'Because of My Grandfather'

Israel is founded and maintained with Jewish paranoia and xenophobia and Western empire building building at its core, using a heavy hand to acquire (steal) land from the Palestinians.

(DUBLIN) - On our second day in Be’er Sheva Prison, the prison guards were growing increasingly frustrated with Fiachra’s insistance that prisoners be allowed to make phone calls, contact lawyers, and contact our embassy; he was asking for, you know, basic legal rights. They didn’t like that. So the guards sent a group of Mossad agents into the prison area, and attempted (as they had with other ‘difficult’ prisoners) to bring him to another area of the prison to “talk.” In other words, they didn’t like what Fiachra was saying - much less how he was saying it - and they wanted to bring him away from the general population to presumably rough him up and intimidated him into keeping quiet.

The Mossad gang approached Fiachra as he was sitting at a table in the general quarters of the prison. I was sitting across from him. They were a group of about a half dozen ‘thugs’ in Ralph Lauren Polo and Abercrombie and Fitch apparel with arms that looked like they spend more time lifting weights than they do tucked under a pillow. They looked to be between 18 and 22 years old. At the lead was an older gentleman - maybe in his late 30s. He led the gang to our table, and as his voice shook from some combination of fear and impotence he pointed at Fiachra and beckoned him away with him. “Come with me”, he said as his henchmen hovered in the background. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

Fiachra knew where this was going, and our fellow prisoners understood Adil’s ulterior motives. “No, thanks.” Fiachra replied flatly before turning his back slightly to the leader of the Mossad group and continue chatting with Ken O’Keefe.

Again, now more visibly frustrated, Adil insisted, “Come with me.” His voice quivered, and his hands shook uncontrollably as he pointed an index finger at Fiachra. It was then that I noticed Adil’s hands, and how none of his fingers were straight. Each one appeared to have been broken and reset incorrectly a dozen times; that and his bad teeth almost made him appear like a cartoon villain. Maybe 135 pounds soaking wet, Adil wasn’t a very imposing figure. His pencil thin mustache made it difficult to take this little man seriously. Were it not for his strong-armed acquaintances, I doubt we would’ve taken him seriously at all. Except that judging by the shape of his fingers, he certainly had experience with - and was likely capable of - significant mafia style finger damage.

Fiachra eyeballed Adil and stood up. After an awkward posturing pause between Fiachra and Adil, the tiny Mossad man repeated himself. ”Come with me. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

Fiachra, backed by our fellow prisoners, restated our position that there was no way we were going to let Fiachra separate from the others. But Fiachra took this a step further. “You want to talk? Okay, then you SIT DOWN, and let’s talk right here, human to human.” he barked. I was sitting across from him, so I stood up and offered Adil my seat.

Adil paused to think. This was new to him. He appeared unsure what to do in this sort of situation. However, to his credit, he grabbed a seat, folded his hands on the table, and leaned in for a good ‘heart-to-heart.’ I sat behind him with the only weapon I was allowed to have in prison...a sheet of paper and a borrowed pen.

They started off their conversation with disarming banter. As Adil took his seat, but before his boney ass had a chance to hit the chair, Fiachra reached out a friendly hand for a shake. ”Hello, my name’s Fiachra Ó Luain and I’m from Ireland. Who are you and where do you come from?”

We waited for our Mossad friend’s name, but he refrained from volunteering that information. After pointing out that he knows Fiachra’s name, and it’s only fair that we know his name, he offered a name as though out of thin air. ”My name is...Adil, (he smiled) aka Adil.” One can presume this wasn’t his true name, but to us he was now Adil.

“Do you live around here Adil? Vote around here?” Fiachra and Adil locked eyes across the table.

“Okay, so why are you here? What gives you and the Beach Boys the right to walk into our prison wing and demand any sort of answers from us? Do you not realize what situation you are involving yourself in? You are Mossad aren’t you? That’s what that green bracelet on your wrist means doesn’t it?”

One of the prisoners from London came closer to the action. “What he is Mossad? What are you doing talking to him?” he asked in general. People shushed him, we weren’t talking to Adil, we were cross-examining him.

When pressed by onlookers to explain his occupation, and the plain clothes and the green bracelets he and his colleagues were wearing. Adil declined to comment and said only that he was there to ask a few questions. When pressed further, he declined more sheepishly.

Fiachra decided to help him out. “Okay Adil, would it be fair to understand the following; we can ask you that question, but because of your training and professionalism you cannot confirm or deny. However if you remain silent, we can deduce an answer?” Adil looked down and then up before nodding, tight lipped. He was Mossad.

The next words out of Fiachra’s mouth have stuck with me to this day, and have served as a lesson in diplomacy. To circumvent the hostile situation, and rebuild a common ground, Fiachra asked a very human question with a smile full of Irish blarney. “So, hello Adil.” Smile. ”How are you?” A quick Smile, small nod. ”So what did you do before you started working for Mossad?”

Fiachra seized the diplomatic opportunity and found common ground. ”Oh really? I am a teacher too. I teach Spanish and English.” Adil politely nodded in recognition. ”Okay, so we’re both former school teachers. Let’s just pretend we’re in the staffroom at breaktime, and talk, teacher to teacher, human to human.”

Adil’s demeanor had gone from aggressive to humble in just a few short minutes.

Fiachra continued; “Just to go back to my original question Adil, what on earth gives you the impression that you can come into our prison wing as you wish, take us away one at a time and demand any sort of answers from us? Do you want to collude with those who kidnapped us in international waters, murdered some of our friends and kept us incommunicado as we are denied all of our basic rights? There will be legal consequences for our kidnappers and captors, so why would you involve yourself and your men with such international crimes? The world is watching Israel’s every move now, I don’t need a TV set in my cell to tell you what is happening outside. Israel just got out of its depth, and you are out of your usual depth, as are your men.”

Some of the crowd tried to make political points with Adil, but Fiachra hushed them.

Adil made a conspicuous effort to reword the script he had come prepared with. This was a different interaction than he expected. Just then, one of the prison guards tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at me to alert him to the fact that someone was taking notes. That was fine with Adil.

After a choking pause, he said flatly and apparently out of left field, “I can justify this and everything else…, because of my grandfather,” he paused for effect, or genuine emotion, “... he was the only one of family to survive.” He backed up. “My grandfather and grandmother met in a prison camp in Cyprus when the British would not let them come here, they fell in love behind bars, in a cage. Then they finally sailed to Haifa. He became a member of the Haganah to protect his family from the future. He, like I do, had a problem with fascists and terrorists.”

At this point a small middle aged gentleman with a monk’s hairline and well spoken English accent came forward from behind Fiachra and directed himself at Adil. “Well young man, my father was also the only member of his family to survive the holocaust and I take umbrage that you should dare to equate those of us wanting to deliver humanitarian who have been attacked in international waters and held hostage by your government with those who were responsible for the Nazism that destroyed you family and mine. Are you out of you mind? I know that Israel is out of its mind and that’s why Israel will never speak for Jews like me. Can you not do better than Bibi Netenyahu, Adil?”

Following this there were a flurry of political points from all sides around the table. The other Mossad members had taken a step back were regrouping with their backs turned.

According to Ismail Patel - fellow prisoner and the chair of UK human rights NGO Friends of Al-Aqsa - the Haganah were “a terrorist organization wanted by Britain” for anti-British actions they carried out. According to Adil, the Haganah was an organization that sought to defend Jewish rights.

As with any militant group, one side considers them heroes and the other considers them terrorists. The truth however, is probably more likely that they started out as a self-defense organization, and over time their ethics were booby-trapped by their own ambitions, pulling them further and further from their original intent of defensive operations and toward missions of “preemptive” malevolence, misplaced revenge and base greed for other people’s land. In 1948, the Haganah was replaced by the Israeli Defense Forces.

Not one prisoner disagreed with Adil that his grandfather - as a Jew in Fascist Europe- had faced annihilation, but they didn’t buy the narrative that led Adil to his conclusion that oppression of Palestinians and us was now justified.

Adil claimed to understand oppression. As a grandson of a holocaust survivor, one might hope that he would identify with the 1.5 million people living in Gaza’s open air prison. One might hope Adil would empathize with the death and suffering caused by the privation of Israel’s blockade of Gaza ...just the opposite.

Fiachra tried to hush the room with mild success. Adil was being bombarded from all sides with moral and political arguments from a roomful of political prisoners, most of whom likely had more education than Adil and his thugs combined.

“What about human rights? Can we agree that we all deserve them? Palestinians too? Is that not how Peace will eventually be achieved? Respect for eachother’s human rights?” asked Fiachra.

“Peace is a strange subject; I do not think we can be scientific about peace. But yes I do believe in Human Rights for everyone, however this can only happen when the Palestinans prove they are humans by denouncing terrorism and stop others from Jew-hating.”

“So in the meantime, until you and your government are satisfied of that your prerequisites have been met, you think it’s okay to be party to the slow genocide of the Palestinians because your granddad survived Europe’s fascism? Should you not be looking for revenge from the European and American corporations that funded the Holocaust instead?”

Because Adil’s grandfather - more specifically millions of Jews, Blacks, Gays and handicapped people - had been oppressed by fascist Germany, Adil believed it was justified to therefore use a fascist methodology to systematically obliterate the Palestinians in misdirected retribution. This was where we disagreed. Big business always laughs in the background, while we continue to point fingers at Nazis, Zionists, Jihadists, Commies, Gooks and Spooks and declare war on eachother, the big bucks just keep rolling to same circles of power.

Israel is founded and maintained with Jewish paranoia and xenophobia and Western empire building building at its core, using a heavy hand to acquire (steal) land from the Palestinians. Then, using disproportionate deprivation tactics and systemic oppression, Israel seeks to collectively punish the Palestinian people in a similar way to how the Nazis had mistreated Jews. They justify their right to oppress with their own experience at the hands of oppression. Because Nazis killed Jews, Jews are entitled to seek revenge against the Palestinians, so following that logic, who should the Palestinians oppress when it’s their turn? Eskimos? How about the Easter Islanders?

Fiachra got up and extended his hand, “Adil, I thank you for your time but I think we’ve reached the logical conclusion of this discussion. I’m going back to my cell now.”

“No Adil, I don’t feel like talking anymore but I wish you luck in the future and hope you start to make better choices.”

Adil got up to try and shake Fiachra’s hand again and lean in to his ear. Fiachra was uncomfortable and stood back again. “I just want you to know that I did not vote for Bibi.” Adil smiled, looking for some sort of recognition.

“Adil, you and your men are carrying out Bibi’s orders, you may not have voted for him but you are empowering him in other ways and you do so to Israel’s detriment. Goodbye.”