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I Am an Israeli-Arab

(Jerusalem Post) Udi Shaham - Abdullah Abed al-Rahman, 26, from Abu Ghosh, runs two Facebook pages. The first, "Abu Ghosh Now," is an Arabic-language platform for the people of the village to discuss current topics and issues regarding their relations with neighboring Jews and Arabs. The second page, which he runs with Orthodox Jew Michal Julian, in Hebrew, Arabic and English, is to advance Jewish-Arabic coexistence from a Zionist point of view. "I started the page in order to create an alternative to the established media, which portrays the Arab sector as constant victimizers or victims....We never hear the sane and rational voice of the Arab sector, the one that opposes terrorism," he says. Abdol grew up in Abu Ghosh, where in 1948 the villagers assisted the Hagana forces to open the road to Jerusalem, and through the years many of them joined the IDF and served in public offices. "I am proud to be both Arab and Israeli," he says. "I hope that a new generation will grow up here - Jews and Arabs who want to live together and work together out of pride in our country." "There are rational and irrational people. While the irrational people keep fanning the flames of hatred, we, the rational ones, oppose every sort of violence and see the person standing in front of us without filters. We just want to wake up every morning like normal people do, go to work, sit at a coffee house and live a normal life."
2016-05-06 00:00:00
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