By the Author / Source: abuaram.site
On my wedding day, I was driving a rented, decorated car on my way to pick up my wife from the beauty salon. Along the way, I came across an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) checkpoint with three soldiers. They congratulated me on my marriage and allowed me to pass ahead of a long line of waiting cars. This happened eleven years ago. Despite having spent my life provoking the army and radical Jewish settlers, they know me—they always initiate greetings and peace, and not a single Jewish person has ever harmed me.
By nature, these Jews have known me as a friend from the very beginning, even the most extreme and hateful among them. We exchange mutual understanding from the very first glance and meeting.
On one occasion, during a moment of recklessness, I went to the Gush Etzion complex on a Friday night. I paid a considerable sum for a taxi to drop me off there. At the time, I was suffering from a severe episode of schizophrenia and was very ill. I stayed there, intoxicated, for about fifteen minutes. Minutes later, I was surprised by a large surge of police, army, and Border Police officers rushing toward me. They didn’t harm me at all; instead, they contacted my family to arrange a way for me to get home safely. There, during the cold winter days, a female soldier asked me, “Aren’t you cold?” She then kindly took my jacket out of my bag and put it on me—even though many Palestinians had lost their lives in that very place.
During my youth, specifically in my early twenties, I was arrested once in Beersheba in southern Israel, as I used to enter Israeli territory stealthily without a permit. I was detained from morning until midnight. A police checkpoint suddenly stopped me, and upon discovering my Palestinian identity, they took me to the police station. They brought me an Arab lawyer, who informed me that tensions were extremely high in the country due to a wave of stabbing attacks carried out by Palestinians. He told me I would be transferred to the central prison and brought before a court in the morning. Nevertheless, about an hour later, individuals who appeared to be intelligence or undercover agents showed up. The police drove me in a vehicle for nearly an hour and dropped me off near a checkpoint in the West Bank, allowing me to return home that night.
Every time I was arrested—whether by the Israeli police, the Palestinian police, the army, or the Border Police—I was treated with complete decency. Even the incidents I experienced involving radical settlers ended peacefully; no Jewish person has ever harmed me in my life, as if there were a prior acquaintance between us. I am not always insane, but before receiving treatment, I used to suffer from short episodes of breakdown where I would cause a commotion and clash with these Jews and the government. Even then, I was met with respect and offered help.
