1 00:00:02,580 --> 00:00:03,889 I am an Arab. 2 00:00:03,889 --> 00:00:05,200 I am a Muslim. 3 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:06,620 And I love my country. 4 00:00:06,620 --> 00:00:10,360 In fact, I’m prepared to die for it. 5 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:12,880 Which is why I serve in its army. 6 00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:14,690 I don’t have to do this. 7 00:00:14,690 --> 00:00:16,280 I want to do this. 8 00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:20,240 Because my country is a special place, unlike any other. 9 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:23,280 Free. Diverse. Vibrant. 10 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:29,780 Yet, other countries—countries not so free, not so diverse—call for my country’s 11 00:00:29,780 --> 00:00:32,460 complete destruction. 12 00:00:32,460 --> 00:00:37,420 The moment my country lets its guard down, it will be destroyed. 13 00:00:37,420 --> 00:00:40,440 My country is Israel. 14 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:46,440 I grew up and still live in a small village named after my family’s Bedouin Arab tribe. 15 00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:49,340 Our roots in this land run deep. 16 00:00:49,340 --> 00:00:55,240 In 1948, when Arab armies invaded the new state of Israel, my family thought of leaving 17 00:00:55,250 --> 00:00:56,519 our village. 18 00:00:56,519 --> 00:00:57,980 Some of them did. 19 00:00:57,980 --> 00:01:02,020 But when the Jews’ leaders heard that, they implored us to remain. 20 00:01:02,020 --> 00:01:06,500 “This is our country, for both Arabs and Jews,” they said. 21 00:01:06,500 --> 00:01:09,580 “Stay, and we will work together to build it.” 22 00:01:09,580 --> 00:01:10,860 My family stayed. 23 00:01:10,860 --> 00:01:17,660 My parents were born here, made their lives here, started their own family here—in Israel. 24 00:01:17,660 --> 00:01:20,660 In 2002, I was a teenager. 25 00:01:20,660 --> 00:01:22,480 It was a violent time. 26 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:27,780 Palestinian suicide bombers were blowing up Israeli civilians—a danger to Arabs 27 00:01:27,780 --> 00:01:29,440 and Jews alike. 28 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:33,920 Israeli troops entered to the West Bank to stop them at their source. 29 00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:37,300 As a result, many Palestinians were killed. 30 00:01:37,300 --> 00:01:38,420 I was torn. 31 00:01:38,420 --> 00:01:42,060 Whose side was I on: Israel’s or the Palestinians’? 32 00:01:42,060 --> 00:01:45,300 Is it possible to be an Arab and an Israeli? 33 00:01:45,300 --> 00:01:49,860 The question became even more difficult when I saw men from my own village wearing the 34 00:01:49,860 --> 00:01:52,300 uniform of the Israeli army. 35 00:01:52,300 --> 00:01:55,240 Only Jews are required to serve in the military. 36 00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:59,979 No one forced these Arab men to join; they chose to. 37 00:01:59,980 --> 00:02:02,100 “Why?” I asked them. 38 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:04,880 “Our home is here, in Israel,” they said. 39 00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:06,620 “Our home is under attack. 40 00:02:06,620 --> 00:02:09,520 Our neighbors in this home are Jews. 41 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:11,220 They are being attacked. 42 00:02:11,220 --> 00:02:13,020 We fight together.” 43 00:02:13,020 --> 00:02:15,440 Still, I struggled. 44 00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:17,160 I went to high school in Nazareth. 45 00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:23,260 There, unlike the village where I grew up, most of the Arab students identified as Palestinians 46 00:02:23,260 --> 00:02:26,200 even though they are citizens of Israel. 47 00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:30,440 Some of the students—my friends—hated Israel. 48 00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:32,380 They couldn’t understand me. 49 00:02:32,380 --> 00:02:36,920 “You’re a Palestinian”, they said, “so you must hate Israel.” 50 00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:42,460 When I said that I didn’t, that we had far more freedom and opportunity than Arabs anywhere 51 00:02:42,460 --> 00:02:45,700 in the Middle East, they called me a traitor. 52 00:02:45,700 --> 00:02:52,080 After high school, I went on to study electrical engineering at Technion, a leading Israeli university. 53 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:59,160 During my first semester, heavy rocket fire from Gaza forced Israel to launch a counterattack. 54 00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:03,920 Not long after the war began, I witnessed a group of Arab-Israeli students expressing 55 00:03:03,930 --> 00:03:09,510 their solidarity with Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization that controls Gaza and 56 00:03:09,510 --> 00:03:12,700 is committed to Israel’s violent destruction. 57 00:03:12,700 --> 00:03:19,320 Did these students not understand that those rockets could just as easily be aimed at them? 58 00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:25,700 Hamas didn’t care who they killed as long as they landed inside the borders of Israel. 59 00:03:25,700 --> 00:03:31,740 Had my fellow Arab students forgotten that Israel had left Gaza a few years before? 60 00:03:31,740 --> 00:03:34,740 That there wasn’t a single Israeli living there? 61 00:03:34,740 --> 00:03:39,340 That day, I dropped out of school to join the Israeli army, the IDF. 62 00:03:39,340 --> 00:03:43,040 A few months later, I was a soldier in the Israeli Air Force. 63 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:48,620 After months of training, I was assigned to the Search & Rescue Helicopter Unit. 64 00:03:48,620 --> 00:03:50,840 Our job was to save lives. 65 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:56,020 We never concerned ourselves with the identity of the people who needed our help. 66 00:03:56,020 --> 00:04:00,900 We rescued Syrian civilians wounded in their country’s civil war, Palestinian children 67 00:04:00,900 --> 00:04:06,260 from Gaza requiring urgent medical care, and countless Israelis of every religious 68 00:04:06,260 --> 00:04:08,180 and ethnic background. 69 00:04:08,180 --> 00:04:14,740 A life—whether it is Muslim or Jewish, Palestinian or Israeli—is a life. 70 00:04:14,740 --> 00:04:19,000 On a base of 6,000 soldiers, I was the only Bedouin. 71 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:20,909 But it didn’t matter. 72 00:04:20,909 --> 00:04:25,930 The only thing that mattered was keeping Israel—our home—safe. 73 00:04:25,930 --> 00:04:31,080 We came from all parts of the country and from many parts of the world. 74 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:33,860 We were every shade of skin color. 75 00:04:33,860 --> 00:04:36,980 Our shared goal created a deep bond. 76 00:04:36,980 --> 00:04:40,320 Today, I am a student at Haifa University. 77 00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:42,640 Half of the students are Arab. 78 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:49,260 More than once, I have seen the Palestinian flag being waved at a rally or protest on campus. 79 00:04:49,260 --> 00:04:56,540 In Israel, you can do this because, whether you are a Jew or an Arab, you are free. 80 00:04:56,540 --> 00:04:59,080 What more do you need to know? 81 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:02,640 I am Mohammad Kabiya for Prager University.