Maura Rosenthal 🛶

I was born Muslim and lived all my life as an Arab. There was not a single day that I felt like a minority, that my mother tongue or culture was threatened with extinction, or that people singled me out because of my color, language or whatever I say or do. We have 21 Arab countries, half of them are dumpsters not worth being called states. The total mass of territories under Arab sovereignty is 13.3 million sq km. The total mass of Israel with Palestinian Territories is 25 thousand sq km. Yet, somehow, the majority of Arabs think that conceding this tiny fraction of land to Jewish sovereignty is the end of the world, and that our salvation is incumbent on destroying Jewish nationhood. My closest friends are Jews with an Arab mother tongue. Their life experience has been the total opposite experience of mine, suffering discrimination, unfair treatment (socially and politically) and everything that we today call antisemitism. Naftali Bennet captures it beautifully in his Post below. You don't have to be pro-Israel. You only have to be fair and graceful. A negligible 25k thousand sq km allows Jews to maintain their culture -- including language and traditions -- and pass them onto their off springs like all other cultures do. Jewish existence in the midst of Arabs offers desperately needed diversity and breaks the liberty-suppressing uniformity of the Arab/Muslim world. But no, we Arabs, who cannot even sort out the endless bloody feud between Sunni and Shia, who force minorities like Druze, Alawis and others to hide their faith, think that Jews will have a blast living under our sovereignty, a fantasy that not a single stretch of our history can substantiate. And now on top of it all, we the Arabs got anyone with insecurity from other nations (Western and non-Arab Muslims) to join our own craziness and cheer for us. It's incumbent on us, Arabs, to stand up and say no. Our world will only be fixed with our own hands and our own ideas. Time to break taboos and think outside the silly Palestine box. Signed: Arab peace with Israel and liberty everywhere