No. My ancestors originate from near the Iraqi / Jordanian border. While part of my family started settling in what used to be called British Mandate Palestine, other parts of my family moved east to Baghdad.
As children and young teenagers my paternal grandfather would tell me and my sister all kinds of lovely stories about his life, adventures, and businesses he used to own in Baghdad.
One recurring topic was the exodus of Iraq’s Jewish communities, which he always called a great national catastrophe and personal tragedy. Iraq’s Jewish communities were one of the main import / export trading backbones and so when these communities disappeared their excellent trading connections and business relationships disappeared with them as well, as did much of the wealth they had generated and that helped sustain much of Iraqi society.
This had the rather unfortunate side effect and consequence that many Arab companies, including my grandfather’s companies, slowly but surely went out of business, because they depended to a large extent on the excellent trade relationships Iraq’s Jewish communities had established and maintained
My grandfather never had a bad word to say about the Jewish families with whom he did business. In fact he always told us they were the most fair, reliable, and trustworthy business people one could hope to call ones friends.
To this very day my father and mother maintain that opinion and memory, because they are both old enough to remember Jordan’s iron fist occupation of the West Bank and every subsequent conflict since then.
They used to tell us stories about the nationalistic lunacy that spread like wildfire throughout the West Bank and eventually resulted in the creation of the PLO, which of course wasn’t merely happy waging its ridiculous and bloody war of attrition against Israel, but also thought it wise and clever to publicly call for the overthrow of Jordan’s Hashemite Monarchy.
Thanks to the excellent, fair, and honest experiences my grandfather had enjoyed with the Jewish communities in Iraq, our grandparents and parents always trusted Israeli leaders more than our own, which is why we never fled and have always remained in more or less the same part of the West Bank in which our ancestors settled.
Since I and my family believe in peaceful coexistence and normalisation with liberal and pluralist Israel, we don’t see any reason why we should have to return to Jordan. However, I we can understand why many Israelis think that way.
Our Arab and Palestinians leaders have steadfastly refused to accept anything and everything ever offered to them that didn’t first and foremost include the eradication of all the Jews in what used to be known as British Mandate Palestine.
When Anwar Sadat eventually and very bravely made peace with Israel he was assassinated by Muslim fanatics who later on went on to attack the USA in the first World Trade Center bombing of 1993.
Our Palestinian leaders have never been interested in peace with Israel or the West for that matter. As already mentioned above, the PLO even thought it a good idea to try and topple and wage war against Jordan’s Hashemite Monarchy in 1970, which didn’t exactly work out too well for us either.
While our Arab leaders were either fighting each other or trying to exterminate Israel, Israelis made the desert bloom, fought off countless attacks against overwhelming odds, and have made their country into the world’s most successful, liberal and pluralist high-tech startup nation.
Meanwhile history has spoken and we Palestinians still keep running full speed ahead and fully armed towards the wrong side of history, which these days is nothing more than an impenetrable concrete wall / wire fence that wouldn’t need to divide anything or anybody, if it were not so necessary and successful keeping Israelis safe from our relentlessly murderous Palestinian terrorist attacks.
Over the past couple of weeks Palestinian and Israeli women have marched together for peace only to be denounced by both Hamas and the BDS movement (that ironically enough always claims to be in favour of peace and against terrorism, yet clearly prefers siding with murderous Islamic terrorists instead of harmless female peace activists).
It’s time for Israeli and Western liberals to realise Israeli politicians on both the right and left side of the political spectrum can continue offering peace to our Palestinian leaders as much and often as they like, safe in the knowledge our Palestinian leaders will always and forever turn down every single offer, regardless of how generous it is, unless it includes the destruction of the State of Israel and the exodus of all Jews.
That said, hope dies last, as they say. For what little it’s worth, I and my wife hope for the sake of all children and grandchildren on both sides of the divide that peace is in the offing - sooner rather than later.
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