In an opinion article published by Haaretz newspaper, the left-wing politician criticized Jews who were “disillusioned” after the Hamas militia attack on Israel last month.
These disaffected people now claim that two states are a negative thing, “while the Gaza Strip burns with the word ‘peace’ and goes to hell,” he stressed, referring to the war campaign against this coastal enclave.
However, he assured that I continue to support a negotiated solution to the conflict because “the two-state solution is not only the solution with the most solid basis of justice and the most humane, but also the only realistic solution.”
How is it really possible not to be “disillusioned” when an Israeli minister ponders whether it is worth dropping a nuclear bomb on my people in Gaza? he asked.
But I do not allow myself to be disillusioned by the dream of coexistence, even when I look at the photos of Haifa, my city, after 1948 and see how the houses of its Arab residents were looted and completely destroyed so that they could not return there, he noticed.
“I am not disappointed even when I read how they destroyed and burned fields and orchards to prevent Palestinians from returning to their villages, even after visiting places where war crimes and massacres have taken place over the years were committed against Palestinians,” he emphasized.
Nor, he added, when I speak to refugees expelled from the homes in which they had lived for generations in the 1967 war, or when I speak to the victims of the first and second Intifada (uprising, in Arabic). .
“I refuse to be disillusioned, despite learning about attempts to poison wells in Arab villages, about the rape of Palestinian women (…), when I see the actions of the Israeli government in the occupied territories,” he said.
Not even considering the way they are taking over the land, natural resources and abusing defenseless Palestinians, he suggested.
Odeh called for avoiding disillusionment and promoting an agreement that “allows for a life in which there are only a few days of sadness.”
“Seven million Jews and seven million Palestinians are not going anywhere, the destinies of the two peoples are intertwined and we have no choice but to find a solution to live a normal life here side by side,” he concluded.
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