Human Page #2

---

My father

had opened the door to them.

He told them

there were no combatants.

They told him to step forward.

My mother and brothers were lined up.

"Join them."

As soon as he moved,

they started shooting.

He got a bullet in the back.

He fell.

They started shooting at my brothers.

At the time of the massacre,

in 1982, I was a young student.

I didn't hate anyone,

I felt no hatred.

But that massacre

made me question many things.

I asked myself:

"Who loves me? Who hates me?

"Why did this happen?"

I thought more about it

and all that brought about in me

a love of hatred,

a love of vengeance.

Man isn't born with those feelings.

They grow

over the course of your experiences.

Both love and hatred.

Would you forgive me

if I kill your father or brother?

If no law stands in my way?

If your rights are scorned?

Would you forgive me

if I'd killed your brother,

father or mother?

No, certainly not.

No way.

I will never forgive.

Even if my head is cut off.

One evening, while in the reserves,

my unit had to stop a suicide attack

by capturing a terrorist

in a village near Nablus.

I deployed our forces.

To flush him out,

we shot at the walls

as a demonstration of strength.

A woman came out of the house,

carrying a girl

and holding another by the hand.

It was 3 AM.

The girl panicked and ran toward us.

I was afraid she'd blow herself up.

I yelled at her in Arabic to stop.

She kept coming.

I fired above her head.

She stopped.

At that moment, time stood still.

It was the shortest

and the longest moment

of my life.

The girl remained alive.

And so did I.

But at the same time,

something died

in us both.

When a child is shot at,

it kills something inside.

I don't know what.

When an adult shoots at a child,

it kills something inside.

Something dies

and something else

has to come to life.

I was ashamed of shooting at her.

A painful shame.

And above all, this sensation

of my finger

pressing the trigger

and shooting at the girl.

From this finger pressing the trigger

something had to come to life.

One of the most impactful things

that will occur,

after being in combat,

is the feeling

of killing another human being.

Once you've experienced it,

you'll see

that it's not like anything else

that you've experienced before.

And unfortunately,

that feeling,

your body will want

to experience again.

It's really difficult

to try to explain to somebody

what that feeling's like.

Right now,

I still feel like experiencing

that again,

and it's probably why I keep

a loaded weapon in my house.

I yearn or desire for someone

to try to hurt me

or to break in

or to give me an excuse

to use that violence

against somebody else again.

On the 16th of January 2007,

an Israeli border policeman

shot and killed

my 10-year-old daughter, Abir,

in front of her school

in Anath where I live.

She was with her sister

and two friends.

9.30 in the morning.

In her head in the back

from a distance of 15 to 20 meters

by a rubber bullet.

Abir wasn't a fighter.

She was just

a child.

She didn't know anything

about the conflict

and she was not part

of this conflict.

Unfortunately, she lost her life

because she was a Palestinian.

I'm an Israeli who lost his daughter

to a suicide bombing

on the 4th of September 1997.

And I am a product of...

of an education system.

These are two societies at war.

They socialize the young generation

to make them able to sacrifice

themselves when the time comes.

This is true to Palestinian society

and this is also true

to Israeli society.

Because we are human beings.

Sometimes you think:

"If I kill the killer

"or anyone from the other side,

from the Israelis,

"or maybe ten,

"this will give me back my daughter."

No.

I'll cause another pain

and another victim to the others.

I decided

to break this circle of violence

and blood and revenge

by stopping killing

and supporting revenge,

by myself.

My definition of "sides"

has changed dramatically.

Today, on my side are

all those who want peace and are

willing to pay the price of peace.

On the other side

are those who do not want peace

and are not willing

to pay the price of peace.

Many people told me:

"It's not your right

to forgive in her name."

And the answer:

it's also not my right

to seek revenge in her name.

I hope she's satisfied.

I hope she rests in peace.

Here's what happened:

a German officer

in an SS uniform

entered the ghetto

one rainy night.

My mother told him:

"Take my daughter."

She lifted the wire fence

and handed him her baby, me,

a Jewish girl

2 and a half years old.

And with a heavy heart,

she put me in the hands

of a wonderful man

in an SS uniform.

I now know that this man,

Alois Pleva,

served in the German army

and lived near the German border.

This man put me in his coat.

He hid me inside his coat

and took me

to the border

between Germany and Poland

to his parents.

They passed me off as his daughter.

They raised me

in the purest Catholic tradition

until the end of the war.

What a gesture!

What magic,

this outstretched hand!

Like sparks of light

in what we call human folly.

Sometimes a question comes to mind.

If I had been

in a situation like that,

would I have acted in the same way

as that German officer?

How can I answer

such a question?

I don't think I would have had

the moral strength to do it,

in all honesty.

Maybe.

Did he know he had the strength?

How can you know?

How can you recognize

the moment of truth

when you can sacrifice yourself,

sacrifice the only life you have

for someone else?

There's no answer to that question.

Or a question

others can answer.

But this question must be asked.

Love is the beginning and the end.

Love is where we come from,

where we're going

and what we live between the two.

Love is everything.

Love.

The word love

is full of meaning for me.

When you talk about love,

it encompasses everything.

Love encompasses everything,

doesn't it?

Where there's no love, you feel empty

or rather, I feel empty.

Love...

Love is what fills the soul.

You have to take love

one day at a time.

You live it every day.

Love is this feeling that you can

give

and that the other person gives you.

My wife has a strong character.

She's the one who guides the family.

I love her a lot.

She's magnificent.

If you don't make love,

your love will be a failure.

Do you hear? Why?

Through love comes sex.

Without sex, you'll go wrong.

Your wife will ask herself:

"He gives me love, but not sex.

"Love, food, clothing, everything,

"but not sex.

"What can I do with this man?"

What will happen to our home?

The home will collapse,

because after love must come sex.

And that's ultimately

why love exists.

Otherwise, there's nothing.

Oh, wow!

What a question to ask me...

If I've had lovers?

To be honest, I've never had any.

I haven't...

I went to parties,

but I didn't go to dances, because,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes