During the World Summit on The Information Society I served as volunteer. I served as an agent of welcome and protocol at Tunis Carthage International Airport. The group with which I was, were very nice. We spent almost 20 days together, welcoming more than 17 000 guests and officials.
In fact I liked to write this article after reading that of Kartago news and seeing the picture of the Israeli palne landing in Djerba and showing the Tuniso-Israeli flag putting by Zizou from Djerba.
I will confess you that I welcomed the Israeli delegation during their arrival to Tunis and I was at their farwell during their departure, too.
Leaving the plane, I started talking to them. I noticed that many of them had visited Tunisia many times and one of them talked to me in our Tunisian dialect, yes! He said: "y3aichek".
It was nice talking to Israeli's, knowing their point of view on hot topics like the peace process in the Middle East, the relationships with the Arabs, our common future plans, why not?
During my stay in the United States, and during my visit to San Francisco ( California State), I was invited with my group, some of them Palestinians, to have a dinner with an American-Jewis family and their friends. In our route, it was clear that my Palestinian friends, although with us a Palestinian girl of 1948 with an Israeli nationality was with us, they were sad. They hated the idea to meet jewish dirung our stay. Personnally, I was wainting that moment, but things changed since our arrival.
The Rosenbaum family lived in a very luxurious area nearby San Francisco. They welcomed us with big smile and affection.
We were surprised to find palestinian home made food! To close the host, we put an Arabic CD and we started dancing arabic at their garden. Mrs. Elika Rosenbaum put the Palestinian Koffia and she danced arabic. We left their home very happy by meeting them and we wrote at their Golden Visitors Copy book words of Peace. I will never forget them!
Back to our Israeli's visitors, what I noticed is that the Tunisians did not give an importance to the presence of the Israeli's. Even those who are against the State of Israel, they were neutral. Perhaps, some volunteers disliked my welcome of the Israeli delegation, I DO NOT CARE.
I AM NOT A SPY. I choose the way of peace, tolerence and brotherhood and I will die for that.
Answering the questions and thoughts of some bloggers, the fact of having an contact with Israeli's doesn't mean that we are betraying the Palestinian case, not at all! I hope to establish peace between us and the Israeli's but in the same time I will keep strong believe in establishing the Independent State Of Palestine.
One of the bloggers talked about the Israel's bombarded of Hammam El Chat where Tunisians and Palestinians died. I believe taht it was a honour to us to die with the Palestinians and that history will record that and will record our welcome to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Leader Yaser Arafat. But, that bombarding doesn't mean to cut the way of peace. We can build bridges of communications. The Germans invaded Europe. Hitler had done a lot in Austria, Czeck Republic, France, U.K and other nations. Do the European continue their hate to the Germans because of history?, Do we, the Tunisians, were protected by the French since 1881? Do the Algerians, with their over a million of martyrs, continued their hate to France? Of course, NO. Now, we collaborate with the French, the Turkish, the Spanish and the British. The Eyropean are collaborating with the Germans. The Americans collaborate with the Russians. LIFE CONTINUES.
I accompanied Mrs. Eilat Sigal, an Israeli woman coming to attend a coference held by her husband, in our route we talked about all the issues that I said. We had a common point of view: we have to educate our children about love, peace, tolerence and brotherhood. The mistake that we are continuing to do, we the Arabs and the Israeli's, is that we still changing hate and educating our children on that. THIS IS A MISTAKE. May I ask you a question: how do you feel when you see the Israeli flag, not only in Tunisia, but even in TV, even a TV broadcsting from Tel Aviv? Could you answer that. What? I can not hear you? Ah! Yes, you dislike it, you feel angry, you remember the martyrs, you remember the documentaries, you hate it, it is a symbol of zionism, it is a symbol of raper, it is, it is, it is...
You are on the wrong rails! All of that is because of history and education. Why you do not have the same feelings towards the French flag, or the Turkish, or the Spanish, or the German?.. You see how you are illogical!
You have to know that we share the Israeli's and the Amereican what is happening to us. We did and we do and we are going to continue doing mistakes, too.
To finish, I am proud of welcoming the Israeli delegation during their stay in Tunis. They were nice people [I am not talking from political side], I welcomed Palestinians, too. Never will I let them down. I like just continue using the logic not feelings.
I believe in Peace and I will continue. You will never know what does it mean live in terror and fear, I tried it when I was in New York City during a terrorist allert. If you were on my place, you used to imagine 9/11 attacks and those of London, too.
I hope that you will understand my article.
( choose the picture of Mrs. Elika Rosenbaum, Us-Jewish, dancing Arabic, San Francisco, CA)
