because it's important for me. And we celebrate Christmas. I told her that I can go with her to Germany(Said’s wife is German) and celebrate in a church or something like that. Really, it's not important for me.
I think, when people ask me if I am Muslim or Jewish or something, I say that by accident I became a Muslim. Because I could be Jewish or Christian. But I was born from Muslim people. I can be also Jewish or Christian, I can be all of them. Really, really, really.
Q: Why did you ask your wife to become Muslim on paper?
A: Because of the children and the future of the children. And because we live in a small place like this. You know I am a social worker, and the identity of the children was very important to me. I can't imagine children, small children that can't define themselves. So for me it was very important to define for them who they are and what they are, and not for me. Really. And not for my wife.
Q: Are most people around here this liberal?
A: No, it's my opinion. In general people here are not extremists. But what I say, it is for myself. It is Said Arda. You can also find people here and at Mezer who think different than me. They think that there is no place for the other side….and that this land is only for the Arabs or only for the Jewish people. I think that there is enough land in the world.
On whether the relationship between Mezer and Meiser can be an example to the country:
Q: Should the relationship between Mezer and Meiser serve as an example of what Israel and Palestine should aspire to?
A: No, I think it is a certain type of relationship. But between the two countries or two authorities, they have to build the kind of relationship that is suitable for the understanding that they find with each other. I don't think that there is the one model that we can move from place to place, or copy. We built something that is suitable for us, and serves the two places (Mezer and Meiser) here.
But they can build something else that can be also good for the two nations. It can be similar or it can be different. They can also make the kind of relationship where they are not in contact, but they don't fight. That can be a type of relationship also.
On his perspective on Israeli-Palestinian relations:
Q: Is your perspective on peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews influenced by where you live?
A: I don't know if it’s because I live here, or if it is because I am a man who believes that people should live together in peace. I don't know if, for example, my opinions are different from Dov's because I am Arabic or because I just believe something different.
I believe that people can live together here. I don't agree or like the policy of Israel in the West Bank or against the Palestinian Authority. But I know many Jewish people that also think like me. So, I don't know if it is because I live here or not. Or if it is because I am a man who simply thinks like this.