|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/12/01/israel-is-what-the-arab-world-can-be-but-is-unable-to-be/
An Egyptian-Born Muslim Zionist
(Israel Hayom) Dudi Caspi - Egyptian-born Muslim Hussein Aboubakr, 30, defines himself as a Zionist. His sympathy for Israel forced him out of Egypt and in the last seven years he has been living in Los Angeles. He said in an interview that he grew up to believe that Jews were the source of all evil, but at age 14 he began to search the Internet and "discovered that reality was totally different and that Israel has values such as tolerance and humanity. It was a difficult moment. I discovered the moral gap between my background and Western culture, especially with respect to Israel. All of a sudden, you realize that there is nothing to the stories that were drilled into you, that there's no one in Israel who gets up in the morning and thinks up ways to harm Egypt." After receiving asylum at the American Embassy in Cairo, he was able to leave Egypt for the U.S. In 2018, he visited Israel for the first time. "It was the first time I was in an environment that was very similar to the one I knew in Egypt," he said. "For the first time, I experienced the culture I came from - the food, the smells, the atmosphere, the noise, the mentality - with an atmosphere of freedom. It made me want to explain to the Arabs how it feels to live their life, only with freedom. Israel is what the Arab world can be but is unable to be."