Not an Interview and Necessary Omissions: Mohammed’s Take on a Toxic Term
Evening news. Hilltop Youth become adults. Other settlers. Terrorists in Palestinian villagers defend themselves. Then labeled terrorists?
Throwback to WhatsApp exchange with Mohammed.
Palestinians never had the right to defend themselves – Mohammed’s response when asked if he thought Israel and Palestine should have armies to defend themselves from other threats upon reaching a two-state solution.
Next news item: Haredim despicably call IDF soldiers Nazis. For Haredim shown, serving in the IDF, abandoning Torah studies – something Nazis would impose upon Jews.
Last week, Mohammed shared a reel labeling IDF soldiers “Nazis” as they disrupted life in Jenin, West Bank. Asking him about that spurred lengthy discussion.
We met three years ago. Separated by 35 years in age, our professional relationship became a friendship. First meeting in person in Beit Jala, Palestine (West Bank) in September 2023, before and after which we met by Zoom until our June 2024 team meeting in Cyprus.
Now in the US for two years, studying, working, Mohammed, a registered nurse, unable to return home, following online political activity. Fearful of the Palestinian Authority and Israeli security forces alike, advocating for peaceful resolution to the conflict.
News distraction, MK Yoav Segalovitz (Yesh Atid) about to join Ram, Mansour Abbas’s party. The bold move, potential implications for the next government, it’s about eliminating crime in Arab society in Israel. Segalovitz promoted that in the short-lived government preceding the current one. Aligns with my conviction: shared society for Jewish and Palestinian citizens is imperative. For relations with a future Palestinian government too.
July 28, I texted Mohammed about the reel. “Nazis” written across IDF soldiers. Not a disservice to jointly promoting peaceful conflict resolution?
“I deeply appreciate the respect, care, and openness with which you reach out to me. Conversations like these are never easy, but because of our shared commitment to a different future, I want to answer you directly and honestly.”
He wants Israeli friends to understand how Palestinians feel: When Palestinians use the term Nazi, it’s not some calculated historical debate to diminish the horror of the Holocaust. It comes from raw, overwhelming pain and rage.
“Watching soldiers and settlers do whatever they want destroying lives, homes, and basic human dignity in places like Jenin, makes cruelty feel complete. I saw this firsthand when IDF forces went into a hospital, killing a quadriplegic man in bed, completely helpless, who never hurt a soul, but they killed him, and two others, because his brother was in the room. In a hospital.”
Imagining why Israel legitimated targeting the brother. But the others?
Mohammed’s point of view: IDF behavior hurts more because Nazis tried to hide their actions. IDF soldiers record their violence, posting them with pride. “When you live under that kind of terror, you reach for the strongest word possible to describe absolute evil.”
Nukhba posts on October 7, subsequently removed, not discussed. Nazi documentation practices left undisputed, while texting.
He acknowledges Nazi references hit deep trauma for Israelis, for Jews, perhaps inducing shutdown, defensiveness, rather than enabling empathy for Palestinians.
He shared the reel in desperation, because “the world keeps looking away.” He needs people, Israeli friends included, to open their eyes to the reality Palestinians live every single day. These were his feelings in the past, at home, he notes, but he couldn’t share them, fearing IDF threats to his life.
My unmitigated shame at Israeli actions. Conflicted. Civic duty. IDF service to defend Israel. Duty to refuse illegal orders, when given. Confronting moral codes at odds with legality?
Genocide? Asking myself. Again.
Label accuracy debate, an escape.
Sheer numbers. Consequences of justified attacks? Or every Gazan a terrorist, by some Israeli viewpoints? Another child. Purposeless death.
But, pressing my point, “For Palestinians and Israeli Jews to create a different future, shouldn’t both sides sometimes avoid things, like calling IDF soldiers Nazis, to encourage others to buy into conflict resolution, rather than incite with toxic symbols.”
Expecting “balanced terminology” he explains, feels unjust to Palestinians, even within peace spaces. He lost his brother, two cousins, three close friends to this conflict, making “fundamental asymmetry,” personal. No one held accountable.
Former IDF soldiers accepted in the peace camp – leaders, spokespersons, still declared “proud Zionists.”
Zionism, for him, the military structure that displaced his family, created millions of refugees, killed thousands.
Not my moment to defend Zionist ideology. (But a Jewish homeland?)
Israelis won’t accept former Palestinian militants, much less Hamas members, as advocates for peace, making it “inherently unfair,” he says, “to ask Palestinians to endure ‘reformed’ IDF warriors while policing our language.”
“Trying to make reality on the ground palatable hasn’t stopped shifts toward extremism; it only dilutes the truth.
“When you lose your family, your people, your future, your basic humanity every single day, asking us to use soft, polite language is asking us to minimize our own destruction. We cannot use gentle language while genocide and total oppression happen in broad daylight.”
Shouldn’t peace-seeking Palestinians criticize, demand more from their leaders? Understood, Gazans fear Hamas. Still, Israelis largely feel Palestinians shirk responsibility for their part in the conflict. Do Palestinians feel betrayed that the Arab world never truly supported their cause?
Mohammed: This needs a paper from me.
For such easy questions?
Responsibility. His rhetorical response, “Does one living in a concentration camp under military occupation have to answer to the same questions as a German peace activist? If the Palestinian peace activist lives in the Warsaw Ghetto, does the Israeli peace activist living outside the Ghetto have the right to question why he didn’t condemn and attack Jewish leaders in Europe?
“Not the same,” he says, “but I chose this example to show you how it feels.”
Palestinians aren’t blind to their leaders’ failures or naive about the Arab world. They are “trapped under occupation where those failures do not change our daily survival.”
Repression: “Palestinian political life has been intentionally crushed. The PA violently arrests Palestinian activists who criticize them; Hamas represses political opponents in Gaza; Israel routinely arrests civic leaders, student organizers, and peaceful advocates under administrative detention. Demanding a new approach from inside a cage doesn’t remove the cage.”
Criticism? Palestinians constantly criticize their political leadership.
“Military occupation is not just a political disagreement or a bad policy. It’s all-encompassing daily control over our land, water, movement, and lives. When a wall is built around your town, when homes are demolished, or when soldiers enter a hospital, it’s not committed by Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas, but by the Israeli military. Criticizing our corrupt leaders doesn’t lift a military blockade or stop a bulldozer from destroying my house fence and parking garage.”
Palestinian leaders’ accountability for rejecting Israeli concessions?
He assures me no Palestinian leader ever rejected a peace offer. No Palestinian leader will accept less than a peace plan releasing all Palestinian prisoners, allowing refugees to return to their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, West Bank, including Jerusalem, and Gaza. Though now, ending occupation and survival are the priority.
He’s a refugee, with the right to return to Jaffa. He holds a UN refugee card and will, until he returns, like millions of Palestinians.
Me, stuck at compromise. He concedes, “People must compromise to live under a government other than a Palestinian government.
He claims the same ideology as Einstein, explaining, “Einstein had a Jewish homeland in Palestine without a Jewish state.” The name doesn’t matter, just living freely with dignity, without religious racism and supremacy.
Wars propagate wars. Bibi opposed Oslo. As PM for almost 20 years, Netanyahu accuses Palestinians of refusing peace?
Me: Didn’t Barak and Olmert make offers that were refused?
“That’s what you think. We think all Prime Ministers of Israel are militants. Militants never offer peaceful solutions.”
Reserving thoughts: Begin, Rabin? Are we exclusively addressing agreements from Bibi onwards?
What unsaid thoughts cross his mind as we text?
“Israelis don’t want peace. They’re building settlements. Barak’s and Olmert’s peace offers are well known, like the reasons for rejecting them.”
Building trust – the unmentioned piece.
Mohammed asks me to imagine him prime minister of Palestine, suggesting Jews from Arab countries return to them, Jews from Europe return to Europe, and only Palestinian Jews stay. When Jews refuse, public statements indicate Israeli peace rejection?
Overlooking holes in the analogy to keep texting pace.
Diplomatic conflict resolution, Mohammed summarizes, is a process of healing. “No one in Gaza and West Bank wants peace or any political solution. They want safety, food and health. Other things are a luxury.”
The emerging road map in Gaza. News?
Harriet Gimpel, August 1, 2026
